Hello! I’m @mikawa, in charge of outreach for Mercari R4D.
My team aims to create understanding and support for the future that Mercari envisions 3–10 years from now by communicating R4D’s research and social implementation initiatives to stakeholders.
As part of that, we set up spaces at Mercari’s Family Day, held on August 9th, for attendees to meet R4D’s researchers and experience our research activities.
What is Family Day?
Family Day is an event held to convey Mercari’s gratitude to all of the friends and family that support our employees and enable them to give their all in their work. The previous Family Day, held in 2019, had around 800 attendees, but this year we had around 1,200 people visit our Tokyo office! On the day of the event, we prepared content for children and adults alike to enjoy.
In this blog post, I’ll be focusing on R4D’s contributions, but you can read about the other activities in this Mercan article:
- Related article: A Day Full of Smiles and Discoveries: Mercari’s First Family Day in Five Years! #MercariDays (only available in Japanese)
Experiencing the future with R4D’s interactive activities
R4D prepared 13 activities for children and adults to experience “technology of the near future” based on the research topics that each of our researchers are working on. Read on for descriptions of the research topics and the activities we prepared for Family Day!
①Take Poimo for a test ride!
- Research content: Mercari R4D is researching a new kind of electric-powered mobility solution with an inflatable structure (balloon-like structure that inflates using air pressure). See here for details.
- At Family Day, we prepared a space in the office where attendees could try riding Poimo. It was a huge hit!
②Use ChatGPT to come up with new ideas for Mercari!
- Research content: Mercari R4D is conducting research into service design methods that will enable users to naturally foster and continue to use the service in pursuit of Mercari Group’s goal of creating a circular economy. See here for details.
- At Family Day, we offered a space for attendees to talk with ChatGPT and brainstorm ideas for features and experiences they want to see on the Mercari app.
③Learn about Mercari R4D’s PhD Support Program!
- We launched our PhD Support Program for Mercari employees in 2021. See here for details.
- At Family Day, we offered an introduction to the program and consultations for employees.
④Try to match someone else’s communication style!
- Research content: In this research, our researchers discovered how communication between users was affected by indicating preferred communication style during transactions in the comments of the Mercari marketplace app. See here for details.
- At Family Day, we presented the results of the research into the effects of knowing the other party’s preferred communication style when negotiating prices on Mercari. We also prepared a hands-on demonstration to encourage attendees to think about ideal forms of communication.
⑤Buy things using blockchain!
- Research content: Through Mercari R4D’s research into blockchain, we aim to not only contribute to Mercari Group’s business, but lobby for regulations both in Japan and internationally to create an environment that enables safe and secure usage of blockchain, popularize blockchain technology, and contribute to healthy growth of the industry and Mercari Group. See here for details.
- At Family Day, we prepared a game for both children and adults alike to enjoy learning about blockchain through stamps and puzzles.
⑥How much does reusing an item contribute to increasing its lifespan?
- Research content: This research aims to visualize the amount of greenhouse gas emissions avoided by transactions on Mercari. See here for details.
- At Family Day, we prepared content for attendees to learn about the difference in lifespan between items bought new and items bought secondhand.
⑦Moral-IT Deck
- Research content: Mercari R4D promotes the importance of responsible research and development to contribute to both R4D’s own research and implementation and Mercari Group as a whole. See here for details.
- At Family Day, we prepared an exhibition of the Moral-IT Deck, a tool that uses dialogue to evaluate and consider the various effects that science and technology may have on society.
⑧Think about ELSI in a relatable way!
- Research content: Mercari R4D promotes the importance of responsible research and development to contribute to both R4D’s own research and implementation and Mercari Group as a whole. See here for details.
- On Family Day, we prepared a space for attendees to understand ELSI research by posing questions such as “Which would you rather have, a flying car or the ability to become invisible?” and “What would you want to do with that ability? What do you think would happen as a result?”
⑨Quantum Quest
- Research content: Mercari R4D is researching fundamental quantum technologies that will greatly contribute to humanity, society, and science as we envision the “quantum era,” a future where quantum technology reshapes our societies and businesses. See here for details.
- At Family Day, we offered a card game in which players can become world leaders and develop quantum technology.
⑩Experience a simulation of a world that’s hard to see!
- Research content: In this research, we are developing an interface that supports users in taking pictures so that more people can confidently sell items on an online marketplace.
- At Family Day, we provided content that enabled attendees to experience difficulties faced by people with vision impairment when listing items on Mercari.
⑪Try using AR to help you clean!
- Research content: In this research, we attempt to address hoarding behavior by looking into ways to leverage AR to support people who have difficulties cleaning and throwing things away. We are developing an app that enables users to visualize a cluttered space as a decluttered space. See here for details.
- At Family Day, we provided an opportunity for attendees to try using the app (Declutter AR).
⑫Check out an AI tool for gathering opinions from a group!
- Research content: This is one area of research in Value Exchange Engineering, a collaborative project between Mercari and the University of Tokyo. In this research, we have developed Illumidea, a tool that uses AI to automatically sort through and categorize opinions from multiple people in order to ensure fair discussions. See here for details.
- At Family Day, we presented the Illumidea service to attendees. We also asked attendees to share experiences in which they had difficulties holding discussions and making decisions in large groups.
⑬Experience a futuristic chat that allows you to speak from the heart!
- Research content: This is one area of research in Value Exchange Engineering, a collaborative project between Mercari and the University of Tokyo. Aiming to develop texting technology that allows people to “speak from the heart,” this research is looking at ways to generate text bubbles and fonts to express and present people’s feelings in text form. See here for details.
- At Family Day, attendees were able to experience a prototype of this futuristic chat technology that generates text bubbles and fonts based on the user’s heartbeat and voice.
Here are some pictures from the event!
Conclusion
Through this event, we were able to communicate our research to people of all ages. Here’s some of the feedback we received:
- Learning that reusing clothing practically doubles its lifespan made me want to save money by buying more of my clothing on Mercari and using it for longer. I also felt that Mercari is using its capital well by addressing various social and environmental problems.
- I always thought that Mercari was just a marketplace site, so I was surprised to learn that Mercari is researching ways to effectively use difficult technology like AI.
- Many of the booths explained difficult topics in fun and simple ways that kids can understand. I thought it was really interesting!
- I had a great time exploring the wide range of exhibitions, from interesting research content to booths for children to enjoy. The employees explained everything in a way that was easy to understand, too, so my understanding of Mercari went way up.
The R4D Outreach Team spent months working with researchers to plan these activities in a way that would make our difficult research topics as fun and easy to understand as possible for attendees. There’s always room for improvement, but I’m really happy that everyone had such a good time learning about our research.
The R4D Outreach Team will keep working to plan opportunities for people outside of R4D to interact with our research, so stay tuned for more updates!