JP/EN

Encyclopedia of niime

Online outbound team discussion: Wa and Toru

〈 part 2 〉

2022 . 06 . 30

〈 continued from the first half 〉


—— It’s a little late for that now, though,what do you do at present?


Motooka
Besides working online, I design paper items and shawl patterns.


—— You have been designing printed-shawls for a long time, right?


Motooka
Yes, I’ve been doing this since I joined the company. Right now, during this season, I am doing ‘dye plays’.


—— Wow, you also create for dyes!


Motooka
Yes, I do. (laugh) I just told them I wanted to do a little, but from last year, I got involved, and have been doing a lot this year, even jaguar designs.


—— Extending to try various things…


Motooka
And recently, I announced a ‘declaration of resignation’. Even though I am still doing half of the jobs for ‘B to C’ (for regular customers) to take care of the online business, I will quit.


Kubo
That ‘headline’ is final, right?


Motooka
Yeah? (laugh)


—— So, will younger staff take over?


Motooka
Yes, I want them to take over.


—— How many staff do you have on the Wa team?


Motooka
Right now, we have three regular workers and two part-time workers.


—— What are the tasks of the Wa team?


Motooka
Currently, our main jobs are online, which I was originally doing alone. I am thinking of handing over ‘B to C’ jobs to someone else.


—— I see. So you are in the process of handing that over.


Motooka
Yes.


Kubo
Since we have more young staff members, I want to change the conditions that only one person can do specific jobs and adequately share the tasks with them.


Motooka
Yeah, I want everyone to be able to handle the workload.


—— In the case of the manufacturing team, as Mr Fujimoto mentioned about the weaving team as an example, I heard discussing the process of taking over the job. So, it’s time to do the same thing with online works, correct?


Motooka
I think so. Since we got new people, it’s healthy to create a system where everyone can handle the work. I want to reduce workload as much as possible, that only specific staff can manage.


—— You may have some tasks that depend on someone’s abilities, but you want to make the system share the work in organizing a company.


Motooka
As for our work, what we are going to do now, the three of us, we want to focus more on making our brand. Of course, we work at creating products, but we want to work for the whole brand overall.


—— You told me that you want the 30-year-old staff members to take a leading role.


Motooka
That’s right. We are in charge of branding.


—— Your works would be an extension of the ‘Aligning of the Earth distortions’, and each team’s works along the visions of ‘niime village creation’, right?


Motooka
In addition, we came to the point where we want to consider it as a company over the individual teams, even though we discussed it as a team so far.


—— So, each team’s leader will get together and have regular meetings?


Motooka
Yes, we have just started that.


Hashimoto
Yes, we just did it recently.


—— What do you think about your work now, Mr Hashimoto?


Hashimoto
I belonged to the Toru team, which taking pictures of one-item products, and now I have entirely handed that over to a part-time worker.


—— I see.


Hashimoto
Now, my main job is video shooting with Mr Kubo.


—— Are you working together?


Hashimoto
Yes, we are. And since I am originally on the Wa team and mainly been making the product page for the Online Shop, so it needs to be handed over to younger staff members.


—— Is that the page for introducing products?


Motooka
It’s the page for sales. People can buy products there.


Hashimoto
Putting recommended coordination, sizes, and words of recommendation.


Motooka
We measure clothes sizes.


Hashimoto
It is a very detailed job.


—— Mr Hashimoto, you know very well about dressmaking, listening to the conversations with the sewing team about new products on LINE.


Hashimoto
Basically, I know how to sew. That’s why it’s easier to discuss it.


—— I am amazed at your conversations with Ms Kawabata.


Hashimoto
I’m just speaking in the flow. I can’t talk if there are prepared scripts. I like to say whatever I feel at the moment.


—— I see. You can make clothes. So I think your knowledge of dressmaking is your strength.


Hashimoto
I think so. I am glad if it’s my strength.


Motooka
What’s that? (laugh)


—— He’s being humble. (laugh)


Hashimoto
Originally, I like to make something so that I may change in that direction.


—— That’s what all of you work with various things. You want to try all of the other tasks, right?


Hashimoto
Yes, I want to try all of the exciting works. First of all, I just want to do fun things.


Motooka
That’s what I want, too.


Hashimoto
That’s why I started shooting video even though I had no experience. I tried, and it was fun.


—— Oh, you have never tried shooting videos before?


Hashimoto
No, I didn’t have any experience at all. I was taught from zero.


—— Even Mr Kubo, you didn’t have much experience, right?


Kubo
When I joined this company, I started taking videos seriously.


—— It’s incredible what you can do. Not only did you take videos, but you also created the video presentation that won the ‘Good Design Award’.


Kubo
This company allowed me to do what I wanted to do…so I asked them to buy the video equipment so that I could get started.


Motooka
(laugh)


Kubo
The expression with videos and ‘tamaki niime’ brand are well matched.


Hashimoto
Yeah, yeah.


—— I think so. Online delivery updates daily, and we can obviously see the results of such efforts. Even though they do it every day, they enjoy explaining about a day within ‘tamaki niime’, not feeling obligated as a routine task, which I think is excellent. Mr Kubo, do you consider your main job is taking videos now?


Kubo
(looking at Hashimoto) I’ve been doing several jobs. I make pages for online shopping and work for the system behind the scenes.


Hashimoto
He looks like being a ‘cutting workman’ for the last few years, who cuts and pastes cutting sheets.


Kubo
He pulled out the texts of previous interviews of the boss and Mr Sakai and designed them to make them look like patterns, or he pasted the sheet of all the letters on the body of Toyota HiAce.


—— Oh, Mr Kubo, you did that. (laugh)


Kubo
Yeah, I did that.


Hashimoto
Other than that, he painted the logo of ‘tamaki niime’ on the outside wall of Shima.


Kubo
‘Taking pictures, pasting and painting.’


〈 everyone all laughs 〉


—— That’s a three-way tie. (laugh) Seeing graphic designs of paper fliers by Ms Motooka, printed materials, or lines of illustrations, I feel the graphic designs of ‘tamaki niime’ express their brand well. Did you go through a lot of trial and error?


Motooka
I have a similar taste about what ‘tamaki niime’ expressed. Some of their art expressions are adapted to mine, but I am not forced to adjust. They express naturally, but some parts are represented aggressively, which may be closer to what I want for the brand. The people outside would have our visual image as natural or more comparable to natural feeling, but we have a more aggressive one. I recognize it and design with such knowledge.


—— I see. Can you handle making that balance automatically?


Motooka
Showing aggressive parts, we consider the customers who receive them. So we try to make comfortably expressed products and easy to understand. Of course, we could make more aggressive ones if they want. (laugh) But we try to make balance.


—— I expect to see aggressive designs. (laugh) Well, thank you so much. Finally, as I asked you two years ago, what are your hopes and desires going forward? You told me that you want to try many things at this company, or they give you the chance to do so.


Motooka
Yeah.


—— When the company works in new ways or directions, you may find it more interesting to do that work, which is different from what you have been doing.


Motooka
Since the company allows me to challenge many things, if there are things I want to try, I want to do them without complaining or without selecting a genre.


—— Not choosing a genre.


Motooka
If I like that, I think I would make it fun. I want to challenge tasks that are not my profession.


One of ‘tamaki niime’s policies is that they don’t ask for professional skills when they hire, even though they highly appreciate skilled craftsmanship. Instead, they would rather have staff who have new ideas, not with fixed methodology, and have a flexible attitude to enjoy creation.


—— Enjoying manufacturing every day, you have been increasing the capacity of your abilities. I think you are great to be improving yourselves. What do you think, Mr Hashimoto?


Hashimoto
I am in my 30s and work as a central force in the company. I am going to be 36 this year. Our direction is reflected in young staff who watch such middle-aged older staff cackling at ‘tamaki niime’.


Motooka
(laugh) They want to be like us?


Hashimoto
That’s right. They think it would be great to work while laughing. Or they may think they don’t want to be like us. (laugh)


Motooka
You may be right. (laugh)


Kubo
They may think the latter. (laugh)


—— (laugh)


Hashimoto
What it means is ‘every day you enjoy all,’ right? No matter how old we are, I want to show them how much fun we are having.


Kubo
We want to make them think, ‘wow, older guys look like teenagers’.


Hashimoto
Yeah, yeah.


Kubo
We want to show off so much energy that they may cringe.


—— I liked the ‘Exhibition Shima’ display at the opening; they showed different videos on four screens in the building showing ‘tamaki niime’s daily life. When I interviewed you, there was an idea that you want to have such exhibitions at different places.


Hashimoto
Yeah.


—— That’s a new field. I thought you were challenging every day, feeling like a new frontier.


Hashimoto
“Let’s do it!” That’s how we felt and did it. We didn’t even tell our boss what we would do.


Kubo
No, we didn’t at all.


Motooka
Because of that, we could clean up the space. (laugh)


Kubo
We could open up a room.


Hashimoto
Just like uploading our videos, the works we did with a little bit of fun made a great result, and those things happened a lot.


—— Oh, I see. Don’t you have many ‘follow-up reports’?


Hashimoto
I have a bunch of them. We had to tell the truth as a fact and were sometimes scolded.


—— You wanted to see how the boss responded after you secretly made it?


Kubo
I have a habit of doing things without asking.


—— Basically, Ms Tamaki loves to make people surprised or amused. Conversely, did you want to surprise her?


Kubo
Yeah, that would be the reason.


Hashimoto
I think that’s it. We want to be praised by the boss and Mr Sakai.


Kubo
I want them to say, “it’s so interesting “.


Hashimoto
I wish for that.


Kubo
I would be so happy. ‘Hooray!’ If the boss yelled at me for being an idiot.


Motooka
(laugh)


—— It’s perfect if they say we are ‘crazy’.


Hashimoto
What we recently painted was the outside wall of ‘Shima’. We were so stupid.


—— You painted at midnight.


Hashimoto
It was freezing. We were warned not to get injured.


—— It was like, ‘Now or Never!’


Kubo
We were worried if we could finish.


Hashimoto
My brother helped us out, too. Because we didn’t have enough people to do it, we also asked the staff on their day off to come to help us.


—— You like adventures, right?


Kubo
We tend to accept accidental events positively, which may be more like our company’s characteristics.


—— When something happens, we don’t mean to use strength as a springboard but rather enjoy ourselves.


Hashimoto
The Toru team was born from the Wa team, and we organized various things. We are making up a system so that older staff can work with younger staff.


Motooka
We stabilized the system to be able to take over the work.


Kubo
It’s working now. We are on the right track.


Motooka
The way of our know-how is established.


—— So you can do more crazy things, right?


Hashimoto
That’s right.


Motooka
We get bored of doing typical jobs. (laugh)


Hashimoto
Three of us went out drinking the other day and talked about what we will name this team of 30-year-olds. How about the ‘Sumu’ team?


—— It means housing?


Motooka
In the necessity of clothing, food and living, we have clothing at our shop basically, food is at the ‘tabe room’ and fields, and we agreed to name us ‘housing’ which is what we want to work on.


Hashimoto
We talked about starting it up by ourselves.


—— That would be good. ‘Starting earlier is the winner.’ It is the team that aims for new frontiers.


Hashimoto
It’s totally out of my area…


Motooka
We may make furniture in six months.


Hashimoto
Or renovate old housing.


Motooka
I may put up wallpaper. (laugh)


—— Which reminds me of your developing wallpaper using fabrics…well, we could continue to talk about this, but I think it’s time to wrap up. As I am also a creator, it was so much fun listening to you. Thank you very much.


Motooka
Mr Kubo, did you tell us about your desires and hopes?


Kubo
I thought it would be over, but it looks like I can’t avoid it. (laugh)


—— It’s impressive, Ms Motooka! (laugh) Please tell us in one word.


Hashimoto
He would give us a long talk.


—— It would be a long endless talk?


Kubo
Making people see us as a manufacturing company, I want to create things.


—— Creating things!


Kubo
We want to make a bridge to connect customers and our company and let people enjoy creating things which I really want to focus on.


—— Now at the end, a critical phrase popped up. I really want to hear it.


Kubo
In the future, our company will develop to explain more ‘life style’ and ‘living’ just like ‘niime village’. I hope to deliver information in real-time about what it’s going to be. Through media, I hope to tell customers that they can be a closer cooperative community. Thinking about our brand’s way would probably be thinking about ‘niime village’.


—— I see.


Kubo
One by one, we must take steady steps, but it’s ideal for explaining with great care. Thankfully, I heard people enjoying it.


—— You mean you receive responses from people who enjoy your video messages?


Kubo
Yes. We respond to their expectations but betray them in a good way.



In the interview two years ago, he commented that he didn’t know which way he should focus on expressing the brand.

Seeing the daily delivery of LINE messages of ‘tamaki niime’ at present, I feel comfortable seeing their various content, such as their manufacturing workplace, the shop, sheep playing in the niime garden, rice planting, and information about ‘idobatamaki’.

Gathering various works of the brand under their vision of ‘niime village creation’, I think that the three of them have developed their abilities by playing on their own, understanding the essence of the brand intensely over the last two years.

Withdrawing the potential of the ‘tamaki niime’ brand, each of them flexibly enjoys creations from the bottom of their hearts. Through this interview, I felt a keen and mischievous desire to play that the three of them show in their examples to young staff.

Original Japanese text by Seiji Koshikawa.
English translation by Adam & Michiko Whipple.