| Archives of New Information of "TRIZ Home Page in Japan" (2015, 2016, 2017) |
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 New Information Posted in 2017 |
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| New Information Posted in 2016 |
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| New Information Posted in 2015 |
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Brief introduction to all the new information posted in 2015-2016, listed in the historical order, latest at the top. This page is formed: Dec. 13, 2018 |
buttons guide you to the pages written in Japanese.For the items posted in other years, please use the table of links shown below:
Posted in 2017
WTSP Project: Index Page of World TRIZ Sites Project (WTSP) is Open for Up-to-date Basic Information and Activitiy News (Toru Nakagawa) 
(Dec. 27,, 2017)
Index Page of WTSP Project is open in this Web site for posting (A) basic WTSP information (keeping up-to-date) and (B) up-to-date announcements of activities, invitations, outputs, etc. Following 7 pages are posted with detailed information in English. We wish your support and collaboration, Together ! Connected !!
(A1) Policies
, Goals of Outputs
(A2) Organization
(A3) Platform (for working as voluntary members)
(A4) Guidelines
(A5) Accesses to the Project outputs by people outside the Project
(A6) Publicized outputs
TRIZ Forum: Letters from Readers （Nov. - Dec., 2017）/ Initializing 'World TRIZ Sites Project' (Dec. 17, 2017) Index page of "Letters from Readers"
[English page
This page ’Letters from Readers' is for recording various communications between readers in the world and the Editor. However, the present page covering Nov.- Dec. 2017 is very unique and devoted for the records of communications mostly issued by Toru Nakagawa for proposing 'World TRIZ Sites Project' and responses to them by many TRIZ Leaders in the world. The Proposals and Invitations of the Project are posted here on Dec. 9, 2017, as an ordinary document so to speak. In the present page, on the other hand, you can see why and how Nakagawa wanted and initiated the Project and how so many people in various countries responded positively to support and join the Project. Such a consensus of necessity of 'World TRIZ Sites Project' certainly becomes our motivation to 'Build a (big) page of TRIZ Sites in the World' and further for us, TRIZ community in the world, to work Together! Connected !
Paper: TRIZ in China: TRIZ，The Development And Dissemination In Industries In China (Nov. 5, 2017)
Runhua Tan (National Engineering Research Center for Technological Innovation Method and Tool, Hebei University of Technology, Tianjin, China). Presented at TRIZCON2017 held by Altshuller Institute on Oct. 4-5, 2017 at Atlantic City, NJ, USA ; Japanese translation by Toru Nakagawa (OGU)
Early October, two international TRIZ conferences were held at the same time; they are ETRIA TRIZ Future Conference (TFC2017) in Lappeenranta, Finland and Altshuller Institute for TRIZ Studies Annual Conference (TRIZCON2017) in Atlantic City, NJ, USA. Among many presentations, I am much interested in the paper given by a TRIZ research center in China at the both conferences. On my request, Professor Tan sent me his TRIZCON paper and presentation slides. Thanks to the Author's and Altshuller Institute's permissions, I am very happy to post this paper in "TRIZ Home Page in Japan" both in English and in Japanese translation.
Research and dissemination of TRIZ in China have been developed recently in a surprising speed and extent, we learn, in comparison to the former two reviews: by Zhao Xinjun (Northeastern Univ.) in Nov. 2004
The Center has developed 'an integrated system of methodologies for innovation on the basis of TRIZ', in the name of C-TRIZ (Chinese version of extended TRIZ). This paper introduces its overview.
They have been actively disseminating C-TRIZ into industries by using MEOTM (Mass-Engineer Oriented Training Model). The trainings last for half a year or full year (mostly using weekends) with lessons and real practices. One or multiple companies are selected first, and then the participating engineers are selected for organizing a training class. Every engineer has to bring in 'inventive problem' related to his/her own job or company, and during the training course he/she has to define the problem clearly, solve the problem, and present the results at open oral defence in order to be certified as an 'innovative engineer'. From 2013 till 2016, the center carried out 40 training classes, covering 721 companies, with 3173 participating engineers in total, and produced 1471 certified engineers, they report.
TRIZ Forum: Letters from Readers （Aug. - Oct., 2017） (Nov. 5; Nov. 12, 2017) Index page of "Letters from Readers"
[English page
I received with thanks these short but warm and encouraging communications. Mr. Kang handed me a message card in Finland appreciating my activities as a model for himself; I was very much surprised and feel honored.
On a request from Prof. A. Seryi, communications between N. Takayama and Nakagawa are posted in English translation. And a short note is inserted for introducing Prof. Eiichi Yamaguchi's work on Innovation diagram. (Nov. 12, 2017)[Japanese page
From 4 people (Mizutani, Ikezoe, Haginoya, and Hino) I received comments and questions on my articles about 'Liberty vs. Love' contradiction and Ethics, and I replied them one by one for clarifying various points of discussions. Katahira announces a new version of his Fuda-Yose tool for visualization, and Hino asks me a question about the TRIZ' view of AI. Otani introduces me about the activities of 'Japan Society of Early Stage Dementia'. Takayama discusses about idea generation in physics, in relation to A. Seryi's Keynote.
On the 19th Anniversary of "TRIZ Home Page in Japan": Toru Nakagawa (Nov. 5, 2017)
This Web site "TRIZ Home in Japan" celebrates its 19th Anniversary on Nov. 1. I am very grateful to you all, including authors, translators, and readers in Japan and around the world, for your continuing support. This site serves as an open forum of information exchange for better understanding and usage of Creative Problem Solving Methodologies. Initially, I intended to introduce TRIZ, a Russian-based methodology for mostly technological areas, but year after year the scope of this site became wider and deeper along with the development of such methodologies. TRIZ itself has evolved to wider application including business and marketing, and has been spreading widely in the world. My own research has extended to USIT as an easy-to-learn TRIZ, the Six-Box Scheme as a new paradigm of creative problem solving, and CrePS (General Methodology of Creative Problem Solving) which intends to integrate and unify various methods by using the Six-Box Scheme. Since 2015, I have been trying to apply them to social problems, especially for revealing the fundamental contradictions in Human Culture and investigating the relationships of Liberty-Love-Ethics. Thus the scope and contents of this site have been slightly changing as a result of natural evolution.
This site is meant to openly publish information and communications on a not-for-profit basis. Though I have been operating this site as a volunteer, this site is not a personal site but a public forum to be composed of the contributions by readers, as you see already. Most pages are published in Japanese and in English in parallel for the purpose of mutual understanding and collaboration between Japanese and overseas people. I envisage that Pubic Web Sites built in different countries/communities will form A Global (TRIZ) Community with much reduced language barriers
Keynote: TRIZ for Science: Evolution of Scientific Instruments & Methodology of Innovativeness in Applications to Science (Oct. 17, 2017)
Andrei A. Seryi (Director, John Adams Institute for Accelerator Science, University of Oxford, UK), Keynote Lecture presented at ETRIA TRIZ Future Conference (TFC 2017), on Oct. 5, 2017 at Lappeenranta, Finland; Introduction and Japanese translation by Toru Nakagawa (OGU)
This impressive Keynote Lecture was given by Professor Andrei Seryi at ETRIA TFC2017 two weeks ago. Under his kind permission, I am posting his presentation slides (110 pages in PDF
) here in HTML with (new) section headers and GIF images for easier overall understanding. In the Japanese page
(Note: ETRIA is working for publishing the TFC2017 papers in a book/journal from some publisher, thus stopping the authors to post their papers/slides at any Web site. Keynote lectures, however, are not included in the publication plan and hence are allowed for posting at a Web site by the author's decision.)Professor Andrei Seryi
graduated Novosibirsk State University (NSU) Physics Department in 1986 and worked in Russia, France, USA (Fermi lab and Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (1999-2010)) in the fields of high-energy physics, and since 2010 he is Director of John Adams Institute for Accelerator Science
The present Keynote contains detailed figures of scientific instruments for cutting-edge physics, and you may feel difficult to understand the background physics, so do I. However, the author shows the essential points of discussion clearly and plainly for people having interest in science in general. E.g., be careful (and needs methodology) in the prediction of future, evaluate different research directions not only for fundamental knowledge but also for usefulness and the costs.
Author's insights of using TRIZ are deep. In explaining Inventive Principle 35 'Parameter change', he demonstrates (in place of simple parameters volume V and surface area S) the ratio V/S inspires us much more while changing the parameter value. He also mentions that Cloud chamber and Bubble chamber, both for detecting high-energy particles, are an example of TRIZ concept of 'System and Anti-system' and that if scientists were familiar with the concept, Bubble chamber could have been invented much earlier. 'Transition to super-system' is also an important TRIZ concept in understanding the evolution of systems. New methods/tools are implemented as a system by assembling many components, and then they become useful only when working as a part of larger systems (i.e., super-system) for social, business, technical, etc. purposes."TRIZ can be very useful for science, as an inspiration, as a very efficient toolbox, as a way to connect different disciplines, as a new way to see the world" -- This is the conclusion by Professor Seryi. It is a testimonial by a leading scientist who has achieved a lot in physics and mastered TRIZ. We wish TRIZ be understood widely and used in practice in the field of science, by many researchers and engineers.
--- TRIZ can support science well in the aspect 'scientific revolutions are tool-driven', as shown in this keynote. TRIZ can support science also in the aspect 'scientific revolutions are concept-driven'? -- This is an open question. Please refer a discussion page
TRIZ/CrePS Paper (Social problem): 'Liberty vs. Love': The Principal Contradiction of Human Culture (2) The 'Liberty vs. Love' Contradiction and 'Ethics' at the Personal Level (Sept. 28, 2017)
Toru Nakagawa (Osaka Gakuin University, Professor Emeritus and CrePS Institute, Director); Presented at three conferences:
(A) Japan Creativity Society, Annual Research Conference, Sept. 9-10, 2017, at Keio University (Yokohama);
(B) Japan TRIZ Society, Japan TRIZ Symposium 2017, Sept. 21-22, 2017 at Nakano Sun-Plaza (Tokyo);
(C) European TRIZ Association (ETRIA), TRIZ Future Conference (TFC) 2017, Oct. 4-6, 2017 at Lappeenranta (Finland)Recently I made presentations at three TRIZ related conferences. The presentations have the same title and similar contents, but are adjusted to their different audiences, different requests of documents and submission dates. I have been working on this social issue for these 2 years. This is the 2nd report of my applying the TRIZ/CrePS methodology to social problems. In my last paper (2016), I recognized that the two Principal Principles of Human Culture, i.e., the First Principle 'Liberty' and the Second Principle 'Love', contain basic contradictions and the 'Liberty vs Love' Contradiction has been the Principal Contradiction not solved yet throughout the History of Human Culture. Possible keys to reduce/solve the Liberty vs Love Contradictions may be sought in Ethics. In the present paper, the relationships among 'Liberty, Love, and Ethics' have been investigated closely at the Personal Level, i.e. the base level in the social systems. Various relevant keywords are collected and the relationships among them are visualized with the Fuda-Yose Method. This has revealed the inner structure of 'Liberty, Love, and Ethics' and has contributed to enhance the basic hypothesis. You may trace my study in the articles posted in this Web site, e.g.
The Basic Hypothesis obtained in this study can be summarized as follows (Toru Nakagawa, Sept. 26, 2017):
(1) Ethics (and its deepening) is the 0th Principle of Human Culture. Deep inside the human heart, Ethics serves as the guideline to direct internal desires from Bad Will toward Good Will. The Contents of Ethics, i.e. 'What is Good, and What is Bad', are acquired later in life through the society, and hence are different depending on history and on society. However, 'the internal ability to distinguish Good from Bad deep inside the human heart', which I call Conscience, is supposed to be intrinsic for humankind and hence serves as the fundamental basis for the Human Culture. The concepts of 'Essential Equality of every person as a human' and 'Fundamental Human Rights' have become clearer through the Human history. Essence of the 0th Principle is the principle that Every person has the rights for pursuing Happiness.
(2) The First Principle, Liberty, is 'To decide and act for oneself and to live', and it aims at Winning in Competitions. It brings with Reformation and Creation on one side, while Ruling and Conservation by the Winners on the other side. Essence of the First Principle is 'To pursue My (or Our) own Happiness and Interests'.
(3) The Second Principle, Love, is 'To love one's own children, family, and neighbors and to help and protect them', and aims at self-controlling one's Liberty and at serving and coordinating with others. For protecting one's Family (in a wider sense), Love is apt to generate conflicts with the Outsiders. Essence of the Second Principle is 'To pursue the Happiness and Interests of All the members'. Here, the range of people expressed as 'All the members' is an issue, which should be widened universally as a goal of Human Culture.
(4) There exist various Conflicts/Contradictions inside Liberty, inside Love, and between Liberty and Love. Types of such Contradictions are listed.
(5) When the understanding of Ethics is poor, i.e., when one is motivated by Bad Will (or selfish mind), Liberty as well as Love are greatly spoiled in their spirits and actions and the 'Liberty vs Love' Contradictions emerge severely. Therefore, the installation of Ethics in the minds and actions at the personal level and in the actions and social rules at various social organizational levels is the important keys to reduce and resolve the Principal 'Liberty vs. Love' Contradiction of Human Culture. The core of the Ethics is the spirit of 'Essential Equality of every person as a human'.
(6) In short, Liberty (for pursuing My (or Our) own Happiness) and Love (for pursuing Happiness of All the members) are both motivated and hence can be coordinated by the Ethics (i.e., the 0th Principle that Every person has the rights to pursue one's Happiness) so as to reduce/resolve the Principal Contradiction 'Liberty vs. Love' of Human Culture.
Editorial: 'New Information' posted in 2014 has been moved to the archive file (Sept. 28, 2017)
Forum: Photo Album: Baby Swallows at My Home (Birth: Jun. 9, 2017; Leaving the nest: Jun. 24, 2017) (Jul. 18, 2017) (Jul. 18, 2017)
Photo and Edit: Toru Nakagawa (Jul. 2, 2017)
Under the eaves of my home at Kashiwa, located about 25 km north-east of Tokyo city center, a pair of swallows came back to the old nest after an interval of about 10 years and raised 4 youngsters. Birth on Jun. 9, growing quickly in 15 days, and left the nest on Jun. 24. I took their photos every day. An album of 22 photos are posted both in PDF and in HTML. You may click the small images to see the enlarged photos. In the top page, 4 selected photos are shown.
TRIZ Forum: Letters from Readers （May - Jul. 2017） (Jul. 18, 2017) (Jul. 18, 2017) Index page of "Letters from Readers"
[English page
In relation to my introductions of ETRIA TFC2016 individual papers (Categories Aexpalins her thoughts on IT project management and TRIZ, as a discussion to my introduction (G2
[Japanese page
Maekawa writes his experience of talking with elementary school teachers how to explain children to be creative. Mizutani, an expert of the KJ method, writes his impression about this Web site. Fukumura asks me about TRIZ activities in Taiwan, and I reply him briefly.
Conference Report (31)-Papers G: Personal Report of ETRIA TFC 2016: Introductions of Individual Papers: G. Applications to Soft & Non-technical Areas (7 Papers) 
(Jun. 21; Jul. 18, 2017)
Toru Nakagawa (Osaka Gakuin Univ., Japan) , Jun. 18, 2017; Jul. 16, 2017
Introductions of the papers presented at TFC2016 are written by Nakagawa in English. Here are 7 papers in the 7th category. (G1-G2: posted on Jun. 21; G3-G7 on Jul. 18, 2017). This finishes the introduction of all the TFC2016 papers.
The smallmarks are highly recommended.
G1.
G2.G3.
G4.
G5.
G6.
G7.
Conference Report (31)-Papers F: Personal Report of ETRIA TFC 2016: Introductions of Individual Papers: F. Patent Studies (1 Paper) (Jun. 21, 2017)
Toru Nakagawa (Osaka Gakuin Univ., Japan) , Jun. 8, 2017
F1.
Conference Report (31)-Papers E: Personal Report of ETRIA TFC 2016: Introductions of Individual Papers: E. Usage of TRIZ in Education and in Academia (5 Papers) (Jun. 4, 2017)
Toru Nakagawa (Osaka Gakuin Univ., Japan) , May 28, 2017
Introductions of the papers presented at TFC2016 are written by Nakagawa in English. Here are 5 papers in the 5th category. The small
E1.
E2.
E3.
E4.
E5.
Conference Report (31)-Papers D: Personal Report of ETRIA TFC 2016: Introductions of Individual Papers: D. Promotion of TRIZ in Industries (5 Papers) (Jun. 4, 2017)
Toru Nakagawa (Osaka Gakuin Univ., Japan) , May 21, 2017
Introductions of the papers presented at TFC2016 are written by Nakagawa in English. Here are 5 papers in the 4th category. The small
D1.
D2.
D3.
D4.
D5.
Conference Report (31)-Papers C: Personal Report of ETRIA TFC 2016: Introductions of Individual Papers: C. Case Studies in Industries (9 Papers) (Apr. 24, 2017)
Toru Nakagawa (Osaka Gakuin Univ., Japan) , Apr. 22, 2017
Introductions of the papers presented at TFC2016 are written by Nakagawa in English. Here are 9 papers in the 3rd category. The small
C1.
C2.
C3.
C4.
C5.
C6.
C7.
C8.
C9.
TRIZ Forum: Letters from Readers （Feb. - Apr. 2017） (Apr. 24, 2017) (Apr. 24, 2017) Index page of "Letters from Readers"
[English page
Receiving from S. Litvin a request for an information letter on TRIZ Education at OGU, I wrote a document of
my whole activities related to TRIZ and Creative Problem Solving Methodology at OGU, containing research, education, application, and proliferation (See a separate page:
For writing Introductions of ETRIA TFC2016 papers, I sent a request to many TFC2016 authors for sending me their presentation slides. And I received a message from ETRIA President to note the copyrights issues of the papers. I confirmed that Papers in English are not posted/cited because ETRIA is going to publish them officially in spring NEXT year and that Slides in English may be posted/cited under Author's permissions and Papers and Slides in Japanese translation are allowed to be posted/cited. I explained these points to the Authors and posted my Introductions of 17 TFC2016 papers on Mar. 30 under their permissions.
W. Hessler suggested me to make my Web site design easier to read and more user-friendly, especially for beginners. I want to make this Web site, however, up-to-date, reliable, and high-quality source of information of TRIZ and Creative problem solving methodology in general. For making such an intention compatible with user-friendliness, I have been trying to implement various measures; they are summarized here again in reply. Probably it will be most effective from now on to insert more photos (such as people in conferences, authors of articles, flowers in seasons, etc.). I would like to ask you, the readers, to contribute articles and give suggestions to this Web site.[English page
MG. Lee communicated with me on my Introduction to his ETRIA TFC 2016 paper; it's a pleasure for me that the Author appreciates my Introduction article. G. Carignani is going to have a chance to talk on TRIZ to high school teachers and asks me for some references. I suggested the Entrace papge for Children and High school students[Japanese page
Mr. O, who is going to introduce TRIZ in his company, asked me about the position of TRIZ among various idea generation methods. I replied that methods of creative problem solving are more important than simple, short-cut oriented idea-generation methods. Such methodology has been developed recently by improving/generalizing TRIZ. The concept of 'Six-Box Scheme' and easy process USIT should be learnt, by using USIT Manual and USIT Case Studies. I just introduced the essence of what are discussed repeatedly in this Web site.
I wrote this Information Letter for reporting my whole activities related to TRIZ and Creative Problem Solving Methodology at OGU, with the emphasis that research, education, application, and proliferation of TRIZ and related methodology are done in a parallel and cooperative manner. My whole activities for these 20 years since 1997 are described in a chronological manner, in three A4 pages
Conference Report (31)-Papers B: Personal Report of ETRIA TFC 2016: Introductions of Individual Papers: B. Integral Use of TRIZ with Relevant Methods (11 Papers) (Mar. 30, 2017)
Toru Nakagawa (Osaka Gakuin Univ., Japan) , Mar. 30, 2017
Introductions of the papers presented at TFC2016 are written by Nakagawa in English. Here are 11 papers in the second category. The small
B1.
B2.
B3.
B4.
B5.
B6.
B7.
B8.
B9.
B10.
B11.
Conference Report (31)-Papers A: Personal Report of ETRIA TFC 2016: Introductions of Individual Papers: A. Methodology of TRIZ (6 Papers) (Mar. 30, 2017)
Toru Nakagawa (Osaka Gakuin Univ., Japan) , Mar. 30, 2017
Introductions of the papers presented at TFC2016 are going to be posted here in English. They are categorized according to their topics. This is the first category containing 6 papers, as listed below with their titles and authors. The small
A1.
A2.
A3.
A4.
A5.
A6.
TRIZ News: TRIZ News in Japan (Mar. 30, 2017)
Japan Creativity Society (JCS) is going to hold its 39th Annual Conference on Sept. 9-10, 2017 in Yokohama, Japan.
TRIZ News: TRIZ News Outside Japan (Mar. 30, 2017)
The date was postponed from the former plan of Apr. 4-6, 2017 at Las Vegas.
Case Study of TRIZ Promotion: A long-term strategy to spread TRIZ in SMEs. Analysis of Bergamo's experience (Feb. 14, 2017)
Davide Russo, Daniele Regazzoni, Caterina Rizzi （University of Bergamo, Italy), Presented at ETRIA TRIZ Future Conference (TFC 2016), on Oct. 25, 2016 at Wroclaw, Poland; Japanese translation: Toru Nakagawa (Osaka Gakuin University), Feb. 14, 2017.
The TRIZ research group, formed in the University of Bergamo, educated students of Master courses with the TRIZ methodology, and worked to spread TRIZ in the industrial community in collaboration of Bergamo Chamber of Commerce. This is a valuable report of the activities, which contributed to stimulate and enhance the intellectual properties and innovation in the regional community prevailed by SMEs.
Typical models of promoting TRIZ are based on success stories in big enterprises. In Italy, however, big companies (with over 250 employees) are very few (0.1%) while very small companies (with less than 10 employees) are prevailing (95%). Thus the Authors built a new model of responding to the demands of SMEs first in collaboration with Chamber of Commerce. Under a long term strategy, they provided services of teaching, training, and consulting the owners and engineers of SMEs on the topic of Intellectual Properties first and TRIZ later. In 9 years they have achieved remarkable results.
In the English page
TRIZ Forum: Conference Report (31): Personal Report of The 16th ETRIA TRIZ Future Conference (TFC 2016), Held by ETRIA and Wroclaw University of Science and Technology, on Oct. 24-27, 2016, at Wroclaw, Poland (Feb. 14; Mar. 30, 2017)
Toru Nakagawa (Osaka Gakuin Univ., Japan)
After a few years of interval, I have made up my mind to write 'Personal Reports' of some important TRIZ conferences, starting with ETRIA TFC2016. In the field of TRIZ, several international conferences and several tens of regional/domestic/company-organized conferences are held every year. Papers/presentations at such conferences are mostly not known even for people interested/involved in TRIZ. Overviews of the papers and introductions to good papers would be useful for promoting TRIZ, only if appropriate reviews were done. Knowing the responsibilities and burdens, I will do my best to write 'Personal Reports', as I did before (Conference Reports (1) through (30)).
The present page in English is just a skeletal of my Personal Report, containing only a list of all the papers categorized with topics. I have just posted a Japanese page having very-brief introductions to all the papers, which are written after reading Authors' Abstracts and presentation slides (made available to TFC2016 participants). After reading papers closely one after another from now on, I am going to write introductions to them in English. It will take two months or so for me to finish and post my Personal Report in English.
Introductions of individual papers (in English) are posted in groups: A. Methodology of TRIZ
TRIZ Forum: Letters from Readers （Dec. 2016 - Jan. 2017） (Feb. 14, 2017) (Feb. 14, 2017) Index page of "Letters from Readers"
[English page
Communications between Cempel and Nakagawa, on 'Liberty vs Love', especially that Ethics (including Equity) is the 0th Principle. Domb and Sanchez sent me wishes and encourage the work of this Web site. Arshad supported me on the work of 'Liberty vs. Love'. He attached a picture of homeless Japanese citizens just post-war in 1945. Nakagawa responded mentioning the hidden nature of poverty in modern countries[Japanese page
Murata sent me his greetings together with Haiku (Japanese short poems) he composed. Miyazato encourages me to keep this site as a platform where Gemba leaders can study. Sadahiro asks me about how engineers' use of their knowledge and experiences is related to the Six-Box Scheme. Shimada sent me his newly published book: "How Do We Want to Die?" (Author: M. de Ridder, Translation into Japanese: M. Shimada and W.R. Ade). Kobayashi sent his sympathy on the 'Liberty vs. Love' issue.
Introductory: 'Liberty vs. Love': The Principal Contradiction Inherent throughout the Human Culture (Jan. 13, 2017)
Toru Nakagawa (Osaka Gakuin University), Bulletin, YMCA at the University of Tokyo, No. 146, pp. 9-26, Dec. 8, 2016
Starting with my self-introduction, I briefly trace my work for these 20 years on methodology of creative problem solving, and explain the big topic in the title on which I have been working since last year. I explain how I have been working as a researcher, initially in physical chemistry and later in informatics, to understand and develope 'Methodology of creative problem solving' (namely, methodology of research and development). I found the Six-Box Scheme as a new paradigm in science and technology. For extending its application to social problems, I chose to work on the problems of poverty in the Japanese society. Underlying people's arguments whether to help the poor, I found the conflict between the emphasis on Liberty and that of Love. Then I realized that Liberty vs. Love is much more basic, and actually is the Principal Contradiction unsolved throughout the history of Human Culture. I have shown here a hypothesis of the Liberty vs. Love Contradiction in its skeletal form.
The idea that there exists a basic conflict (or contradiction) between Liberty and Love is not difficult to understand in itself. You can easily show such examples in our everyday life, in our society, and in the international politics, etc. We have been taught simply, however, "Liberty and Love are both important. So you should respect both of them. They should be compatible." Nobody dared to say clearly "Between Liberty and Love there exists an intrinsic conflict. That is the most basic, Principal Contradiction of Human Culture." The present approach is based the spirit/philosophy of TRIZ, i.e., "Understanding contradictions clearly is the basic way for us to solve the contradictions (or make them compatible)". To understand the real situations and desirable directions concerning to this Principal Contradiction in the fields of humans, organizations, societies, and the world is a huge task for us to work from now on.
From the Editor: Message for the New Year 2017 (Jan. 13, 2017)
Editor: Toru Nakagawa (Professor Emeritus, Osaka Gakuin University), Jan. 13, 2017
Greetings from Japan for a Happy New Year 2017!! Wish the year be peaceful in the World, and healthy, happy, and successful for you all. Posted is an English translation of my New Year Card which I sent to about 200 friends in Japan whom I met before my TRIZ days. In the Japanese page, I wrote a summary of my work in 2016 and a brief message of my thought about the situations in Japan and in the world, especially quoting the one I wrote last July after the election of Japanese Parliament.
Posted in 2016
CrePS Research Note: Six-Box Scheme Representation of Published Papers (1) 18 Papers by Toru Nakagawa (2000 - 2016) (Dec. 27, 2016)
Toru Nakagawa (Osaka Gakuin University), Dec. 15, 2016.
18 papers which I published at international/domestic conferences every year since 2000 are represented in the overview format of the Six-Box Scheme, and are shown here together with their Abstracts, both in HTML (images) and in PDF
The Six-Box Scheme is a new paradigm of creative problem solving, which I found in 2004 in my study of TRIZ and USIT and I have been promoting actively in a much more general context since 2012. For the purpose of demonstrating the Six-Box Scheme, I have been trying till recently to make new case studies where various types of problems are solved along the Six-Box Scheme with some methods like USIT. The demonstration has been proceeding only slowly with a limited number of case studies. I now realize, however, that almost all serious intellectual activities and their results can be described properly in the Six-Box Scheme. Thus I made trials to describe a selection of my papers which I published in 2002, 2004-2005, 2012, and 2014, in the Six-Box Scheme. Since the representations were found meaningful, I have described my 18 papers published every year from 2000 to 2016 in the Six-Box Scheme, as you see here.
Every published paper can be represented properly in the Six-Box Scheme, and should be worthy of doing so. The Six-Box Scheme has such generality as a basic paradigm of creative problem solving. Some of the papers, of course, emphasize some parts of the Six-Box Scheme and skips some other parts. That is all right. The Six-Box Scheme representation plays the role of a template for describing intellectual activities/works, just like the standard format for filing patents.
Training activities: Conducting a Training Seminar on 'How to Prepare and Write Reports', (Toru Nakagawa, OGU) (Nov. 28, 2016)
Every year since July 2010, I have conducted a training seminar on 'How to prepare and write reports' for 2 days (12 hours) to 50 nurses at Wakayama Prefectural Nursing Association. The training seminar is a part of the First Level (for 150 hours) of the Course for Certified Nurse Administrators, organized by Japan Nursing Association.
For the training text I use my article 'How to Prepare and Write Reports: Preparation of the Contents, Building the Structure, and then Writing Sentences', published in Communications of OGU and posted here
covering both (a) and (b). [Sorry but no English pages of these.] I also give a presentation on 'How to Think for Creative Problem Solving'
Group exercises are also carried out. I use excerpts from OGU students' reports and ask the nurse trainees to brush them up, then I show my revised versions and my comments to the students, which are posted here
Business TRIZ Introductory: Breakthrough Thinking with TRIZ for Business and Management: An Overview (Nov. 23, 2016)
Valeri Souchkov (ICG Training and Consulting, The Netherland), ICG Training and Consulting, Home page
;
Japanese translation by Toru Nakagawa (OGU), posted on Nov. 23, 2016.An excellent introductory article by Valeri Souchkov is translated into Japanese and is posted in the Japanese page
The present article introduces TRIZ and its use for business and management to the ordinary business people in plain words without any prerequisite. He puts stress on the way of thinking rather than tools. His way of using TRIZ for business and management has been proven to be easy to learn and effective to apply. In the English page, table of contents of his 20 page article is shown for your reference, together with the links to his earlier introductory articles appeared in the present site.
TRIZ Forum: Letters from Readers (Oct. - Nov., 2016） (Oct. 19; Nov. 12; Dec. 27, 2016) (Nov. 12; Dec. 27, 2016) Index page of "Letters from Readers"
[English page
E. Sickafus responds to W. Mallinson on his recent USIT situations.Teemu Toivonen (Finland), Min-Gyu Lee （South Korea), Dana Clark (USA), Czesław CEMPEL（Poland); Toru Nakagawa (Nov. 12, 2016)
In relation to my work on 'Liberty vs. Love' contradiction, (a) T. Toivonen suggests the works of development of human value systems by Clare Graves, (b) D. Clark is thinking of a possibility of working together, (c) C. Cempel talks about the importance of the issue under the recent situations in Poland and is interested in the visualization tool. M.-G. Lee informs about the TRIZ activities in Korea: KATA (Korean Academic TRIZ Association) has been rebuilt into KOSCA (Korean Society of Creative Application) for integrating a wider range of methodologies.Michael Orloff (Germany), Syed Kamarulzaman Syed Kabeer (Malaysia), Sergey Sobolev (Russia), Valeri Souchkov (The Netherlands), Czesław CEMPEL（Poland); Toru Nakagawa (Dec. 27, 2016)
M. Orloff writes the needs of modernizing and structuring TRIZ, and introduces his activities of educational and executive applications of his Modern TRIZ (MTRIZ). I made communications to V. Souchkov for preparing the Japanese translation of his article on 'TRIZ for Business and Management', and learned about a free software tool 'yEd' for drawing diagrams. He mentions that he delivered a keynote lecture at a Russian domestic TRIZ conference to 350 participants and that in various countries in the world TRIZ proliferation activities are in good progress. C. Cempel is interested in the contradictions between Liberty and Love and further with Equality.[Japanese page
Y. Hasegawa, reading Nakagawa's booklet of the Visualized diagrams of the LLE book, considers about possible measures of the social welfare, and the importance of not producing people who have to depend on the welfare. S. Sadahiro suggests that images are more important than words in the Thinking World of the Six-Box Scheme, but I explain that Thinking World is a collaborative work place where both of them are used and recorded. Y. Yoshida asked about the TRIZ usage in material development (but not chemical engineering). I suggested a few references and some possible (but not well explored) approaches. T. Itoh appreciated my work on the poverty problem especially with the visualization method.Akihiko Ikeda; Akio Harada; Tsunehisa Maekawa; Tatsuo Torii; Kozo Kuchitsu; Takehiko Itoh; Toru Nakagawa (Dec. 7, 2016)
A. Harada mentions that the slogan of 'Liberty, Equality, and Love' of the modern world since the French Revolution may need to be reconsidered. Nakagawa responded: "Equality is a principle at the base of Fundamental Human Rights and hence at the core of Ethics. Since both Liberty (The 1st Principle) and Love (The 2nd Principle) are motivated and developed by Ethics, we may regard Ethics as The 0th Principle of Human Culture." T. Maekawa communicated about National Contest of Statistical Graphs for Elementary and Junior High School Pupils; 2 pages of his communication are posted in small images. The entrance page "Let's enjoy 'Think & Try' !" of the present home page has not been updated for over a year. I wish to have some voluntary co-Editor for this part. T. Torii writes "Toshio Takahara's theory is great for understanding contradictions systematically. I wish you dig much further concerning to the Principal Contradiction 'Liberty vs. Lave'." Professor K. Kuchitsu (who guided me as Associate Professor and Professor during my years of undergraduate, graduate, and Assistant) evaluated my recent article on 'How to prepare and write reports'. T. Maekawa communicated again about his episode that when he was a freshman at a company his boss guided him uniquely to write a report everyday; first a line, then a few lines, and finally a page.
On the 18th Anniversary of "TRIZ Home Page in Japan": Toru Nakagawa (Nov. 12, 2016) 
[See above in the Special Information]
TRIZ/CrePS Presentation (Social problem): TRIZ/CrePS Approach to the Social Problems of Poverty: 'Liberty vs. Love' Is Found the Principal Contradiction of the Human Culture (Nov. 12, 2016)
Toru Nakagawa (Osaka Gakuin University, Professor Emeritus and CrePS Institute, Director); Presented at ETRIA TRIZ Future Conference 2016 on Oct. 24-27, 2016 at Wroclaw Technical University (Poland).
This page posts the slides (in HTML
(1) Trying to apply TRIZ/CrePS methodology to social problems, I have chosen the poverty problem in the Japanese society (especially among the elderly) as the theme.
(2) I chose Takanori Fujita's book "The Low-living Elderly" as the source reference, and visualized the logics of the book by using Fuda-Yose Tool.
(3) By critically reviewing the 82 Customer reviews on the book, I recognized an unsolved big problem underlying the people's arguments about the 'Win or Lose' and Mutual aid in the competitive society.
(4) Digging down to their essence, I recognized the conflicts between Liberty and Love. Liberty (i.e., to decide and act for oneself, and to Live) is the First Principle, while Love (i.e., to love one's children, one's family, and one's neighbors, and to Help and Protect them) is the Second Principle of Human Culture. Nevertheless, Liberty vs. Love has been the Principal Contradiction inherent through the Human Culture.
(5) Even though Human Culture has been trying to solve it, the Principal Contradiction still exists everywhere, emerges and grows newly everywhere, and is getting even more difficult to solve, I realized. I have recognized four main reasons of difficulties.
(6) Considering these four reasons one by one, we should understand the mechanisms of the Principal Contradiction and think over the solution directions.
The present study is guided by the TRIZ philosophy of contradiction and the CrePS process of creative problem solving.
News: TRIZCON2017 will be held on Apr. 4-6, 2017 at Las Vegas, Nevada (Altshuller Institute) . (Oct. 19, 2016)
Basic theory: Radical Enumerative Thinking and Contradiction of Unity for World View, the Way of Life and the Future of Human Being (Oct. 19, 2016)
Toshio Takahara, FIT 2016 (Forum on Information Technology in Japan), Sept. 7 - 9, 2016, Toyama University, Toyama Prefecture
Here is the latest full paper published by Toshio Takahara, who has bee developing a unique fundamental theory with very large scope
Old-dated Information (Over 12 months ago, later than Jan. 2015)
CrePS Introductory: Fuda-Yose Tool and Visual Thinking: Part 3: Practices of Using the Fuda-Yose Tool: Practices by Nakagawa for Visualization (Sept. 29, 2016)
Toru Nakagawa, Contributed on Sept. 24, 2016.
This is the Part 3 of the series of papers jointly written by Akihiro Katahira and Toru Nakagawa.
In Part 2 Katahira describes his practices of using the Fuda-Yose Method at the phases when the problem itself is still somewhat vague. He uses the Fuda-Yose tool either personally or at the meetings mostly for stimulating our brain to get new ideas and (rough) overall views. In this Part 3, Nakagawa describes his practices of using Fuda-Yose method at the phases when the problem has become clearer and some notes/documents are written either by him/herself or by other person(s). The purposes of using the Fuda-Yose tool is to clarify the logics in the documents by making visualized diagrams and to share the understanding with many other people.
I explain the basic thoughts of my practices, first, and then describe the concrete process of making visualizing diagrams for the documents typically of the length from half a page (e.g., abstract of a paper) to about 20 pages (e.g., an article/paper, or a chapter of a book).Cases of visualizing practices are chosen from my reports already posted in this "TRIZ Home Page in Japan": they are (1) Abstract of Ed Sickafus' paper, and five chapters of Takanori Fujita's "The Low-Living Elderly" book (including; (2) Introduction, (3) Cases of falling into the LLE situations, (4) Higher risks of LLE in near future, (5)Feelings and thoughts by ordinary people on LLE, and (6) Author's proposals of LLE policies), and (7) Lecture note by Prof. Hiroshi Yoshikawa on 'Financial reconstruction and Japanese Economy'.
For each example, I explain the process of making the visualizing diagrams, ideas for improving the diagram representation, the finished (rather detailed) diagrams and their simplified versions made on readers' requests, etc.These examples demonstrate that the visualization with Fuda-Yose Tool is useful for clarifying the logics in documents on complex themes like these social problems. It is required to visualize the logics in much larger documents with different arguments (because all significant social problems and political issues are such cases). Our strategy should be 'Segmentation and Hierarchical structuring'; we need to demonstrate it from now on.
Social Problem: On the Low-living Elderly Problem: Employee's pension insurance should be applied more widely () (Sept. 29, 2016)
Yorikazu Suwa (Judicial Scrivener), Contributed on Sept. 12, 2016.
The contributor, Mr. Suwa, worked in sales divisions in a big company and after retirement he became a judicial scrivener. Servicing for lawsuits at Summary Court, he met a number of low-living elderly people who are suffering from debt in consumer finance. From such a background, he writes his thoughts in an sample case:
A woman who worked for 30 years as a secretary in a foundation is now old in age with no family/relatives and in a hospital. So the foundation is asking its members for raising money for her medical care. She does not have employee's pension, as a matter of fact. In 1975 when she started working at the foundation, Employee's Pension Insurance (which is to be paid half and half by the employee and the employer) in Japan may not be applied to corporations with less-than 5 employees.
In 1981 the Employee's Pension Act was changed so that any corporation has to apply the employee's pension to all its employees. But the Act was not enforced strictly and many corporation, including her foundation, did not join the insurance. Missing the chances of joining the insurance, or intent violation by corporation employers, is one of the most significant factors for many elderly people to fall down into low-living situations.
In 1981, a notice was issued by the director of Health Insurance Department of Ministry of Health and Welfare, saying "The part-time employees working for the time length less-than 3/4 of the regular employees are not applicable for the Employee's Pension Insurance". This notice is a big problem because it excluded a huge number of non-regular employees out of the benefits of Employee's Pension. ...-- Since I have few chances of facing real situations of poverty in the society, I am not good at thinking and talking on real sample cases. Suwa contributed to explain focal points of real problems on the basis of his experiences. He is another old friend of mine at the YMCA dormitory of the University of Tokyo. I deeply thank him for his valuable contribution.
TRIZ Forum: Letters from Readers (Aug. - Sept, 2016） (Oct. 19, 2016) Index page of "Letters from Readers"
[English page
S. Dewulf communicates on his new "BIG Patent Data" method, i.e., an big data analysis approach with the huge patent databases. W. Mallinson is now promoting USIT in South Africa. V. Petrov announces that all the books authored by him are now on sale at the Amazon.com site at the minimal prices the site allows, for celebrating the 90th Anniversary of Mr. Genrikh Altshuller. S.S. Arshad responses that the Methodology of Creative Research in Academia is an important issue for discussion. S. Al-Jaouni shows her sympathy on dealing with the poverty problem. -- Thanks to all the communicators.
TRIZ Forum: Letters from Readers (Aug. - Sept., 2016） (Sept. 29, 2016) Index page of "Letters from Readers"
[Japanese page
Takayama, in response to 'Do We Have Any Methodology of Creative Research in Academia ?', has made mind maps of James Young's book and of Darrell Mann's book and suggests some parallelism between them.
Shibuya has pointed out the recent remarkable advance of statistical science using computers and evaluated that such statistical methods are successful in analyzing real data starting with simple models and obtaining fairly complex results, corresponding to the abstraction and concretization processes in the CrePS methodology. Genom analysis, financial engineering, brain science, speech recognition, etc. are such application areas of success, he says. I have been thinking the data analysis with computers in a somewhat separate framework from the problem solving by humans. But I feel we need to consider the data analysis methods with more weights in our CrePS methodology.
Yamamoto sent me a comment in late June that we should consider the high risk of Japanese financial catastrophe more seriously in parallel to the poverty problem. He communicated to me again in response to my visual diagram of Professor Hiroshi Yoshikawa's lecture on 'Financial reconstruction and Japanese economy'.
Suwa contributed his thoughts on the Low-living Elderly problem, based on his experiences of meeting a number of LLE people in his job as a judicial scrivener. His communication is posted in a separate page
TRIZ/CrePS Presentation (Social problem): TRIZ/CrePS Approach to the Social Problems of Poverty: Underlying the Arguments by Ordinary People, 'Liberty vs. Love' Is Found the Principal Contradiction of the Human Culture (Sept. 9, 2016)
Toru Nakagawa (Osaka Gakuin University, Professor Emeritus and CrePS Institute, Director); Presented at 12th TRIZ Symposium in Japan 2016, September 1 - 2, 2016, Waseda Univ., Tokyo.
Last week, Japan TRIZ Symposium 2016 was held at Waseda University, with a success of 141 participants. This is the presentation I gave there for 25 minutes including Q&A. I talked about my trial of applying TRIZ/CrePS to social problems
(1) Trying to apply TRIZ/CrePS methodology to social problems, I have chosen the poverty problem in the Japanese society (especially among the elderly) as the theme.
(2) I chose Takanori Fujita's book "The Low-living Elderly" as the source reference, and visualized the logics of the book by using Fuda-Yose Tool.
(3) By critically reviewing the 82 Customer reviews on the book, I recognized an unsolved big problem underlying the people's arguments about the 'Win or Lose' and Mutual aid in the competitive society.
(4) Digging down to their essence, I recognized the conflicts between Liberty and Love. Liberty (i.e., to decide and act for oneself, and to Live) is the First Principle, while Love (i.e., to love one's children, one's family, and one's neighbors, and to Help and Protect them) is the Second Principle of Human Culture. Nevertheless, Liberty vs. Love has been the Principal Contradiction inherent through the Human Culture.
(5) Even though Human Culture has been trying to solve, the Principal Contradiction still exists everywhere, arises newly everywhere, and is getting even more difficult to solve, I realized. I have recognized four main reasons of difficulties.
(6) Considering these four reasons one by one, we should understand the mechanisms of the Principal Contradiction and think over the solution directions.
The present study is guided by the TRIZ concept of contradiction and the CrePS process of creative problem solving.
Posted in the English page
Social Problem: Poverty Problems in the Japanese Society: [E] Economy and Public Finance [1] Prof. Hiroshi Yoshikawa's Lecture "Financial Reconstruction and Japanese Economy" (2015) (Visualized by Toru Nakagawa) (Aug. 28, 2016)
Source: Hiroshi Yoshikawa (Professor of The University of Tokyo, Graduate School), Note of Dinner Lecture at Gakushikai on Nov. 10, 2015; Bulletin of Gakushikai, No. 918, pp. 6-15 (May, 2016).
Visualization by Toru Nakagawa,
When we consider about the poverty and welfare in the Japanese society, the issues of public finance and economic situations for supporting the welfare are inevitable to discuss. Since there are quite different positions in regard to economy, finance, and politics, it is difficult for us to choose good references. When I read this lecture note by Professor Yoshikawa, I was impressed with its overall views, clear analysis, and easy-to-understand explanation. Abstract by the author says (English translation by Toru):
"Fiscal deficit in Japan has been mainly caused by the rapid increase in the social welfare budget. Hence, for the fiscal reconstruction, we need to increase the consumer tax (or VAT) rate, to raise economic growth, and to improve the efficiency in expenditure (e.g., by reforming the medical care system). In the current situation of population decrease, we should note that the innovations are the keys to economic growth. Thus industries should regard the trend towards super-aging society as a unique chance for creating new demands and actively invest instead of storing the extra surplus in their own."
In visualizing this 10 page article, I have not changed the order of logical descriptions, but have classified the sentences with their descriptive nature, e.g., facts, references, author's statements, Nakagawa's comments. I made a set of diagrams of 5 pages
CrePS Introductory: Fuda-Yose Tool and Visual Thinking: Development, Operations, and Usage of the Fuda-Yose Tool and Practices of Visual Thinking with It. (Jul. 31, 2016) (Aug. 6, 2016)
Akihiro Katahira (‘The First Thinking School’) and Toru Nakagawa (Osaka Gakuin University); Paper Contributed to "TRIZ Home Page in Japan", Jul. 1, 2016; Jul. 28, 2016.
A series of introductory articles are posted here on the Fuda-Yose Tool and its usage. The tool was developed by Akihiro Katahira for the purpose of supporting Visual Thinking, i.e., the methods of enhancing the thinking by use of visualized diagrams. The series will be in four parts, jointly authored by Katahira and Nakagawa.
Part 1: Development, Operations, and Usage of the Fuda-Yose Tool. (Jul. 31, 2016) (Aug. 6, 2016)
Akihiro Katahira, Jul. 1, 2016.
The Fuda-Yose Tool was first introduced in this Home Page by Katahira in January 2015The up-to-date version of the Fuda-Yose Tool (in English) may be downloaded without charge at Katahira’s ‘The First Thinking School’ site
The Fuda-Yose Tool is a software tool for drawing diagrams, using the Microsoft Excel worksheets as the platform, for the purpose of supporting/enhancing user’s Visual Thinking. It was designed with emphasis on handy and quick responses instead of rich and advanced functionality. It also has smooth data conversion facility between diagrams and texts and also among Excel, Word, and PowerPoint. Methods of operations are illustrated with simple examples of diagrams; such illustrations in the present paper are also installed in the software.
The diagrams are composed of three basic components; they are ‘Labels’ (i.e., rectangles holding descriptions of keywords and sentences), ‘Enclosures’ (i.e., round-cornered rectangles with header keywords/sentences for enclosing several Labels (and Enclosures)), and ‘Lines/Arrows’ (for connecting Labels/Enclosures for showing some relationships). Also the ‘Cells’ (i.e., the original tabular units of Excel worksheets) may be used for containing data. Labels/Enclosures and Cells are interchangeable with a click of a command. Various original Excel functions may be used in the Fuda-Yose Tool and all the diagram elements drawn by the Fuda-Yose Tool can be handled in Excel as usual.Basic ways of using the Tool are explained with illustrations. By use of this software, the Labels/Enclosures containing information and Lines/Arrows showing relationships can be arranged and moved around in various mutual positions in the diagram; such arrangements and movements may trigger various ideas and may help the user stimulate, enhance, and deepen user’s thoughts. Such ways of thinking with visual aids are called here as ‘Fuda-Yose Method’, or more generally as ‘Visual Thinking’.
Part 2: Practices of Using the Fuda-Yose Tool: Practices by Katahira (Jul. 31, 2016) (Aug. 6, 2016)
Akihiro Katahira, Contributed on Jul. 1, 2016, Revised on Jul. 28, 2016.
As explained in Part 1, the Fuda-Yose Tool allows to show Labels/Enclosures containing some information and Lines/Arrows representing the relationships between the connected Labels in visualized diagrams. Arranging and moving around such elements in the diagram may trigger various ideas and may help the user stimulate, enhance, and deepen user’s thoughts. Such ways of supporting user’s thinking are already used by many people in different ways. They may be regarded not as specific thinking techniques but rather general and widely-used thinking ways, and they are called here the ‘Fuda-Yose Method’ in such a general sense. Once the user understands the basic operation, the user may use the method freely modifying it in various ways so as to match the user’s own purposes and situations. Part 2 demonstrates Katahira’s ways of usage with his actual examples.In the first type of usage, the Tool is used in personal situations for the purposes of triggering ideas and organizing one’s own thoughts. The process is explained, with particular attention to possible multiple viewpoints in arranging/moving Labels in the diagrams. Two examples of diagrams are shown: (a) a memo diagram for organizing the notes of learning at a social psychology class; and (b) the diagram to think over ‘what is the Fuda-Yose Method’ repeatedly from time to time. In this type of personal usage, getting ideas while making the diagrams is more important than finishing the diagrams. Nevertheless, as in (b), when we think over similar/relevant topics repeatedly, we should better record and keep the diagrams for improving them step by step.
In the second type of usage, the Tool is used during discussions in a meeting situation. Any opinions and comments are recorded in Labels and the Fuda-Yose diagrams are projected on a screen for sharing the discussions among the members. Since the relationships of members’ sayings may be shown explicitly or implicitly, this helps people much to share communication and form common understandings. The process and its benefits are explained. Four real case studies are shown with particular emphasis on (a) forming common understanding, (b) revealing the causes, (c) promoting the understanding, and (d) idea generation for improving the instructions.
Forum: From Life-saving/Life-sustaining Medical Care to Palliative Medical Care (Jul. 31, 2016)
Munehiro Shimada (Salvation Army Kiyose Hospital, Director), A Message addressed on Jun. 26, 2016 at a Memorial Prayer Meeting in his hospice; posted here under permission.
From Dr. Shimada I received a communication, as posted in the ‘From the Readers’ page
The Author is a Medical Doctor specialized in heart surgery for children, and after retiring from the National Hospital for Children, he is now Director of Salvation Army Kiyose Hospital. He says in the message “On reflecting my life as a medical doctor for half a century, I find myself guided from the heart surgery for children, i.e., the frontier of life-saving/life-sustaining medical care, to the end-of-life care, i.e., the frontier of palliative care.” His hospital is in operation as a hospice for palliative care of patients suffering from every kind of incurable diseases, not limited to cancers.He says: We should avoid from relying too much on modern science and technology for life-saving/life-sustaining medical care and should turn to palliative care which respects the life and existence of the patient as a human and faces with the death calmly. We should follow the patient’s living will first. If it is not ready, we should better prepare for a care plan together with the patient, the family, and the medical team. At a joint meeting of the three parties, we make the care plan as a commonly understood decision. It is helpful for keeping high quality of life (QOL) and high quality of death (QOD) of the patient.
-- In the super-aged society in Japan, this is an important issue, I think. Not a superficial understanding of how to handle the patient’ will, but deep understanding of our lives and death should be most important.
Forum: A New Discussion: Do We Have Any Methodology of Creative Research in Academia ? Can CrePS (or the Six-box Scheme) Contribute to It ? (Jul. 31, 2016) (Aug. 6, 2016)
Posing the issue: A Professor, Jun. 26, 2016; Discussion: Toru Nakagawa (OGU), Jun. 30, 2016
In the field of advanced academic research, or creative academic research, do we know any method how to achieve the research in general & universal terms, or ‘Methodology of Creative Research’? This is the theme of the new discussion started in this page.
A prominent professor has posed this issue saying: Academia has been carrying out a huge number of advanced researches and achieving a lot of splendid works. But there is no common understanding of ‘How to achieve Creative Research’ in the Academia, and such achievements have been obtained without any relation to the methods like TRIZ. Thus the methodologies like TRIZ and CrePS seem to have very little relevance/significance with the methods for promoting academic researches.
--- It is a pity that the methodology like TRIZ/CrePS has rarely penetrated into the academia. This is an issue important for our methodology and for the academia as well. So I responded him as follows and started this discussion page.It seems quite strange to me that the academia has not obtained a common and general understanding about ‘How to do Creative Research’. We should first consider for what types of purposes we need such a method. We need such a method for the following purposes, arranged in the order of their scopes:
(a) To think over the future grand directions for research themes in the scope covering various research fields.
(b) In a research field, to think over on what research theme to work.
(c) For a research theme, to think over what should be really revealed and solved.
(d) For a research theme, to think what is the barrier making the revealing/solving difficult and how to break it through.
(e) For individual tasks in a research theme, to think of the methods of research, experiments, and equipment design, etc.
(f) For problems and tasks in further detail, to think how to solve them one by one.
I think that the representation of the Six-box Scheme
--- On this important issue, please contribute your thoughts to this Home Page.Discussion: Akihiro Katahira (Posted: Aug. 6, 2016)
TRIZ Forum: Letters from Readers (Jun. - Jul., 2016） (Jul. 5; Jul. 31, 2016) (Aug. 6, 2016) Index page of "Letters from Readers"
[Japanese page
I sent a set of documents shown in a separate page
A. Kobayashi asked me a question about USIT (i.e., a concise process for executing the CrePS methodology): In which stage should we perform the root cause analysis? -- I replied that it is done repeatedly in Box 1, Box 2, and Box 3 of the Six-Box Scheme.
Many people who communicated this time are not so familiar with TRIZ, and do not mention much about the ‘Methods of Creative Problem Solving’ like TRIZ and CrePS. It is a big problem that these methodologies have rarely penetrated into academia.Concerning to the problems of 'the Low-living Elderly' and 'the Poverty in the Japanese Society', almost all the people mention its importance. Many of them say that even though they did not read the book yet, the Visualized diagrams are easy to understand and helpful for realizing various aspects of the issue. Especially, Professor Oiwa, who have been promoting the affinity diagram method, appreciated that Nakagawa’s diagrams are well drawn in accordance with the principles of the affinity diagram method.
As the results of the visualization work and my critical study of 82 customers’ reviews on the LLE book, Nakagawa found that in the current competitive society the relationship between Win-or-Lose and Mutual Aid is not well understood among the people and that the root of the unsolved thinking exists in the conflict (or contradiction) of Liberty vs. Love. Most of the respondents share this view with me. People understand that the Contradiction ‘Liberty vs. Love’ exists in so many situations and generates many big problems. For understanding this contradiction at its deep root and for thinking over the solution of it, we have to study really hard. I recognize that Human Culture has been trying to solve this Principal Contradiction and yet the Contradiction has become even more complex and difficult to solve in many aspects. Thus it is very important to extend this idea further, and naturally we need to go much farther.
--- The current society in Japan prevails the preferential treatment of the strong, Liberty and Love are not well built, the current government of Prime Minister Abe is making this kind of situations worse. These recognitions are shared by most of the respondents. How can we reflect our opinions in the coming election and in the real national policies? This is a big problem.
I am very grateful for the people who sent me these communications and allow me to post them here publicly. .
(PS: I will be on vacation from Jul. 6 to Jul. 14. (I have voted early for the Upper House Election on Jul. 11.))
[Japanese page, added
From Jul. 5 to Jul. 10, I received many communications via post or email, to my sincere thanks.
The problem of the Low-living Elderly has attracted many people and its visualized diagrams are accepted as nice and easy-to-understand representation.A prominent professor commented on TRIZ/CrePS saying: “Academia has been achieving a lot of advanced researches, but without using TRIZ and other methods. There is no common understanding of ‘How to achieve Creative Research’ in the Academia. It seems that there exists no such an easy method. Thus the methodologies like TRIZ and CrePS seem to have very little relevance/significance with the methods for promoting academic researches. -- Since this is an important issue, I started a new discussion page with my initial response
Dr. M. Shimada has communicated me that he introduced the LLE problem with my diagrams to the leading doctors in his hospital (Salvation Army Kiyose Hospital). A document which he attached contains his thoughts on his hospice’s role towards palliative treatment. Under his permission, I posted the document in a separate page
T. Sunada mentions his experiences of the difficulties in the latter phases of problem solving projects. I replied: In such phases (i.e., Box 4, Box 5, and Box 6 in the Six-Box Scheme), the problem solving methods does not play the prevailing role, but rather the capability of constructing good solutions in the subject matter fields and of implementing and marketing the solutions as business activities is more important.
Mrs. M. I., now 95 years old, was surprised with my materials and sent me a post card saying that my visualizing diagrams are easily understandable for her.
From the Editor: A Summary of My Recent Research: From the Methodology for Creative Problem Solving in the Field of Science and Technology, Getting Insights on the Roots of Social Problems: (A thought before the election of the Upper House in Japan) (Jun. 28; Jul. 31, 2016) (Aug. 6, 2016)
Toru Nakagawa (Editor of the "TRIZ Home Page in Japan", Osaka Gakuin University, Professor Emeritus), Jun. 28, 2016
On the timing just before the election of the House of Councilors, I made a summary of my recent research. A set of documents of the summary are posted here (on Jun. 28), and were already sent via post to about 250 people, whom I got acquainted with mostly before I encountered TRIZ. My recent work may be summarized as the following 3 categories.(1) I have clarified the structure of ‘General Methodology of Creative Problem Solving (CrePS)’. (Ref. [2] (Abstract of) TRIZCON2016 Presentation.)
(2) For the purpose of applying the CrePS methodology to social problems, I visualized the logic of Fujita’s Book “The Low-living Elderly” in diagrams. (Ref. [3] A pamphlet of 24 pages of visualized LLE diagrams. Ref. [4] Diagram: “Anybody has a risk of falling into the LLE status (in the near future)”.)
(3) I critically reviewed the 82 customer reviews of the LLE book posted at the Amazon.co.jp site. Quite a number of customers have sympathies with the comment saying ‘The people who have fallen into the LLE situations are to be blamed for themselves, not the society”. I see a serious lack of understanding of social thoughts and social ethics. Considering the roots of such lack of understanding, I have recognized that ‘Liberty vs. Love’ is ‘the Principal Contradiction in the Human Culture’. Human Culture has been trying to solve the Principal Contradiction, but the contradiction has become even more complex and difficult to solve in many aspects. As we learned in TRIZ, recognizing/understanding the contradiction first and working to solve the contradiction should be our basic/fundamental approach to social problems. (Ref [5] ‘Liberty vs. Love’: The Principal Contradiction Inherent in the Human Culture. )
[Editor’s Post Note (Jun. 28, 2016)] I think that the current Abe Shinzo’s government is enlarging the disparity and making the poverty problems severer. I think that we should vote the coming election for preventing Abe and his follower parties from getting the two thirds seats at the Upper House. Keeping the Peace Principle in our Constitution is most important for Japan (as well as for the World) in future.
[Editor’s Post Note 2. (Jul. 31, 2016)] As the results of the Jul. 11 election, Abe and his follower parties, either promoting or tolerating the change of the Constitution, obtained just two thirds seats at the Upper House. This is an alarming situation.
Concerning to the future directions of Japan, the whole range of problems should be considered carefully along the basic process of creative problem solving, and some consistent solution proposals should be constructed and shown clearly to all the people in Japan. Such process of work should be done by the government and by various parties and groups including the opposing/reforming people. For handling wide-ranged and voluminous information and showing the logic of the proposals/solutions clearly in the form easy to understand and useful for discussions, the visualization of the logic is an useful method, I believe.
--- At the present critical stage, I believe, we should proceed step by step, being aware of the coming crisis, overcoming pessimism/giving-up, conscious and devoting for better society, and anticipating the future, together with many people.!
CrePS Paper: CrePS (General Methodology of Creative Problem Solving) beyond TRIZ: What, Why, and How? (Jun. 20, 2016)
Toru Nakagawa (Osaka Gakuin University, Professor Emeritus); Submitted to / published at TRIZCON2016 (Annual Conference of the Altshuller Institute for TRIZ Studies), held at Tulane Univ., New Orleans, LA, USA, on Mar. 2-5, 2016
(I submitted my paper, presentation slides, and a presentation video beforehand, but could not attend at the conference due to a pain in my leg. The paper is published in the Proceedings, but the video was not displayed at the Conference.) I am posting here the full sets: (In the English page) Paper(MP4 format, 45 minutes), (In the Japanese page) Paper
The paper describes the CrePS Methodology from the overall perspective, by answering the three basic questions shown in the title. Abstract of the paper is shown here:This paper proposes to establish a 'General Methodology of Creative Problem Solving' (abbreviated as CrePS) and answers the three fundamental questions:
What? -- CrePS is a general methodology which integrates various methods related to creative problem solving / task achieving and is applicable widely to different types of problems in technical and non-technical areas. The 'Six-Box Scheme' is adopted as the new basic paradigm of creative problem solving; this forms the framework of CrePS.
Why? -- Many conventional methods, including TRIZ, could not find a useful framework/paradigm of creative problem solving, and compete one another. Thus they, even as the whole, could not respond to the big needs of the whole society, namely to solve problems and achieve tasks of various types of themes in different areas, to develop methods for such work, and to cultivate people to be capable for such work. We need to fill such needs of the whole society with CrePS.
How? -- Using the 'Six-Box Scheme', we define a problem in the 'Real World', generate conceptual solutions to the problem in the Thinking World, and then implement the solutions in the 'Real World'. Among the three principal processes, the central process of generating conceptual solutions in the Thinking World is the core. For the core process, USIT (Unified Structured Inventive Thinking), which delivered the Six-Box Scheme, has been developed already and is a model to integrate and unify various relevant methods in the Thinking World. For the processes in the Real World, i.e., the problem definition and solution implementation processes, conventional methods should be categorized according to their application themes and areas, in order to prepare for integrating them. By the collaborative work of researchers and promoters of various methods, CrePS should be established, proliferated and applied widely.
USIT/CrePS Paper: USIT: A Concise Process for Creative Problem Solving Based on the Paradigm of the Six-Box Scheme -- USIT Manual and USIT Case Studies -- (Jun. 11, 2016)
Toru Nakagawa (Osaka Gakuin University, Professor Emeritus); Published in the Journal of Japan Creativity Society, Vol. 19, pp. 64-84 (2015) (in Japanese). Extended and revised version after the peer-review process of the Proceedings paper for the JCS Conference held on Oct. 3-4, 2015. This is a full paper on USIT/CrePS in Japanese.
In English, please refer to my paperpublished in the ETRIA Journal and also to my latest one presented at TRIZCON2016 (to be posted soon).
USIT/CrePS Presentation/Paper: USIT: A Concise Process for Creative Problem Solving Based on the Paradigm of the Six-Box Scheme － USIT Manual and USIT Case Studies － (May 31, 2016)
Toru Nakagawa (Osaka Gakuin University, Professor Emeritus & CrePS Institute, Director) ;Presented at ETRIA TRIZ Future Conference, held at Berlin, Germany, on Oct. 26-29, 2015.
(A) Presentation slides (25 slides)
This paper describes the position of the USIT process development in the perspective of the on-going establishment of the General Methodology of Creative Problem Solving (CrePS). USIT was initialized by Ed Sickafus in 1985 as a concise process for creative problem solving, and it has been adopted in Japan in 1999 and improved further step by step to integrate TRIZ solution generation methods and to establish the 'Six-Box Scheme' as the new paradigm for the general methodology CrePS. USIT is now fully documented in the forms of the USIT Manual and USIT Case Studies, and is explained here in a compact way. This paper in English essentially corresponds to the Japanese paper presented at JCS Conference earlier on Oct. 3-4, 2015
TRIZ Forum: Letters from Readers (Apr. - , 2016） (May 8; Jun. 11; Jun. 20, 2016) Index page of "Letters from Readers"
English page
On my working paper 'Liberty vs. Love', E. Domb writes: The “TRIZ people” will be challenged to refine what they call contradictions, and the non-TRIZ people will learn how powerful the concept of resolution of contradictions can be. U. Mishra shows various cases of contradictions in Liberty itself, i.e. even though Liberty means freedom in any decision/action but actually any decision/action in contradictory choices cannot be taken freely considering its effects/outcomes.Shahid Saleem A. Arshad (Australia), Doug Gundlach (USA), George Draghici (Romania) (Jun. 11, 2016)
On my working paper 'Liberty vs. Love', D. Gundlach responds 'It's startling and important'. S. Arshad contributed his thoughts on 'Liberty vs. Love' supporting my working paper: In our world, pursuing one's success (Liberty) is predominant and selflessness or concerning others (Love) is secondary. The results are most recognizable in the big imbalance of '1% of haves and 99% of have-nots' in the current economic system of the World. Understanding 'Liberty vs. Love' as the Principal Contradiction can form a basis for thinking of the resolutions. -- Thanks, S. Arshad, and we look forward to further discussions.Toru Nakagawa (Jun. 20, 2016)
Reply to S.S.A. Arshad. I communicated him that non-TRIZ readers in Japan seems not like the idea of that Liberty and Love are contradictory and wants to put Love above Liberty. Contradiction of 'Liberty vs. Love' is essential and is not solved well everywhere in the world, I understand.Japanese page
A. Katahira announces the 4.02 version of his Fuda-Yose Tool. Y. Hasegawa sees a large possibility in Nakagawa's 'Liberty vs. Love' to understand many different phenomena in the world. K. Asai writes "Liberty and Love are not contradictory. Love is the motive force to create the (new) way of Liberty in a democratic manner." I think his saying is more or less typical conventional understanding. But it is misleading to think Liberty and Love are naturally compatible without any conflicts. We should better clarify the intrinsic and universal contradictions in Liberty, in Love, and between Liberty and Love, in order to find the ways to solve them.Naohiko Takayama, Toru Nakagawa, Satoshi Sadahiro, Mr. X, Akira Nakagawa (Jun. 11, 2016)
I made an open lecture on USIT/CrePS on May 14, and I received inquiries from S. Sadahiro and Mr. X. So I wrote my suggestions on how to introduce USIT/CrePS into industries. A. Nakagawa contributed his thoughts on the Low-living Elderly and 'Liberty vs. Love'. He thinks that obtaining 'social nature' was indispensable for human kind and hence Love is primary to Liberty.Shahid S.A. Arshad (Jun. 20, 2016)
Communication by Arshad (May 18) is introduced in Japanese translation, for better discussion on 'Liberty vs. Love'.
USIT/CrePS Presentation: USIT: A Concise Process for Creative Problem Solving Based on the Paradigm of the Six-Box Scheme － USIT Manual and USIT Case Studies － (May 8, 2016)
Toru Nakagawa (Osaka Gakuin University, Professor Emeritus & CrePS Institute, Director) ; Presented at 37th Annual Conference of Japan Creativity Society 2015, October 3 - 4, 2015, Osaka University of Economics, Osaka.
An oral presentation in Japanese; slides and paper in the Proceedings are posted here. Brief introduction in English
USIT/CrePS Presentation: USIT Case Studies in the Six-Box Scheme - Understanding Various Examples of Creative Problem Solving in the New Paradigm - (May 8, 2016)
Toru Nakagawa (Osaka Gakuin University, Professor Emeritus & CrePS Institute, Director) ; Presented at 11th TRIZ Symposium in Japan 2015, September 3 - 4, 2015, National Olympics Memorial Youth Center (NYC), Tokyo.
An oral presentation in Japanese with slide projection in English and in Japanese in parallel. I first talked about the recent development of creative problem solving methods from my point of view, i.e., conventional --> TRIZ --> USIT --> CrePS. The 'Six-Box Scheme' can be the new paradigm for integrating TRIZ and many other creative problem solving methods together into the CrePS Methodology. And USIT is a concise process for carrying out CrePS. So in 2015 I made the USIT Manual and A Collection of USIT Case Studies. As a case study, I talked about my seminar class of sophomores on 'A Large Variety of Writing Instruments: Studying the Evolution of Technology', where the essence of TRIZ (i.e. evolution of technology) was studied without using any specific TRIZ terms.
Social Problems: Working Paper: Liberty vs. Love: The Principal Contradiction Inherent in the Human Culture: Deep Bases of Thoughts Underlying the Arguments by People on the "Low-living Elderly" Book.(Apr. 21, 2016) (Apr. 29, 2016)
Toru Nakagawa (Osaka Gakuin University, Professor Emeritus; CrePS Institute, Director)
With the intension of extending the TRIZ application to social problems
Interestingly, many readers evaluate Fujita's book very highly while many others very poorly. Typical criticisms are: "The people who became poor because of their selfish and idle lives are not blamed for their deed, but the society is blamed instead. The book recommends people to scrounge off the social welfare, and then our country will fail financially. Welfare must take into account of people not only with good will but also with ill will, otherwise it cannot convince the people commonly. The solutions suggested by the author deny the market economy and democracy, hence they are unrealistic. "
Reading them, I recognized that underlying deeply in the people's arguments there is a very basic issue related to social philosophy and social ethics. Considering the issue, I have written down this working paper, on the contradiction of Liberty vs. Love. Liberty generates the world of Competition, while Love appears as Mutual aid. Both Liberty and Love are important targets (guiding principles) for us humans. But there are conflicts (contradictions) in Liberty, in Love, and between Liberty and Love. The Human Culture has been trying to find the ways to extend both of them and to resolve contradictions of them, I recognized. My new recognition may be described as follows:
(1) The Human Culture takes Liberty as its First Principle and pursues for extending it. Liberty is for every person to decide, to act, and to live for oneself. Liberty aims at Winning various, natural or social, Competitions. Liberty of a person necessarily collides (Contradicts) with Liberty of another person.
(2) The Human Culture takes Love as its Second Principle and pursues for spreading it widely. Love is for every person to help and protect one's children and one's family. Love aims at Self-controlling one's Liberty and at eliminating collisions among Liberty in one's Family. Love, for helping and protecting the Family (or Insiders), tries to counter the (attacking) actions from Outsiders. Considering the Family (or Insiders) as a social Activity Unit, Love generates Liberty and Competition at a higher social level.
(3) The Human Culture has been extending the two Principal Principles, i.e., Liberty and Love, and has been asking how to use these two often-contradicting Principles in compatible and appropriate ways. Liberty vs. Love is named the Principal Contradiction of Human Culture, in the present paper.
(4) As the guidelines for containing and motivating both Liberty and Love and coordinating them, the Human Culture has been acquiring Ethics, i.e., Moral, Conscience, in plain words. The core part of Ethics is supposedly installed already in our DNA; and for the same reason it is too obvious and difficult to write it down clearly. The concept of Fundamental Human Rights is a part of Ethics stated clearly.
(5) Throughout the history of Human Culture, Humans have been trying to extend the two Principal Principles, Liberty and Love, and to resolve the Principal Contradictions between them, i.e., Liberty vs. Love. Human Culture has developed to build various Social Systems. The issue of Resolving the Principal Contradiction, however, has become more and more complex and difficult.
(6) The first reason for causing such difficulties is that the Social Systems have been built so many, so multi-layered, so large in scale, and so complexly connected, and hence the reality and ideals (or Guidelines) of Liberty, Love, and Ethics for various Social Systems have not been made clear yet and understood commonly in the world. The second reason for difficulties is the actual situations where even though the Guidelines of Liberty, Love, and (social) Ethics were made clear, many individuals and social organizations insist on their own interests (i.e., Liberty) and take actions not in accordance with Ethics, and actually become Social Winners. And such actions and organizations, from very small to very large in the scale, exist everywhere in the World and have their own histories accumulated in many layers.
Further, in the near future, the present author wishes to investigate the real situations and conceptual directions of Liberty, Love, and Ethics for Social Systems in different levels.Summary version of this working paper is posted: PDF, 2 page
TRIZ Forum: Letters from Readers (Mar., Apr. 2016） (Apr. 7, 2016) Index page of "Letters from Readers"
English page
H. Sanchez asked me how to access the English edition of the Fuda-Yose Tool, so I revised the relevant English pages in this site. He responded "All received and it is crystal clear for me now". A month later, he send us a message "I am using Fuda-Yose method as an exceptional tool to summarize books. Clear and simple. By sure, there are more fields to apply it." Tan Eng Hoo, responding to my request, sent me their report of "The Rising TRIZ Generation" for sharing, as you see inJapanese page
T. Ogawa suggests the importance of working, in some form, even after the formal retirement. Nakagawa suggested an improvement of the Fuda-Yose Tool, and Akihiro Katahira is going to post a revised version soon. K. Nishiyama communicated with me about his attendance at TRIZCON2016. F. Sasama sent me her thoughts on my discussion on the 82 customer reviews of Fujita's book in the Amazon site.
TRIZ Activities: "The Rising TRIZ Generation" in Malaysia ( Apr. 7, 2016)
Tan Eng Hoo (Malaysia TRIZ Innovation Association, Malaysia), Activity Report, Feb. 4, 2016
This is an splendid report of of the MyTRIZ activity that all the 31 members of Pioneers Class 2015 achieved the Level 3 Practitioner Certificate of the International TRIZ Association (MATRIZ). Here you see the young, energetic, well-prepared, and systematic activities of acquiring TRIZ in Malaysia !! The report is shown in its original PDF and also in HTML for your easier access.
TRIZ News: TRIZ News in Japan ( Apr. 7, 2016)
TRIZ News: TRIZ News Outside Japan ( Apr. 7, 2016)
ETRIA TFC2015 Proceedings containing all the presentations are publicized .
Editorial: 'New Information' posted in 2013 is moved to the archive file (Apr. 7, 2016)
Social Problem Forum: A Customer Review of Takanori Fujita's "The Low-living Elderly" and A Discussion of the 82 Customer Reviews of the Book in the Amazon Site (Mar. 30, 2016) (Apr. 29, 2016)
Toru Nakagawa (Osaka Gakuin University), Mar. 25, 2016. (Posted: Mar. 30, 2016)
Fujita's book was published at the end of Jun. 2016 and has become one of the best sellers, selling over 250,000 copies in 9 months. To the Amazon.co.jp site, 82 Customer Reviews have been contributed. It is remarkable that many evaluate it highly while many others evaluate it very poorly. I reviewed all the 82 reviews closely, writing personal comments. I contributed my own Customer Review to the Amazon site with the title "Visualizing the logic of Fujita's Book "The Low-living Elderly", I made a pamphlet of 24 pages of diagrams". In the review I recommended 10 reviews and briefly commented on 15 other important reviews. In this site "TRIZ Home Page in Japan". I posted a page describing in detail the discussions on the 25 Customer Reviews. Conflicting views/opinions in many different aspects are valuable for considering the solution directions in this important issue.
Social Problem: Poverty Problems in the Japanese Society: [A] Increasing poverty among the elderly [1] Introduction to "The Low-living Elderly" book by Takanori Fujita (2015) (Mar. 30, 2016)
Toru Nakagawa (Osaka Gakuin University), Mar. 29, 2016
This is the entrance to a series of pages concerning to the current social problems in Japan, especially the poverty among the elderly, the middle-aged and young, and the children. First in this page the best seller book, written by Takanori Fujita, a young social worker, is introduced. The description of the book is explained chapter by chapter in English.
Introduction, (1) What is 'the low-living elderly',
(2) Actual living of 'the low-living elderly': Cases and backgrounds,
(3) Anybody has the risk of falling down to the low-living,
(4) The day when your arguments of 'Make more efforts' and 'Self-responsibility' will kill yourself -- Issues of recognition and understanding,
(5) Old-built system and non-responsive policy produced the low-living elderly -- Examining the system and the policy,
(6) How to protect yourself -- Measures before and in a low-living elderly situation,
(7) Proposals of policy.
For me to fully understand the book, the method of Visual Thinking with 'Fuda-Yose' Tool was helpful and productive. You may refer to the pages recording the work and the documents (performed in Japanese and reported in English)
USIT/CrePS Presentation: Keynote Lecture: Six-Box Scheme: New Paradigm for Creative Problem Solving (Mar. 3, 2016)
Toru Nakagawa (Osaka Gakuin University, Professor Emeritus) ; Keynote Lecture, The 6th International Conference on Systematic Innovation (ICSI 2015), July 15-17, 2015, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Hong Kong.
I gave this Keynote Lecture at ICSI 2015 in July last year at Hong Kong. At the conference, I gave the Tutorial Lecture
USIT/CrePS Presentation: Tutorial: USIT (Unified Structured Inventive Thinking) in the Six-Box Scheme (Mar. 3, 2016)
Toru Nakagawa (Osaka Gakuin University, Professor Emeritus) ; Tutorial Lecture, The 6th International Conference on Systematic Innovation (ICSI 2015), July 15-17, 2015, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Hong Kong.
I gave this Tutorial Lecture on USIT for 3 hours in English at ICSI 2015 held last July in Hong Kong. This Tutorial is a full explanation of USIT to the beginners of it, using the USIT Manual
TRIZ/USIT/CrePS Papers & Presentations:: General Methodology of Creative Problem Solving: TRIZ/USIT/CrePS: A guide to Papers & Presentations by Toru Nakagawa (May 2015 - Mar. 2016)(Mar. 3; May 8; May 31; Jun. 27, 2016)
Toru Nakagawa (Osaka Gakuin University, Professor Emeritus) ; TRIZ Home Page in Japan (May - Jun. 2015), Intn'l Conf. Systematic Innovation (ICSI 2015) (Jul. 2015), Japan TRIZ Symposium (Sept. 2015), Japan Creativity Society Annual Conf. (Oct. 2015), ETRIA TRIZ Future Conf. 2015 (Oct. 2015), Journal of Japan Creativity Society (Mar. 2016), Altshuller Institute TRIZ Conf. (TRIZCON 2016) (Mar. 2016)
For these 9 months or so, I have posted my work on 'Visual Thinking over poverty in Japanese society' but none on 'methods of creative problem solving'. As a matter of fact, I gave many presentations and wrote papers at the conferences/journals shown above on my original theme. I was too busy to post them in my Web site, to my regret. So I am now going to post them here one by one.
My presentations are closely related to the one main theme, and describe from some different aspects, and reflecting the step-by-step progress of the work. The language and form of them vary much. Thus in the present page I am going to tabulate the presentations to clarify their titles, sources, languages, forms, etc. for helping my readers access suitable references.
-- Papers, slides, etc. of all the conferences and journals listed above have been posted already in English and in Japanese (Jun. 27, 2016).
TRIZ Forum: Letters from Readers （Dec. 2015 - Feb. 2016） (Mar. 3, 2016) Index page of "Letters from Readers"
English page
Communications on the poverty issues by Shahid Arshad and Ravi Chandra Phan. The report from Malaysia 'The Rising TRIZ Generation'Japanese page
Communications on the poverty issues from T. Maekawa, Y. Matsubara, and C. Fukuda. Communication on the earthquake prediction research with T. Asano. Communication on the late Professor Hayato Togawa with Prof. Y. Oyanagi, with the memories of the SALS Project in 1975-1980. 'Idea Marathon' developed by T. Higuchi is the method of continuous self-training of creative idea generation. 'Writing down at least one idea every day on the notebook' results in a steady habit and powerful capability in 3 months. Many industries, universities, and kinder gardens in Japan (and also abroad) have made successful results in mass introduction.
Social Problem: Thinking over the Poverty in the Japanese Society with Visualization: [A] Increasing poverty among the elderly [1] Executive summary with visualization of Takanori Fujita's "The Low-living Elderly" Book (Jan. 28; Mar. 6; Mar. 30, 2016)
Toru Nakagawa (Osaka Gakuin Univ.), Jan. 26, 2016;
Source reference: "Karyuu Roujin" ("The low-living elderly") by Takanori Fujita (Asahi Paperbacks 520, Jun. 2015, pp.222).
For the readers principally interested in social problems, I am going to start a new series of pages here.
The document visualizing Mr. Takanori Fujita's book "The Low-living Elderly" has been completed, and is now posted in the PDF version of a pamphlet of 24 pages
The Author pointed out: "The low-living elderly are defined here as the aged people who live at or lower than the social welfare level. It is estimated that there exist about 6 to 7 million of them in Japan at moment. Recent increase in the number of non-regular employments and decrease in the average income in Japan, the poverty is spreading widely among the young and middle-aged people. Thus there is a high risk that in the near future the lives in the aged days may become miserable for most of the Japanese people."
On the basis of author's experiences of NPO welfare activities, he describes various cases of individuals, and discusses what should be done by individuals, society, government, etc. The book is written carefully, systematically, and deeply. Nakagawa read this book closely and represented the logic of the whole book with visualizing diagrams. Such diagrams are very helpful for understanding the problem personally and for discussing in a group. I wish many people read this Fujita's book, think over with the help of the diagrams, and proceed to real activities in Japanese society.
The pamphlets are also printed, for distribution to people much interested in the issue. (Mar. 30 2016)
The method of Visual Thinking and its tool 'Fuda-Yose' Tool are explained briefly referring to relevant pages. English edition of 'Fuda-Yose' Tool may be downloaded without charge at Akihiro Katahira's Web site:
Toru Nakagawa (Osaka Gakuin Univ.), Jan. 26, 2016
Source reference: "Karyuu Roujin" ("The low-living elderly") by Takanori Fujita (Jun. 2015).
The document visualizing Mr. Takanori Fujita's book "The Low-living Elderly" has been completed, and is now posted in the PDF version of a pamphlet of 24 pages
News: TRIZCON2016 to be held on Mar. 3-5, 2016 at New Orleans, LA (Jan. 9, 2016)
Altshuller Institute (USA) is making much efforts for rebuilding its activities, especially TRIZCON. The host is Tulane University. Call for Participation and detailed advance Agenda of the 3-day conference
From the Editor: Message for the New Year 2016 (Jan. 9, 2016)
Editor: Toru Nakagawa (Professor Emeritus, Osaka Gakuin University), Jan. 9, 2016
Greetings from Japan for a Happy New Year 2016!! Wish the year be healthy, happy, and successful for you all and peaceful in the World.
Posted is an English translation of my New Year Card which I sent to about 200 friends in Japan whom I met before my TRIZ days. So it is just a yearly report of my activities.
Forum: Visual Thinking with 'Fuda-Yose' (12) -- Thinking over the poverty in the Japanese Society: [A] Increasing poverty among the elderly (7) Proposals of policy (Jan. 9, 2016)
Toru Nakagawa (Osaka Gakuin Univ.), Jan. 6, 2016
Source reference: "Karyuu Roujin" ("The low-living elderly") by Takanori Fujita (Jun. 2015). Chapter 7: For avoiding the decay of peaceful elder lives for all the 100 millions in Japan
In the last chapter of the book, the Author writes his personal proposals of policy. In the Fuda-Yose diagram, I arranged the labels in a two-dimensional way: From left to right: recognition of the problem situations and of basic principles --> consideration and reasoning --> proposal. From top to bottom: along the stages and logics of the components of the proposal. Detailed version of the diagram (3 pages)
The Author proposes as follows in this chapter:
(1) First of all, the government should realize that the poverty exists widely and growing further in the people and should address the issue of correcting the income disparity and take measures to fight against poverty.
(2) Under the principles of fundamental human rights, Fundamental Law of Fighting against Poverty should be enacted, and the measures for preventing people from getting poor and for saving people from the poverty should be made as the important strategy of Japan.
(3) The government and all the municipal governments should inform that the poor and needy people (including the low-living elderly) can be saved by the social welfare and should guide them to apply for the welfare.
(4) The current system of social welfare should be decomposed into their support categories, so that the supports can be received more smoothly. By supporting the people for some partial categories in the current welfare, the people can make their own living before entirely losing their properties.
(5) Support the people for their housing rent (partially). This releases the low-living people (including the elderly and the young) from the rather heavy burden of rent and builds a better condition for the young to have their home, thus becomes effective as the measures for increasing children.
(6) The current reduction measures of the national pension premium should be informed, so that the low-living young people apply for the reduction instead of no payment in silence.
(7) In place of the current national pension system, a new system should be built in order to guarantee all the people for their living in their elderly days at the minimum level of healthy and cultural living which is guaranteed in the Constitution.
(8) After all, it corresponds to the living support in the social welfare system. Then the current national pension system should rather be quitted and integrated as the living support in the new social welfare system, as described in (4).
(9) For building a society where people can live happily, all the people in Japan should consider and choose proper systems including the taxation system for redistributing the wealth, and should proceed for its realization.
-- I personally agree with these proposals by the Author, Mr. Takanori Fujita.
Forum: Visual Thinking with 'Fuda-Yose' (11) -- Thinking over the poverty in the Japanese Society: [A] Increasing poverty among the elderly (6) How to protect yourself -- Measures before and in a low-living elderly situation (Jan. 9, 2016)
Toru Nakagawa (Osaka Gakuin Univ.), Dec. 30, 2015
Source reference: "Karyuu Roujin" ("The low-living elderly") by Takanori Fujita (Jun. 2015). Chapter 6. How to protect yourself -- For having a peaceful elder life
In Chapter 6, the Author advises first to the low-living elderly what they should learn and what they should do. Firstly, he explains the current social welfare system, e.g., how to apply for the social welfare, what are the requirements for receiving the welfare, and items and amounts of the welfare. He also explains how to receive the medical care free of charge or at low cost, and advises about the recognition and attitudes.
Secondly he advises how to prevent from falling into the situation of the low-living elderly. "Savings are important", he says first of course, but he adds that human relationships in the elderly days are more important than money. Some people can be helped smoothly but some others can not be, he says. People who come early for asking assistance and who are of positive thinking can be helped smoothly. Holding good and rich human relationships and occasions/places of mutual assistance is helpful. His concluding remarks is impressive: "There are many elderly people who live happily even in their poverty. They commonly have rich communications and connections with other people."
The visualized diagrams are posted in HTML
Posted in 2015
Forum: Visual Thinking with 'Fuda-Yose' (10) -- Thinking over the poverty in the Japanese Society: [A] Increasing poverty among the elderly (5) Old-built system and non-responsive policy produced the low-living elderly -- Examining the system and the policy (Dec. 19, 2015)
Toru Nakagawa (Osaka Gakuin Univ.), Dec. 17, 2015
Source reference: "Karyuu Roujin" ("The low-living elderly") by Takanori Fujita (Jun. 2015). Chapter 5. Old-built system and non-responsive policy produced the low-living elderly -- Government depending on individualsIn Chapter 5, the author examines the present system and policy related to the social welfare. He discusses in the following 8 aspects:
(1) Income: The amount of the pension is insufficient for most people. There was an underlying assertion that the elderly can be supported by their family. The trends towards nuclear families and disperse living of family members and relatives have reduced the family functions and undermined the assumptions of the pension system, thus accelerated the problems of the low-living elderly.
(2) Savings: Unstable employment, reducing salary, and increasing price in these years cause the middle and young aged not to make sufficient savings for their elderly days. This will result in even more low-living elderly people in the future.
(3) Medical care: The low-living elderly have less chances of receiving the medical care; some of them are found dead without being attended. Medical treatment in the early stages of diseases is the way to reduce the total cost of medicine for the society.
(4) Elderly care insurance: Many more special elderly nursing home should be built, and nursing care and welfare should be linked in services.
(5) Housing: We should set up some policy for the elderly not to loose their home. Reducing the burden of rent is the crucial key.
(6) Human relationships: The government's negative stance of 'support only after requested' should be corrected; human-relationship safety networks should be built for taking care of the elderly in the vicinity.
(7) Welfare: The level of welfare should not be lowered. Inconvenience in the welfare system should be corrected.
(8) Working conditions: Many elderly people have to work for getting their living income. Assistance for finding work is the way, but more basically we should seek for a social system where the elderly can live without working.
(x) The 'free/cheap lodging houses' are often operated as 'poverty business' in reality, where the owner exploit the low-living elderly.The Author, Mr. Fujita, remarks the conclusion of this chapter very clearly, saying:
(a) The low-living elderly are produced by the present social system, and not by the lack of ability or idleness of the individuals.
(b) The present social system and policy of 'excessive priority in business and discarding the social weak' should be corrected; otherwise the problems of the low-living elderly and the poverty in the Japanese society will not be solved.
(c) Furthermore, we should correct our own recognition and feelings that have been tamed by alienation of humans and neglect of human rights.Visualized diagrams are posted here (summary version) in HTML
Editorial: 'Table of New Articles Posted in the TRIZ Journal' is shown here. (Dec. 19, 2015)
A new page is made here for supporting the activities by The TRIZ Journal. 'Table of New Articles Posted in the TRIZ Journal' is shown, and will be kept up-to-date, in this English page.
Forum: Visual Thinking with 'Fuda-Yose' (9) -- Thinking over the poverty in the Japanese Society: [A] Increasing poverty among the elderly (4) Issues of recognition and understanding (Nov. 27, 2015)
Toru Nakagawa (Osaka Gakuin Univ.), Nov. 23, 2015
Source reference: "Karyuu Roujin" ("The low-living elderly") by Takanori Fujita (Jun. 2015). Chapter 4. The day when your arguments of 'Make more efforts' and 'Self-responsibility' will kill yourself
In Chapter 4, the Author raises a question: "Despite the present situation of increasing number of the low-living elderly, why no serious measures have been implemented so far in Japan?". He finds that the principal factors are poor awareness and ill-understanding by the general public. Such factors push the low-living elderly to the margins of society and the government's attitude of "providing no support without explicit request in person" makes the situation worse.
The Author is actively working with an NPO to support the low-living people. He has received encouraging messages but much more negative and opposing ones from various people. So he is discussing here in response to such messages. The Author discusses logically, but the text seems somewhat complicated in the structure because of the involvement of multiple stakeholders. Visualizing the discussion in the present work has made myself understood this issue much more clearly.
Visualized diagrams (in Japanese) are posted here: Abstract version: in HTMLThe Author points out that the main reasons why no serious measures have been taken for supporting the low-living elderly increasing in number recently are the unawareness and ill-understanding by the general public in Japan.
We Japanese generally have the sound moral of 'to live without depending on others' help'. As a result, when we see or hear about the people who become unable to live self-dependently, we often think "Their efforts are insufficient. They themselves are responsible for their failure. They should not dare to depend on the public support without further efforts and persistence." Such thoughts evaluate poorly the low-living elderly and push them towards the margins of society.
However, viewing the issue in the whole scale of our society, we realize that it is inevitable to have the poor people besides the rich in the competitive society of capitalism. In the history of the humankind, the world has found 'Basic human rights' as a fundamental moral. Constitution of Japan guarantees the people the right to maintain the minimum standards of healthy and cultural living. Therefore, it is not 'overreliance' but 'rights' for the poor and needy people get a support from the country. Recognition, or rather change in thoughts, in this direction is necessary for us all, i.e., the general public, the poor and needy people themselves, and the public administration.
Under the limited national financial situations, how can we support the poor and needy people, not only the elderly but of all other generations, and in various situations? We have to think over the big and complex problem with all our efforts. (The discussion continues to the next Chapter.)An English page
Papers: The Third Collection of Papers Written by Toshio Takahara (2013-2015): "Theory of Resolving Differences (3) Dialectic Logic and the Way of Life" (Nov. 16, 2015)
Authored by Toshio Takahara; Annotated Bibliography by Toshio Takahara (in Japanese); Editing and Introduction by Toru Nakagawa, Nov. 16, 2015
This is the Third Collection of Toshio Takahara's papers containing 9 papers published from 2013 to 2015, following the First Collection (2003-2007, 14 papers)
The papers discuss over the Theory of Resolving Differences, in its wider sense, ranging from the basic concepts, to detailed logic of the methodology, and to the application of concepts. Its core part is the methods of Resolving Differences based on the Radical Enumerative Thinking. By pursuing the thinking methodology, he extended the Dialectic Logic as wider and deeper ways of Resolving Differences. Since he understands that the motivative force of Resolving Differences comes from individual humans, he discusses about the sense of values, world views, attitudes, and ways of recognition, etc. in individual humans, and he regards the whole as the Way of Life of individual humans. In the unified framework of his theory, he discusses about the basic nature of technologies and institutions, detailed logic of the methods of Resolving Differences, and the Way of Life of individual humans, etc. Toshio Takahara has been developing a philosophy with surprisingly large scope.
Nine papers in the present Collection are listed with links to HTML pages and PDF files (mostly written in Japanese). Takahara writes an Annotated Bibliography
The 3-part Research Notes (newly posted now in Japanese) are the highlights of the Third Collection. "There are much more unknown things than known ones. It is important to write what are not known yet", he says. Thus he dared to write the paper of 55 pages in the form of Research Notes. We can read and trace Takahara's ever-developing thoughts up to date.
Toshio Takahara, Rec: Aug. 10, 2015; 20 pages (Japanese) ;
Toshio Takahara, Rec: Aug. 10, 2015; 15 pages (Japanese) ;
Toshio Takahara, Rec: Aug. 10, 2015; 17 pages (Japanese) ;
On the 17th Anniversary of "TRIZ Home Page in Japan": Toru Nakagawa (Nov. 11, 2015)
This Web site "TRIZ Home Page in Japan" celebrates its 17th Anniversary on Nov. 1 together with readers in Japan and over the world. This site is to promote the understanding and real usage of TRIZ by openly publishing information and communications related to TRIZ on a not-for-profit basis. Though I have been operating this site as a volunteer, this site is not a personal site but a public forum to be composed of the contributions by readers, as you see already. Most pages are published in Japanese and in English in parallel for the purpose of mutual understanding and collaboration between Japanese and overseas TRIZ learners/practitioners. I envisage that Pubic Web Sites built in different TRIZ Communities will form A Global TRIZ Community with much reduced language barriers
Forum: Visual Thinking with 'Fuda-Yose' (8) -- Thinking over the poverty in the Japanese Society: [A] Increasing poverty among the elderly (3) Anybody has the risk of falling down to the low-living (Oct. 18, 2015)
Toru Nakagawa (Osaka Gakuin Univ.), Oct. 10, 2015
Source reference: "Karyuu Roujin" ("The low-living elderly") by Takanori Fujita (Jun. 2015). Chapter 3. Anybody has the risk of falling down to the low-living
In Chapter 3, the Author, Takanori Fujita, points out five typical patterns of an elderly person falling down to the low-living: (1) Because of high medical expenses due to diseases or accidents; (2) Because of being not accepted by care houses. Care houses for the elderly at low-cost with the support of the national care insurance are quite short in number. Businesses involved in the welfare have chosen to build luxurious private care houses for much higher profitability instead of government-regulated public care houses, the Author says. (3) Because of their children being dependent to the elderly due to low income (working-but-poor, with less than 2million yen/year) or social withdrawal. This is a case where the (poverty) problems of the younger generation give influences on the elderly. (4) Due to increasing number of divorce of middle-aged or elderly couples. (5) Having become demented but no near-by family support.
The Author writes that the current working generation have much higher risks of falling down to the low-living in their elderly years: The average income is reducing than before, and their pension will be too small to pay for their retired life. Moreover, the income of 4 million yen/year. today is actually much lower than the income of 4 million yen/year in the old days, the Author says. Many companies have reduced their welfare/benefit program for employees. Especially, these days, non-regular employment has increased in ratio; it is characterized with lower wage, poorer working conditions, and unstable status. The Author encourages that all the workers in any style should claim better payment to government and to companies. The trend toward nuclear families reduces the possibility for the elderly to get support by their children. The trend of increase in the ratio of non-marriage among the younger generations may raise the risks of their falling down to the low-living in their elderly years.
-- I agree with these Author's views. It can be dangerous that most Japanese people still have the mentality of 'all Japanese are of middle class'. We should think and work hard to solve the problem of increasing poverty in the Japanese society.
Visualized diagrams of Chapter 3: HTML
TRIZ Forum: Letters from Readers (Sept., Oct., Nov., Dec., 2015） (Oct. 18; Nov. 27; Dec. 19, 2015) Index page of "Letters from Readers"
English page
Short communicationsJapanese page
Communications related to the Visual Thinking diagrams.
(Nov. 27) Akihiro Endo, Toshio Takahara, Akihiro Katahira, Toshihiro Hayashi, Takeshi Yamauchi, Youichi Hasegawa, Toru Nakagawa
Communications on Contradictions and Coexistence, Poverty problem, Visual Thinking, Matrix 2010, Bio TRIZ DB, Solving differences, Dialectic Logic.
(Dec. 19) Naohiko Takayama, Toru Nakagawa, Toshio Takahara
Discussion on the 'low-living elderly', especially on the contradiction of the working ethic (or competition) and welfare ethic (or assistance).
Paper: Practice-Oriented Approach towards Ideative Problem Solving (Part 1) Analogy-Based Ideation in Applied Innovations. (Sept. 30, 2015)
S. Saleem Arshad (Applied Innovations, Australia), Sept. 25, 2015
We have received frequent communications and several articles so far from Dr. Arshad, to my great thanks. Dr. Arshad's approach has been centered on 'Practice-oriented (in place of theory-oriented)', 'Process-based (<-> Outcome based)', 'Practical Knowledge (<-> Abstract knowledge)', 'Applied Innovation', etc. We appreciate much his contributions so far and coming ones.
Announcement: Sales Promotion of Mann's Matrix 2010 (Japanese Edition) by CrePS Institute in the "TRIZ Practices and Benefits" series, Vol. (1A+), (2A+) (Sept. 30, 2015)
Toru Nakagawa (CrePS Institute and OGU)
For promoting the up-to-date TRIZ Contradiction Matrix, Matrix 2010 developed by Darrell Mann, we are happy to announce of a sales of Darrell's books together with the A2-size sheets of Matrix 2010 in their Japanese Editors. The two sheets (of 3 pages) contain List of Parameters & List of Principles and the Matrix. Thus, the modern Matrix 2010 are now purchasable inexpensively (additional price of 2500 yen for 5 sets of data sheets) for using in TRIZ application projects, company divisions, university seminar classes, etc. (Sorry but only for Japanese domestic delivery.) Darrell Mann's message
Forum: Visual Thinking with 'Fuda-Yose' (7) -- Thinking over the poverty in the Japanese Society: [A] Increasing poverty among the elderly (2) Actual living of 'the low-living elderly': Cases and backgrounds (Sept. 30, 2015)
Toru Nakagawa (Osaka Gakuin Univ.), Sept. 27, 2015
Source reference: "Karyuu Roujin" ("The low-living elderly") by Takanori Fujita (Jun. 2015). Chapter 2. Actual living of 'the low-living elderly'
In Chapter 2 the Author describes 4 actual cases where ordinary people have 'unexpectedly' fallen into the status of 'the low-living elderly'. Case (A) (Man of 76 years old, without marriage) Near the age of 40 while working regularly in a restaurant, his father was found ill of cancer. So he quitted his job to go back to his parents' home and took care of his father for 1 year and then his mother for 10 more years. Because no jobs were found in his home town, he moved to Tokyo area and worked in welfare facilities as assistant-helper until 65. He had the savings of 5 million yen at his retirement, and the pension of 90,000 yen/month. The cost of apartment (50,000 yen) and treatment of low back pain and diabetes reduced the savings quickly. With no savings any more, he had to fill his hunger with native grass. [snip for cases (B)(C)(D)] -- Reading the description, I have drawn a graph of 'Personal history of Quality of life (especially stability)' sa shown in the right for Case (A).
The Author summarizes the background: For the elderly, the income becomes much lower than before retirement. Their desire of 'working some longer to get income for filling the shortage of pension' is often impracticable The outgo, however, usually does not reduce as supposed, because of higher risk of 'unexpected' needs of much amount of money. Many elderly people do not have enough savings. Thus the poverty of the elderly is proceeding in Japan and a significant ratio of the elderly have already become at the low-living status. Not only taking care of individual cases but also more importantly systematic social solutions to the widespread serious problems are necessary.
Creativity Software: Fuda-Yose Tool for Visual Thinking -- English Edition Available (Sept. 30, 2015; Mar. 6, 2016)
Akihiro Katahira and Toru Nakagawa, Sept. 22, 2015
'Fuda-Yose Tool' is a handy drawing software tool and supports 'Visual Thinking'. It was originally developed by Akihiro Katahira as introduced in this Web site on Jan. 18, 2015
Visual Thinking method and its tool, 'Fuda-Yose' Tool, have been used extensively by Toru Nakagawa for these 6 months, especially on a social problem: "Thinking over the poverty in the Japanese Society: [A] Increasing poverty among the elderly". The 'Fuda-Yose' Tool (both Japanese and English editions) is now updated into the version 4.0.1. (Mar. 6, 2016)
News: TRIZCON2016 is to be held on Mar. 3-5, 2016 at New Orleans, LA (Apr. 25; Sept. 30, 2015)
Altshuller Institute (USA) is making much efforts for rebuilding its activities and has announced the plan of its next year TRIZCON. The host is Tulane University. The event of 3 days of conference is much anticipated.
Call for Papers: Abstract submission: Oct. 15, 2015; Full paper submission: Jan. 15, 2016
Forum: Visual Thinking with 'Fuda-Yose' (6) -- Thinking over the poverty in the Japanese Society: [A] Increasing poverty among the elderly (1) What is 'the low-living elderly' (Sept. 17, 2015)
Toru Nakagawa (Osaka Gakuin Univ.), Sept. 10, 2015
Source reference: "Karyuu Roujin" ("The low-living elderly") by Takanori Fujita (Jun. 2015). Chapter 1. What is 'the low-living elderly'.
I visualized Chapter 1 with two Fuda-Yose diagrams, one showing 3 characteristics while the other 4 effects.
Characteristics 1: The income is remarkably low. The national welfare minimum (composed of living and housing supports) is about 130,000 yen/month (or about 1.5 million yen/year) for a single elder person living in the metropolitan area. The concept of 'Relative poverty' is used internationally; In the community (e.g.,a country or region), the persons whose income is lower than the half of the median of the income of the population. This criterion gives 1.22 million yen for single persons, essentially equivalent to the national welfare minimum. At this level of living, the basic needs of housing, food, medical care, etc. are often not fulfilled. Characteristics 2: Insufficient or no savings. Low income requires to spend down one's savings, and insufficient savings will result in the crash in living due to any troubles. Characteristics 3: No person to ask for a help (i.e., social isolation). Due to the trend towards nuclear families, people often have no family members/relatives around. These characteristics mean the low-living elderly have lost all the safety nets and are in the situation where they can not live the healthy and cultural life which is ensured by the Constitution. It is estimated that there exist about 6 to 7 millions of the low-living elderly at present in Japan.
The second diagram illustrates 4 effects caused by the increase in the low-living elderly: (a) The elder and their child generations fall into poverty together. (b) The culture of evaluating long happy life and elderly people will be lost. (c) Decrease in the consumption by the young and middle-aged, thus resulting in stagnation of economy. (d) Further reduction in the number of birth of children.
Forum: Visual Thinking with 'Fuda-Yose' (5) -- Thinking over the poverty in the Japanese Society: [A] Increasing poverty among the elderly (0) Introduction AND Index page of the series (1)(2) ... (8) (Sept. 17, 2015; Jan. 28, 2016)) (Nov. 27, 2015; Mar. 6, 2016)
Toru Nakagawa (Osaka Gakuin Univ.), Sept. 10, 2015
Source reference: "Karyuu Roujin - Ichi-oku sou rougo houkai-no shougeki" (The low-living elderly - Coming impacts by the decay of peaceful elder lives for all the 100 millions in Japan), by Takanori Fujita, Asahi Pocket Book 520, Asahi Shimbun Press, Jun. 30, 2015, pp. 222 (Note: The book title in English is Nakagawa's temporary translation)
I am trying in this page to understand the problem of poverty in the elderly by using the recently published book written by a young social worker, Mr. Takanori Fujita, and by visualizing the texts. I wrote down excerpts/abstracts of the original texts, made them into labels, and visualized the logic of the texts by using Katahira's Fuda-Yose tool in accordance with my understanding. Thus the resultant diagrams are a sort of my rather-detailed notes of the book. At the start of the series, I post the records of the intermediate stages of visualization for illustrating the process.
The author says: "Today in Japan the low-living elderly are produced in a large number and we have a serious risk of facing with a situation where peaceful elder lives are lost for almost all the 100 millions of Japanese population. In this book, 'Karyuu roujin' (or 'the low-living elderly') are defined as the elderly people living at/below the national minimum welfare level or facing with such a risk in living. The real situations and their backgrounds are surprisingly unknown. Describing the real problem situations in the full perspectives, we wish to think over solutions together with you, many readers."I have started to post a PDF file
Visual Thinking method has been applied extensively to understand the social problem, "Thinking over the poverty in the Japanese Society: [A] Increasing poverty among the elderly". The present page serves as the parent page(or Index page) of the series (0)(1)(2) ...(8), of the last posting on Jan. 28, 2016.
Forum: Visual Thinking with 'Fuda-Yose' (4) -- Thinking over the poverty in the Japanese Society: Elderly, Middle aged, Young, and Child Generations (Sept. 17, 2015) (Nov. 27, 2015)
Toru Nakagawa (Osaka Gakuin Univ.), Sept. 10, 2015
I am going to start a series of pages on the theme, which is very big, complex, and important, as shown above, and wish to contribute to the society even little by little. My intentions are:
(1) TRIZ/USIT is an approach of focusing and analyzing problems mostly in technical fields, but CrePS is demanded by the society to be applicable to big and complex problems in wider, different fields. So we should try to extend the usage of our methodology.
(2) For handling big and complex problems, we should better visualize the problems from full perspectives. The Fuda-Yose tool is expected to be useful for this purpose.
(3) Among a large variety of problems in the Real World, I chose this social problem because of its importance.
(4) The increasing poverty in the elderly generation, coupled with the low income for the young, tight living for the middle aged, and poverty effected on children, is going to give serious effects on the Japanese society in future.
(5) The politics in Japan is in a miserable state. Especially, Shinzo Abe's government is full of untruth and proceeds against the majority of Japanese people. We ourselves need to think over various problems logically and to speak out and act for making the future of Japan much better.
Having these intentions in mind, I am going to select some good references for visualizing the problems and wish to build up a methodology applicable to solving such complex problems.
TRIZ Forum: Letters from Readers (May - Aug. 2015） (Sept. 17, 2015) Index page of "Letters from Readers"
English page
I noticed two valuable articles in Souchkov's Web site, i.e., TRIZ for business & management and TRIZ glossary. Valeri Souchkov responded to me with thoughtful suggestions how to make a Web site more attractive.Japanese page
Message of my Jun. 26 Update Announcement (in Japanese only) is recorded, as a concise introduction to USIT. Youichi Hasegawa communicated with me many times discussing on the understanding of TOC and CrePS, etc.
Forum: Visual Thinking with 'Fuda-Yose' (3) - Visualizing the logic of Sickafus' Paper 'Subconscious Problem Solving Using Hazy Heuristics'. (Aug. 25; Sept. 17, 2015) (Sept. 17, 2015)
(A) Akihiro Katahira, Aug. 12, 2015; (B) Toru Nakagawa, Aug. 24, 2015; (C) Toru Nakagawa, Sept. 17, 2015
(A) A. Katahira has demonstrated to visualize the logic of Ed Sickafus' recent paper (in the Japanese version) with his Fuda-Yose (or Visual Thinking) method. All the sentences of the paper are made into labels (or Fuda) and their logical relationships are shown in 'Fuda-Yose' diagrams section by section. The diagrams are shown in PDF for all the paper, and in HTML especially for the Abstract.
(B) Nakagawa, reviewing them, thought that for clarifying the logic of a compact document like the Abstract we should decompose some sentences further into their logical units. So I applied the Fuda-Yose method to the Abstract. The visualization was actually done in 4 steps; the diagrams are posted in HTML, in PDF, and in the original Excel file. This example has demonstrated the merit and easiness of Visual Thinking. (English version of Nakagawa's diagrams will be posted later.)
(C) Using the original English texts, the Fuda-Yose diagrams were made in parallel to (B). Then the final diagram was further revised for clarifying the logic by suppressing some details. The diagrams, including those in the intermediate steps, are posted in HTML
USIT Paper Q&A: Q&A on USIT and the OAF diagram (in relation to "Subconscious Problem Solving Using Hazy Heuristics" by Ed Sickafus) (Aug. 25; Sept. 17, 2015)
Q: Toru Nakagawa (OGU), A: Ed. Sickafus (Ntelleck), Email communications from Jun. 27 to Jul. 21, 2015
This page records the fifteen Q&A communications recently carried out in relation to Ed Sickafus' paper
"Unification of USIT to One Graphic (OAF) Heuristics", Ed Sickafus, Jul. 2, 2015
He explains the definition and usage of the OAF diagram concisely and describes his research motivation towards fundamental principles in problem solving thinking.
In the communications, the start of SIT (Structured Inventive Thinking, later renamed as USIT) in Ford was revealed to be 1985 instead of 1995; the year shown in his USIT Textbook (1997) and in his USIT paper (1999) was found to be a typo.Further discussions, by Ed Sickafus, Toru Nakagawa, and Shahid Saleem Arshad, Aug. 14 to Sept. 15, 2015. 15 more email communications are added. (Sept. 17, 2015)
USIT/CrePS paper: Subconscious Problem Solving Using Hazy Heuristics (Aug. 25, 2015) ; (Jul. 29, 2015);
Ed. Sickafus (Ntelleck, LLC, USA), Keynote Lecture presented at the 5th International Conference of Systematic Innovation (ICSI 2014), held on ; International Journal of Systematic Innovation (IJoSI), 3(1) (2014); Posted here on Aug. 25, 2015; Japanese translation by Toshio Takahara, Hideaki Kosha, and Toru Nakagawa, Posted here on Jul. 29, 2015.
Dr. Ed Sickafus (the original developer of USIT) seems to have shifted his focus to the research of understanding the activities of our brains to get creative solutions and utilizing them effectively. In 2006
We have been developing the problem solving methods in the direction of making them structured and logical, i.e. 'Structure Problem Solving' methods. Its purpose is to communicate about the methods among people and to build and educate the culture. Once we have mastered such a method thoroughly, we as an individual may (and should better) use subconscious thinking more actively as the shortcuts in the problem solving process, he recommends. -- This may be the position of super-experts, as in the old saying "Enter the Form, and Leave the Form".
Forum: From Readers: Visual Thinking with 'Fuda-Yose' (2) - Converting a (short) document into labels and make 'Fuda-Yose' diagrams for Visual Thinking (Toru Nakagawa, Akihiro Katahira) (Jul. 29, 2015) -- No English page yet.
Toru Nakagawa, Akihiro Katahira, Posted on Jul. 29, 2015
As a basis of using Visual Thinking, Nakagawa asked Katahira to show the method of converting a (short) document into labels automatically and making 'Fuda-Yose' diagrams. Katahira demonstrated the method by using Nakagawa's request message. He has made a detailed record of the conversion and drawing, in the 'Fuda-Yose' Excel sheets. The final 'Fuda-Yose' diagram clearly shows the intentions of Nakagawa's request and corresponding answers by Katahira.
Forum: From Readers: Visual Thinking with 'Fuda-Yose' (1) - Example of Burning Suicide in Shinkansen Case (Akihiro Katahira, Toru Nakagawa) (Jul. 7, 2015; Jul. 8; Jul. 19, 2015) -- No English page
Akihiro Katahira, Toru Nakagawa, Posted on Jul. 7, 2015; Comments and contributions by Youichi Hasegawa, Katsushige Hino, Naohiko Takayama, Toru Nakagawa, Posted on Jul. 8, Jul. 19, 2015
Visual Thinking method and its tool 'Fuda-Yose' were developed by Akihiro Katahira and introduced in this site
CrePS/TRIZ/USIT Documents: USIT Process Documents (Index): USIT (Unified Structured Inventive Thinking): A Concise Process of Creative Problem Solving in the 'Six-Box Scheme' (May 25, 2015) (Jun. 26, 2015)
Toru Nakagawa (Osaka Gakuin Univ.), May 25, 2015 (in Japanese), Jun. 26, 2015 (in English).
This is the index page of the documents related to USIT and belongs to the document system of CrePS. USIT ('Unified Structured Inventive Thinking') was originally developed by Dr. Ed Sickafus (1995) as a concise and consistent problem solving process and has been extended further in Japan by integrating and unifying various TRIZ methods into USIT Operators. By recognizing the Six-Box Scheme (of USIT) as a new paradigm of creative problem solving, USIT is now established as a concise overall process for the real practice of the General Methodology of Creative Problem Solving (CrePS)
This page has the indexes of the following 4 items:.
(A) USIT Manual: Table of contents (especially the steps of the USIT process)
(B) USIT Case Studies: Table of the case studies and links to the individual cases
(C) USIT Operators: Links to the pages of simple/full/extended versions of USIT Operators, Cross Indexes to USIT Operators => TRIZ tools and TRIZ tools => USIT Operators.
(D) USIT References: List of principal references on USIT, especially methodological references
CrePS/TRIZ/USIT Documents: A Collection of USIT Case Studies: USIT (Unified Structured Inventive Thinking): A Concise Process of Creative Problem Solving in the 'Six-Box Scheme' (May 25, 2015) (Jun. 26, 2015)
Original posting in "TRIZ Home Page in Japan", Toru Nakagawa (Osaka Gakuin Univ.), May 25, 2015 (in Japanese), Jun. 26, 2015 (in English).
A number of case studies published so far in different places are collected here. Individual case studies are described in full extent in a consistent format according to the USIT Manual
Toru Nakagawa (Osaka Gakuin Univ.), May 25, 2015 (in Japanese), Jun. 26, 2015 (in English). [Source Ref. Tsubasa Shimoda (Toru Nakagawa), Thesis, Osaka Gakuin University (2006)]
This Case Study is originally based on Tsubasa Shimoda's Thesis at Osaka Gakuin University (2006) and revised further by Nakagawa. For a familiar, everyday-life problem, the USIT thinking process from the problem definition to the solution construction is explained well. Even children can understand how to think for this problem.
Toru Nakagawa (Osaka Gakuin Univ.), May 25, 2015 (in Japanese), Jun. 26, 2015 (in English). [Source Ref. Source Ref. Kazuaki Kamiya (Toru Nakagawa), Thesis, Osaka Gakuin University (2004)]
This Case Study is originally based on Kazuaki Kamiya's Thesis at Osaka Gakuin University (2004) and is further revised by Nakagawa. In binding sheets of papers with a stapler, the staple may be crashed in case of 30 or more sheets. We wanted to improve the stapler so as to be able to bind some more sheets. Initially we suspected that the looseness around the axle was the cause of weakness. In the middle of some experiment, we met an unexpected phenomenon and found the root cause of the problem. For solving the problem we used Altshuller's Smart Little People's Modeling (SLP). Even children can understand and enjoy this case study.
Toru Nakagawa (Osaka Gakuin Univ.), May 25, 2015 (in Japanese), Jun. 26, 2015 (in English). [Source Ref. Hong Suk Lee and Kyeong-Won Lee (Korea), The TRIZ Journal (Nov. 2003)]
This Case Study has solved a familiar, widely known problem 'how to save the water consumption for flushing in a toilet system'. The authors applied the concept of Physical Contradiction of TRIZ to this problem and solved it excellently. Once they show how to define the problem and how to handle it, even school children would start suggesting ideas just like the ones in this Case Study. By describing this Case Study in the 'Six-Box Scheme' of USIT, we can easily follow its thinking process. Because of its clarity, I love this Case Study for explaining the concept of Physical Contradiction and its solving steps.
Toru Nakagawa (Osaka Gakuin Univ.), May 25, 2015 (in Japanese), Jun. 26, 2015 (in English). [Source Ref. Ed Sickafus, USIT Textbook: "Unified Structured Inventive Thinking: How to Invent" (1995); Toru Nakagawa (2001, 2005) ]
This case was originally described by Dr. Ed Sickafus in his USIT Textbook: "Unified Structured Inventive Thinking: How to Invent" (1995). It has been used, revised, and extended by Toru Nakagawa as a standard USIT case study along with the development of USIT itself. A standard USIT Case Study on a familiar problem, easy to understand for everybody and yet deep in thoughts.
Toru Nakagawa (Osaka Gakuin Univ.), May 25, 2015 (in Japanese), Jun. 26, 2015 (in English). [Source Ref. Toru Nakagawa (1999) ]
This Case Study was originally made by Toru Nakagawa at the 3-day USIT Training Seminar conducted by Dr. Ed Sickafus in Mar. 1999. It used the Particles Method, an extension of Altshuller's Smart Little People's Modeling (SLP), effectively in solving the problem. In the description of the present Case Study, I inserted the Attribute and Functional Analyses, which were skipped in the original case study, for the purpose to illustrate the USIT process fully. A real problem in the field of chemical engineering is solved with the Particles Method.
CrePS/TRIZ/USIT Documents: USIT Manual: USIT (Unified Structured Inventive Thinking): A Concise Process of Creative Problem Solving in the 'Six-Box Scheme' (May 25, 2015) (Jun. 26, 2015)
Original posting in "TRIZ Home Page in Japan", Toru Nakagawa (Osaka Gakuin Univ.), May 25, 2015 (in Japanese), Jun. 26, 2015 (in English).
USIT ('Unified Structured Inventive Thinking') was originally developed by Dr. Ed Sickafus (1995) as a concise and consistent problem solving process and has been extended further in Japan by integrating and unifying various TRIZ methods into USIT. By recognizing the Six-Box Scheme (of USIT) as a new paradigm of creative problem solving, USIT is now established as a concise overall process for the real practice of the General Methodology of Creative Problem Solving (CrePS)
Manual of the USIT process has been described in the form of 31 slides along its steps. The USIT process is now fully described by use of the consistent demonstration of a case study and instructions and remarks on the USIT concepts and its thinking process. Examples of USIT usage in the 'Collection of USIT Case Studies' are described along the steps of the 'USIT Manual so that you can understand USIT fully in its variety of usage. The Manual is posted both in HTML (with images)
TRIZ News: The TRIZ Journal has been restarted on Jun. 11, 2015 by BMGI. (Jun. 19, 2015)
The TRIZ Journal has been restarted under the operation by BMGI (USA)!! Congratulations !!! All the archived contents of the original TRIZ Journal (founded and edited mainly by Dr. Ellen Domb in 1996) are kept active, while new papers and articles are published from now on. Web site: http://www.triz-journal.com/
The new editorial policy has been announced: to accept contributions widely and openly; to ensure the original author's copyrights; to be unbiased and fair; to edit only for clarity, not for content; to be of high quality and professional; etc. I feel it a nice policy for making The TRIZ Journal an active global-hub Public Web site in TRIZ. Hope many of you be active contributors of articles and frequent readers of the new TRIZ Journal, for proliferating TRIZ and related methods over the world. (Toru Nakagawa, Jun. 19,2015)
On the new top page, Nakagawa's paper is re-posted: "General Methodology for Creative Problem Solving and Task Achieving: Its Vision", Toru Nakagawa, originally presented at 13th ETRIA TRIZ Future Conference (TFC2013), held on Oct. 29-31, 2013 at Ecole Nationale d’Arts et Metiers of Paris, Paris, France; Proceedings, pp. 705-715; "TRIZ Home Page in Japan", posted on Oct. 3, 2013
CrePS/TRIZ/USIT Documents: USIT Manual and USIT Case Studies (Toru Nakagawa (OGU)) (May 25, 2015)
USIT ('Unified Structured Inventive Thinking') was originally developed by Dr. Ed Sickafus (1995) as a concise and consistent problem solving process and has been extended further in Japan by integrating and unifying various TRIZ methods into USIT. By recognizing the Six-Box Scheme (of USIT) as a new paradigm of creative problem solving, USIT is now established as a concise overall process for the real practice of the General Methodology of Creative Problem Solving (CrePS)
Manual of the USIT process
TRIZ Forum: Letters from Readers (Jan. - Apr. 2015） (Apr. 25, 2015) Index page of "Letters from Readers"
English page
(a) E. Domb lists up a large number of TRIZ organizations of national/regional/international levels. (b) I. Belski sent inquiries to over 20 TRIZ people in the world concerning the experiences of TRIZ-related education in universities. I responded to send several references of my experiences posted in this Web site. (c) J. Harrington asked over-20 AI members for some real data showing the impact of TRIZ. A. Zusman among others responded. I recommended K.J. Uhrner's paper presented at ETIA TFC 2005. (d) J. Kowalick was interested in the earthquake prediction research especially using Mahalanobis-Taguchi System. (e) The photoes of Cherry Blossom have attracted a number of Spring Greetings.Japanese page
(f) O. Saito, a beginner of learning USIT, asked questions on two illustrates of 'Picture Hanging Kit Problem. I answered him that his comments are right in part and we should be very careful in drawing the problem/solution situations. (g) K. Yamaguchi is interested in the earthquake prediction research and mentions the possibility of analyzing 10,000 aspects of information simultaneously by using Maharanobis-Taguchi method.
Editorial: 'New Information' posted in 2012 is moved to the archive file (Apr. 25, 2015)
Publication Announcement: "TRIZ Practices and Benefits" Book Series are now available at Amazon.co.jp Market Place, only for domestic delivery (Apr. 25, 2015)
Book series published by the CrePS Institute (Toru Nakagawa) are now purchasable at the Market Place of Amazon.co.jp. The printed editions of volumes (1A), (2A), (3), and (4) are available for the standard price plus 259 yen for delivery (as fixed by the policy of Amazon). No shipping out of Japan. Books and their DL editions are available at the DLmarket site as before.
TRIZ Paper: Fundamental Theory: A Note on a Method and Granularity in the Structure of the World (Apr. 12, 2015)
Toshio Takahara, Presented at FIT2013 (Forum on Information Technology), held by IPSJ and IEICE, on Sept. 4, 2013, at Tottori University, Tottori City; Introduction by Toru Nakagawa (OGU), Apr. 4, 2015.
In this 8-page paper, Mr. Takahara addresses with his life-work theme: "To understand the world in a consistent manner, to realize the real basis of our human ways of living, and to establish a general and logical methodology for such a study." As the basis of his logic, he builds the concepts of 'existing things' which can be perceived directly or indirectly (i.e., matters and ideas), and of their relationships (i.e., interrelations, interactions, and movements). And on such a basis he builds up the ways of describing the whole world, which contains technologies, institutions, and persons. For such a description, he finds the necessity of 'radical enumerative thinking' (i.e., a clearer extension of ordinary-said 'systematic thinking') and expressions of contradictions (i.e., a clear extension of the familiar term 'problems'). He also extends the logics of dialectics in a much wider meaning. Using these logical methods, the author considers the basis of person's recognitions and actions and derives how the person decides them, with a range of consideration (i.e. granularity) and with a logic for solution (i.e., a thinking method). Then he discusses further basis of the person, i.e., the person's attitudes. The width and depth, and clarity, of the author's consideration is indeed astonishing.
In Japanese, a full paper
TRIZ/USIT/CrePS Talk: Methodology of Creative Problem Solving: TRIZ and Its Extension ~ Scientific Methods for Innovation ~ (Apr. 12, 2015)
Toru Nakagawa (Osaka Gakuin Univ.), Special Lecture for 'Creation of Innovative Future Medicine', Graduate School of Medical Science and Next-generation Advanced Medicine Promotion Center, Tottori University Hospital, Tottori University, Yonago City, Tottori Prefecture, Japan, on Jan. 20, 2015.
The 57 slides were given in a lecture for 90 minutes to graduate school researchers. But no need of prerequisites. I first describe that the basic Four-Box Scheme of Abstraction which is generally assumed in the current science and technology has a limitation and that many conventional 'Creativity methods' address with different partial aspects without having a sound overall view. As new scientific approaches to inventive thinking, I explain TRIZ first, which was developed in the former USSR, and then USIT, which was developed under the influence of TRIZ in USA and extended further in Japan. On the basis of them, the Six-Box Scheme was newly formulated as the paradigm for 'General Methodology of Creative Problem Solving' (CrePS). These four stages of development of the methodology of creative problem solving reflect my own understanding for these 18 years since I first got acquainted with TRIZ in 1997. Slides in Japanese
TRIZ/USIT/CrePS Talk: General Method of Creative Problem Solving: 'Six-Box Scheme' (Jan. 8; Apr. 12, 2015)
Toru Nakagawa (Osaka Gakuin Univ.), Talk at Wada Saloon #141, Yokohama Science Frontier High School (YSFH) on Dec. 1, 2014
A talk presented to a dozen of highschool students at a voluntary educational & communicative class initiated by the Supreme-Advisor, Professor Akiyoshi Wada. Using 20 slides I gave a talk with many small exercises on Creative Problem Solving Methods for just 60 minutes. To the high school student, I tried to give a general view of how to think and solve problems creatively, by the demonstration and exercises on my favorite case study 'How to make a knot with short string at the end of sewing'. Full slides in Japanese
TRIZ Forum: Links to Papers Are Added in Nakagawa's Personal Report of Japan TRIZ Symposium 2014 (Mar. 27, 2015)
Toru Nakagawa, Mar. 26, 2015
For the presentations at Japan TRIZ Symposium 2014, the Japan TRIZ Society posted in its official Web site the PDF files of the invited talks and award-winning presentations on Nov. 19 and those of all other contributed presentations on Jan. 14. In this "TRIZ Home Page in Japan", I have posted selected 9 presentations, under permissions by the authors. In the Personal Report (posted on Nov. 27, 2014), I have added the links to all these PDF files in the JTS site and the HTML pages in this Web site.
TRIZ Paper: Social application: Methods and Examples of Applying the Business Management Related Evolution Trend Proposed by Darrell L. Mann – Translating the Evolution Trends from the World of TRIZ into the Daily Business and Management – (Mar. 27, 2015)
Hisataka Izawa, Ikuo Yoshizawa, Osamu Ikeda, Xiaolei He, Fumiko Kikuchi, Yasuo Moriya (Business and Management TRIZ Research Subcommittee, Japan TRIZ Society), Presented at 10th TRIZ Symposium in Japan, Sept. 11-12, 2014, at Waseda University, Tokyo;
The B&M Study Group reported last year how to generate 'hit products/services'. Since they found the tool of 'Trends of evolution' effective, they tried to make it more useful.
(1) They have made a booklet in Japanese for introducing the Trends of evolution in Darrell Mann's "Hand-On Systematic Innovation for Business and Management".
(2) They have clarified the relationships of the Trends of evolution with several other methods often used in the B&M fields: they include: Nonaka's SECI model, 4 viewpoints in the Balance-score cards (i.e., finance, customers, business process, and learning & growth), and SWOT (Strength, Weakness, Opportunity, and Threat).
(3) They made a case study of applying the Trends of evolution: To transfer the technologies of some abandoned business for starting a new business model of servicing the technologies. They have found the examination of 3C (i.e. Customers, Company, Competitors) with respect to the 32 Trends of evolution very useful.
In Japanese, the full descriptions of the extended abstract and the presentation slides are shown in HTML
TRIZ Paper: Social application: Proposal of an Easy Value Evaluation Method by Means of TRIZ - Taking the Proposal for a New Life Style of the Elderly People as an Example - (Part 1) (Mar. 27, 2015)
Kimihiko Hasegawa, Nozomu Takeuchi, Toshimitsu Kataoka, Narumi Nagase, Shigeru Suzuki, Toshiaki Masaki, Hirotsugu Ishihara, Sadao Nishii (Intellectual Property Creation Research Subcommittee, Japan TRIZ Society), Presented at 10th TRIZ Symposium in Japan, Sept. 11-12, 2014, at Waseda University, Tokyo;
The IP Creation Study Group, after completing a multiple-year project, discussed freely about what they should work on next and decided to work on this topic. They decided 'The aged and their relevant people live a happy life' as the top purpose (or vision) and 'The aged people solve the problems of their own and others' as the target (or goal). In more concrete words, they recognize the problem 'The researchers and engineers around their retirement age want to live a life with some good motivation' and wish to have solutions towards 'For achieving their own visions, the aged people solve their own problems as well as others' problems'. -- This is an important topic for many aged engineers, including many TRIZ practitioners, and for the whole society in Japan. We hope this approach fruitful.
In Japanese, the full descriptions of the extended abstract and the presentation slides are shown in HTML
TRIZ Paper: Industrial application: One Method for Expanding TRIZ Application -- Applying TRIZ to Products that TRIZ can Hardly be Applied to -- (Mar. 27, 2015)
Yoshiharu Isaka (IDEA Inc.), Presented at 10th TRIZ Symposium in Japan, Sept. 11-12, 2014, at Waseda University, Tokyo;
In the areas of 'Utility engines' for example, some standard products have been delivered for decades without much change, because of no change in the requirements for basic usage as the power supply in the working machines for agriculture, forestry, etc. Isn't there any room for applying TRIZ? The author thinks the key is to find the 'sales points' which can convince the target users, i.e., the person who is in charge of selecting the engine in the working machine manufacturer. Thus one has to think of various functions and features as the 'sales points' by using some idea generation methods. Then TRIZ will help to generate some methods for realizing the functions/features. All these processes are regarded as the 'Theme definition' stage in the problem solving process with TRIZ. -- This is an unfancy but important proposition.
Presentation slides are posted in HTML in Japanese
TRIZ Paper: Industrial application: How to Lead Beginners to TRIZ at the Place of Practices (Mar. 27, 2015)
Shigeru Hisanaga (DENSO Corporation), Presented at 10th TRIZ Symposium in Japan, Sept. 11-12, 2014, at Waseda University, Tokyo;
This paper was presented last September at Japan TRIZ Symposium(see my Personal Report
DENSO introduced TRIZ since 10 years ago and has been promoting its application to 250 projects so far (See
Presentation slides are posted in HTML and in PDF
Editorial: An Advice for Searching Pages in This Web Site (Mar. 27, 2015)
Toru Nakagawa, Mar. 23, 2015
Try to use the following alternative retrieval methods depending on what sort of pages you want:
(a) Top Page (for New Information (with introductions) within 6 months),
(b) Four Entrance Pages (for Children, for Students, for Engineers, and for Practitioners), [Table of Contents is added in each of these Entrance Pages. (Mar. 27, 2015)]
(c) Categorized General Index Pages (Editorial, References, Papers, Forum),
(d) New Information accumulated (for all the pages listed in the chronological order since 1998)
(e) Any relevant pages (use the links in the texts and in the link tables), and
(f) Site Search with Keywords
Forum: Earthquake Prediction Research: Up-to-Date Report on the Early Detection of Omens of Anomalies in Monitoring Power Plant Equipment (Anomalous phenomena detected just before earthquakes) (Mar. 7; Mar. 9, 2015)
Takumi Yoshioka (Mado-Planning Co.), Hiroaki Kawai (Hokkaido Institute of Technology), presented at Japan Society of Mechanical Engineers (JSME), 15th Symposium of Power and Energy Technologies, C102, Jun. 20, 2010 (in Japanese)
Professor Yoshioka developed a software system for monitoring the operation of electric power generators in thermal and nuclear power plants and for detecting omens of anomalies and failures for the purpose of maintenance and smooth operation of the equipment. In such data, he has found effects of earthquakes vividly. The data monitored every minute show the effect of instantaneous jumping of the generator due to the S-wave of an earthquake, and after the quake the data show unstable increase of wattless currents due to some off-alignment of the generator axes. In addition, since 30 minutes before the earthquake there appeared anomalous behavior in the data, just like the generator is roaring. It is not caused by earthquake vibration but by some electromagnetic effect. This paper was presented a year before the March 11 Earthquake, clearly expressing the possibility of predicting an earthquake. Please give us some time for English translation of the full text.
Forum: Earthquake Prediction Research: Introduction to the Research of Short-term (or Just-before) Prediction of Earthquakes by Use of Electromagnetic Phenomena: Especially Works by Professor Takumi Yoshioka (Hokkaido University of Science) (Mar. 7; Mar. 9; Mar. 27, 2015)
Editor: Toru Nakagawa (Osaka Gakuin University, Professor Emeritus), "TRIZ Home Page in Japan", Posted on Mar. 7, 2015 (Updated: Mar. 9, 2015)
Even though it is somewhat exceptional for the present "TRIZ Home Page in Japan", I am going to start the Forum for introducing researches on earthquake prediction by posting various papers and articles. In this Index Page of the Forum, I will explain my intention.
(a) Short-term (or just-before) prediction of earthquakes is eagerly desired for reducing the possible damages of the earthquakes. Seismological Society of Japan (SSJ) and Japanese government, however, state that the short-term prediction of earthquakes is (almost) impossible and make no significant efforts for research in such a direction.
(b) (Conventional) seismology regards the short-term earthquake prediction impossible, because it uses mechanical aspects (e.g., position, displacement, stress, vibration, etc.) as the keys. If so, we should better try to use different types of signals, and we know electromagnetic signals are most useful in general, as TRIZ suggests.
(c) The electromagnetic aspects of earthquakes are not yet well known, and researches in such directions are often criticized premature or even as a fake. However, we should make efforts in multiple aspects in parallel, e.g., discoveries of new phenomena, inventions of methods for detecting and observing new phenomena, revealing the mechanisms of the new phenomena, inventions of extracting and utilizing useful information from the new phenomena, etc., so as to stimulate one another.
(d) Last year, Earthquake Prediction Society of Japan (EPSJ) was established for promoting the research of short-term earthquake prediction especially putting stress on electromagnetic aspects.
(e) I recently learned Professor Takumi Yoshioka's work where some electromagnetic signals are detected with online monitoring system of electric power generators, and I think it hopeful and significant. Since it is not known widely yet, I wish to contribute to the promotion of its examination and further development.
(f) In this Index page of the Forum, I am going to post indexes of articles posted in the present site, references, and discussions, etc. [Index to references has been enhanced in the Japanese page. (Mar. 27, 2015)]
TRIZ Paper: Industrial application: Development of a Spinning Top by TRIZ & TM & Simulation -- Challenge at All-Japan Koma Taisen -- (Mar. 7, 2015)
Tomohiko Katagiri (IDEA Inc.), SWCN (Solid Works Club of Nagano), Presented at 10th TRIZ Symposium in Japan, Sept. 11-12, 2014, at Waseda University, Tokyo;
This paper was presented last September at Japan TRIZ Symposium(see my Personal Report
SWCN is a voluntary, not-for-profit group of engineers and SME owners of different industries having activities since 2007. 'All-Japan Manufacturing Industry Koma Taisen (Spintop battles)' was first held in Feb. 2012 and second in Feb. 2013. The koma (or spintop) must be smaller than 20 mm in diameter and be turned by fingers without using any tool. There is no limit in the weight, length, shape, materials, etc. The battle between 2 komas is performed on a slightly concave ring. The koma spinning longer on the ring wins the game, and the koma winning the game twice in a row win the match. Battles and komas are shown by movies posted in the Web site of the Koma Taisen Association
The slides explain the processes of considering various contradictions in the design and examining different design prototypes by use of Taguchi method and simulations. The SWCN's koma was extraordinary in its shape; just after turning, the koma opens its 3 arms for hitting out the competitor (named 'cat's punch'), and it won the second place at the Second All-Japan Koma Taisen.
In the Japanese page, Extended Abstract and the presentation slides are shown in HTML; Slides in PDFis publicly accessible in the JTS site. In the English page, Extended Abstract only is shown; See the slides in English (translated by JTS) via the link
TRIZ News: TRIZ News in Japan ( Mar. 7; Jun. 19, 2015)
Call for Participants (PDF)
TRIZ News: TRIZ News Outside Japan ( Mar. 7, 2015)
**** Due to the recent outbreak of MERS in South Korea, GTC2015 was decided to be postponed. Reschedule will be announced sometime later. (Jun. 19, 2015)
Preliminary Agenda is announced: Invited Keynote & Tutorial Speakers (Rescheduled): Darrell Mann, Toru Nakagawa, D. Daniel Sheu
Paper: Social revolutions: Generalized structure of social revolutions (Feb. 10, 2015)
Tetsutarou Yasuhira (Advanced Institute of Science and Technology, Japan), Journal of Japan Society of Information and Knowledge, Vol. 20, No. 2., pp. 103-110 (2010); Reposted in "TRIZ Home Page in Japan", Feb. 20, 2015.
I received this paper from the author last December and was rather puzzled at first. But when I read it, I understood that he describes the processes of big social changes, or revolutions, in a general and conceptual way. Since TRIZ tries to identify and solve contradictions to proceed for ideality, we know that we can apply TRIZ not only to technological problems but also non-technological, human, and social problems. Thus, I am happy to repost this paper here under the official permissions of JSIK. The abstract and the figure in English show the essence of the present paper, I hope. The full paper and author's profile are posted in the Japanese page.
TRIZ Paper: TRIZ marketing for the Ubiquitous concept ～ So that anyone uses TRIZ anywhere anytime ～ (Feb. 10, 2015)
Shigeru Kasuya (Proengineer-institute), Presented at 10th TRIZ Symposium in Japan, Sept. 11-12, 2014, at Waseda University, Tokyo;
For responding to the TRIZ users' apparent/hidden needs, the author tries to make the usage of TRIZ inexpensive, with the slogan of "Anyone can use TRIZ anywhere anytime." He presents 10 examples of such solutions. They are: Smart phone version of 40 Inventive principles (1 screen/principle); 40 Inventive principles adapted for the IT/software field; understanding various other methods in relation to TRIZ (e.g., Checklist method by Osborne, NM method (by Masakazu Nakayama), Wai-gaya meeting at Honda, Goal deployment, QC story approach, etc.). For more detail, you may refer to the author's Web site (in Japanese)
Paper: Creativity Tool and methods: Introduction to Visual Thinking Software 'Fuda-Yose Tool' and Its Web site 'Thinking School I' (Jan. 18, 2015)
Akihiro Katahira, Dec. 28, 2014; Excerpts from Katahira's Web site: http://members3.jcom.home.ne.jp/dai1kousha/; English translation by Toru Nakagawa.
The author developed a handy software tool for drawing and handling labels smoothly on Excel sheets for supporting 'Visual Thinking'. Information in Excel cells can be converted with a click into labels, and such labels, connecting lines, and enclosures may be moved around smoothly on the sheet, just like Post-It Notes on a big paper. With such dynamic operation of labels, users' thoughts are much stimulated in idea generation, document composition, discussions in a group, etc. The software tool is very useful and effective.
The author has built a Web site describing various methods for generating thoughts in a systematic, yet easy to understand manner. He puts emphasis on his 'Visual Thinking' supported by his 'Fuda-Yose' software tool.
The Japanese page has full description on the software tool and the Web site, while this English page has brief introduction to the tool alone.
TRIZ Forum: Letters from Readers （Dec. 2014 - Jan. 2015）(Jan. 18, 2015) Index page of "Letters from Readers"
English page
(a) Danilovsky noticed me of his paper on deriving solution ideas. directly from disadvantages of systems (b) Dewulf, the former owner of CREAX (Belgium), moved to Australia and developed unique software 'patentinspiration.com', by starting AULIVE. (c) Souchkov noticed us the TRIZ Glossary recently developed by MATRIZ. (d) The activities of MyTRIZ (in Malaysia) are quite remarkable. (e) Mirakyan noticed me of his new paper on the application of OTSM-TRIZ. (f) Langevin announced that Altshuller Institute has elected Dr. H. James Harrington as its new President and is going to hold TRIZCON2015 jointly with Innova-Con soon in February.Japanese page
(g) For studying TRIZ Su-Field modeling and Inventive Standards, I recommended Davide Russo's recent paper. (h) Hayashi responded to Prof. Yamaguchi's paper that he also experienced 'Paradigm Disruptive Innovation' in the software development in Hitachi. (i) Yoshioka noticed me that 'Earthquake Prediction Society of Japan' was established last July with the desire of short term prediction of earthquakes on the basis of electromagnetic phenomena of earthquakes.
TRIZ Paper: Finding the needs of customer by the SN Matrix and TRIZ process -- The functional approach for connecting methods and 7 solutions -- (Jan. 18, 2015)
Takashi Ogata, Kazuhiro Fujikawa, Hiroyuki Tsuchiya (OLYMPUS Corp.), Presented at 10th TRIZ Symposium in Japan, Sept. 11-12, 2014, at Waseda University, Tokyo;
The authors pursue for the methods of linking their technological seeds (S) with their customers needs (N); they want to provide new products/services of attractive quality and to reveal some hidden needs of customers. For such a purpose they have developed a scheme of describing their aims and means consistently in terms of 'functionality'; hierarchy of aims (for what aims/purposes they want to use their technologies) and of means (what types of means are available/needed for achieving the aims) are described. For each of the function, the authors clarify their goal/current levels of realizing the function, competitors' technology (contents and their levels), customers' requirements, and priority, and write them down in a tabular form named as 'SN Matrix'. The authors found that the representation scheme of functions in the SN Matrix is consistently applicable in their 7 categories of problem solving processes (or 'solutions').
-- This is an excellent presentation having experiences of real applications and theoretical framework together. It is remarkable that the authors group have won the 'Best Presentation for Me' Awards for these 4 years consecutively at Japan TRIZ Symposia by the participants voting.
This page posts Extended Abstract in HTML and in PDF
From the Editor: Message for the New Year 2015 (Jan. 8, 2015)
Editor: Toru Nakagawa (Professor Emeritus, Osaka Gakuin University), Jan. 6, 2015
Greetings from Japan for a Happy New Year 2015!! Wish the year be healthy, happy, and successful for you all and peaceful in the World. I am posting the New Year card in Japanese which I sent to many Japanese friends whom I got acquainted before my TRIZ days. I am much concerned about the current situations of Japanese society. Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is driving Japan in the wrong direction, especially in economics policy making many ordinary people poorer in the life and in distorting the pacifism in our Constitution. Democracy in Japan is not working well unfortunately. There are many big and complex issues to be addressed in relation to lives of people. -- In such a situation, I should do my best what I can; i.e., to establish the General methodology of creative problem solving (CrePS) and to spread it widely. I have written down several tasks and plans for the new year 2015. I wish to work for them in collaboration you. Best wishes!
TRIZ Forum: Letters from Readers: Introduction to A New Publication: "TRIZ 40 Principles" by Yoshinori Takagi (Jan. 8, 2015)
Communications by Yoshinori Takagi (Sony), Sept. 11; Oct. 2, 2014; Toru Nakagawa (OGU), Sept. 29, 2014
The present page introduces to an excellent new publication in Japanese, "TRIZ 40 Principles" by Yoshinori Takagi, published by Discover 21, Inc., Tokyo, on Aug. 30, 2014. The book is very well organized in the contents, in the grouping of Principles, in the descriptions of individual Principles, and in illustrating application examples of the Principle, etc. It is quite reasonable that the book has been one of the best sellers in the Engineering/Patents & Invention genre in Amazon.co.jp. Congratulations!! Unfortunately, however, in the belt and in the Preface of the book, the descriptions look too much journalistic/sensational, used to be typical in late 1990s in Japan, and contain several misleading catch copies in relation to the TRIZ history in the former USSR. Nakagawa sent a comment to Mr. Takagi on such misleading catch copies for the purpose of preventing them from being spread to readers new to TRIZ. (Full description in Japanese, but shorter in English.)
TRIZ Paper: SUGOROKU of TRIZ Inventive Principles ～ 40 Principle Symbols Arranged on 9 Windows ～ (Jan. 8, 2015)
Yoshinori Takagi, Presented at 10th TRIZ Symposium in Japan, Sept. 11-12, 2014, at Waseda University, Tokyo; English translation of slides supported by Toru Nakagawa (OGU)
At the TRIZ Symposium 2012, the present author reported the hand-script symbols of the 40 Inventive Principles, and was appreciated highly. This year, he is reporting the idea of classifying the 40 principles into 9 groups for easier teaching. The principles are classified into 4-membered groups from the top, with a minor adjustment to make the 8th and 9th groups into 6-membered groups. He has given names to the nine groups, then arranged them in the 9 windows (3x3), and made the path of going through them in a way like a sugoroku game. He explains how to teach and utilize the Principles and their symbols, by using the 'Making harmless' group of Principles 21 to 24. -- The symbols and their groups are very easy to understand and memorize. The description of usage is vivid and attractive. The present site posts the Extended Abstracts
TRIZ Paper: Symbolize TRIZ 40 principles (Jan. 8, 2015)
Yoshinori Takagi (Sony Corp.), Presented at: 8th TRIZ Symposium in Japan, Sept. 6-8, 2012, at Waseda University, Tokyo
TRIZ 40 Principles are very powerful tools but 40 are too many to remember. Thus the Author devised hand-script symbols of the principles by arranging the style of the principle number to represent the meaning of the principle. In this manner, the principles and their numbers have been made easier to remember in pairs. By using them repeatedly, one can remember the principles by heart and can use, say, the Contradiction Matrix fluently and take notes of principles coming out in mind while reading technical documents, he says. The presentation obtained a 'Best presentation for me' Award of the Symposium by the participants voting. The present site posts the Author's Extended Abstract
Last updated on Nov. 10, 2022. Access. point: Editor: nakagawa@ogu.ac.jp
