"Journey Shift" is on sale now! Interview with the Author - Fujii-san
A new book by Yasufumi Fujii, the author of the “After Digital” series and CCO (Chief Communication Officer) at beBit, “Journey Shift” is on sale at bookstores both in person and online.
In this issue, we asked Fujii-san to tell us how he came to write “Journey Shift” and the behind-the-scenes stories during its production.
- Please tell us briefly about the book
“Journey Shift” is an evolved version of “After Digital” that analyzes upcoming changes through global trends. The previous books in the series showed the before and after of “society,” while “Journey Shift” talks about the before and after of the “value provided by companies.”
By unraveling examples from Southeast Asia where rapid digitalization is progressing, new trends in Web3 and NFT, and other examples from Japan, the book explains how value is established by providing behavioral support to “realize successful experiences.”
-Why did you choose this timing to publish a new book?
It has been 3 years and 9 months since “After Digital” was published, and many new trends have been established along with the changes in what values people and society desire from companies. I wanted to deliver a new concept to address these changes.
In fact, I have been thinking about the concept of “behavioral support” from about a year ago, and had decided that if I were to publish a book again, this would be the topic I would write about next. I even tweeted about it a year ago as well.
I sensed the change in times through cultural movements as well.
For example, the words “萌え(Moe)” and “推し(Oshi).” Looking at how often these 2 words were searched in the past 5 years, we can see “萌え(Moe)” trending downwards while “推し(Oshi)” increased drastically.
Reference: 『推しエコノミー 「仮想一等地」が変えるエンタメの未来』（中山淳雄、日経BP）
“萌え(Moe)” refers to the internal feeling of passively fanning over one’s favorite idols or characters, stating “I like them” or “they’re cute,” whereas “推し(Oshi)” is more than just passively being a fan and includes the nuance of “actively supporting and spreading awareness of the target or providing support through some sort of action.”
In fact, in the K-pop idol fan community, there are many actions that fans take to support their “推し(Oshi)” such as purchasing ads in Times Square NYC and providing translations for live-stream videos to increase viewership.
From this phenomenon, I sensed a shift from an era in which receiving information and content was important, to an era where being able to take action is important.
However, as beBit is a UX solutions provider, I couldn’t just write about culture. When I was thinking about how I can turn this into something shareable, Nakajima-san, our Executive Vice President, told me about Indonesia.
Around spring of this year, Nakajima-san spoke to me after his trip to Indonesia, stating that “Southeast Asia has become more interesting,” and that it was “more of a UX-driven society” than he ever imagined. After visiting the region twice myself, I was convinced that if I could bring this information back to Japan, people would find it valuable, and that if I could talk about the new social trends based on examples from Southeast Asia, I would be able to summarize “behavioral support” from a UX perspective. That was the moment I decided to write this book.
- How would you like to see “Journey Shift” being utilized by employees at beBit who deal with UX on a daily basis?
I believe that chapter three, which speaks about “convenience” and “meaningfulness,” is an important perspective for designing experiences in the future. I hope that they will understand this topic and refer to it in the future.
I’d like for you to read the book for details, but “meaningfulness” and “convenience” can create something that provides no value when they are interpreted together.
For example “luxury car sharing” has no successful examples throughout the world. Luxury cars are meaningful when you own one and they are a special existence to you as your own car.
Even if there was a car sharing service that allowed people to drive luxury cars such as Mercedes Benzs, Lamborghinis, and Teslas at various locations, people who would envy this service would not be the prime targets for luxury cars in the first place. On the other hand, the real target is looking for a more personal experience, so they would not be a fit for this service.
Car sharing is a “convenience” experience while luxury cars are a “meaningful” experience, so they are closed experiences that do not align with one another.
With this perspective, you will be able to understand the aim of things that are happening in the world and see the miniscule details behind services, which will be useful for everyone at beBit when designing experiences.
- How did the title “Journey Shift” come to be?
First, I came up with ideas with Nakajima-san and Ota-san, the deputy manager of the MCO (Market Creation Office). The two of them were very fond of “After Journey,” but I was against it as I felt that people may start calling me “After Fujii” or “After-san” (haha).
I personally wanted to express the “change” in times so I had the idea of calling it “Journey Paradigm” from paradigm shifts. However, I felt “paradigm” was difficult to convey, so I finally settled on “Journey Shift.”
We wrote more about the title in the “After Digital Inspiration Letter Vol .37”※ so if you are interested, please check it out.
※Past After Digital Inspiration Letters can be found on our internal PR portal site.
- The cover changed from past designs that included very vivid color schemes to a monotone design. What was your intention?
For the cover design, I was particular about being unique and completely different from previous works and chose from a variety of prototypes created by Matsugami-san and Maeda-san.
Originally, we had considered the idea of continuing the design of After Digital, but we decided not to include After Digital in the book title and to take this opportunity to completely change the design since we were fully committed to the new concept of “Journey Shift.”
As a person who likes unique and unusual designs, I wanted to avoid ordinary designs, and in addition, since I talk about “convenience” and “meaningfulness” in my book, I wanted to express this in the design.
After many prototypes, we decided on the current cover design, in which the title in the upper right corner of the front cover is designed for “convenience” that anyone can easily understand, while the alphabet on the left side expresses “meaningfulness” by using a different font design for each letter, as if each letter has a personality of its own.
The result is a unique cover that I am very fond of.
- Finally, a message to beBit employees
Thanks to everyone at beBit supporting us, we are able to create new UX knowledge, examples, and methodologies. Thank you!
I am confident that everyone who is serious about UX will find “Journey Shift” interesting, so I hope that all of our employees take the time to read it.
After reading the book, please don’t hesitate to ask me any questions or leave any feedback, impressions, opinions, or anything that comes from it. I would love to absorb everyone’s perspectives and insights and link them to my future activities, so let’s discuss together!
I would also be very grateful if the clients we support would read this book as well as it will allow for everyone to align their views on good UX and join our journey together.
