CTO of Sansan, Chatwork, and Yapuri talks about communication with engineers

My name is Umi Fujisawa, and I am in charge of public relations and recruitment

I participated in the CTOnight held at Yahoo Osaka on September 6th, 2019

[Sansan, Chatwork, and Yapuri CTO Discusses Communication Theory (MixLeap Special Edition)]

The third installment of CTO Night KANSAI, where CTOs from various companies talk about their company's products and communication!

So, just as I, a non-engineer, was wondering how I could communicate with the engineers in my company and the engineers I met at study groups, a fantastic event came along. Since the general attendance slots were full, I applied for the blog slot and set off

▼The venue was the Yahoo! office on the top floor of Grand Front Osaka. The night view was amazing

What is CTOnight?

▼Around 130 people participated this time, and one person who is a CTO at a venture company asked enthusiastic questions

We will be inviting CTOs (Chief Technology Officers) from technology companies to discuss how the top engineers at each company, both as individuals and as organizations, approach their company's products. This time, we will be gathering CTOs from companies that deal with "communication" in particular to discuss how the top engineers at each company approach their company's products as individuals and as organizations

Source: Yahoo! JAPAN Osaka connpass

This is a truly luxurious event where you can hear from CTOs from three companies in one night

Three CTOs talk about communication

were Mr. Fujikura from Sansan Inc. which provides the cloud-based business card management service "Sansan," Chatwork Inc. Yapuri Inc. which provides an app development cloud . Each of the three panelists spoke about their own unique approaches to communication.

▼ Seita Fujikura (Executive Officer/CTO, Sansan Inc.)

▼Masayoshi Yamamoto (CEO and CTO, Chatwork Inc.)

▼Masashi Sano (CTO, Yapuri Inc.)

Commitment to communication as CTO

The first question , "As CTO, is there anything you are particular about in terms of communication?"

Chatwork Yamamoto-san

Since I myself am an engineer, I try to make sure that my engineers why they are writing code . I also dig deep into the opinions of the company and think about what users really want. This is how I motivate my engineers.

What I hate most is managing with an information gap. make management transparent and that. I put myself on the same level as my manager, so that we can discuss the progress and use the facts. I then let them decide whether to do it or not.

Also, I believe in always keeping humor in mind, so I also place importance on whether my comments will be well-received or not when chatting. I think ideas are born when there is humor

Things to be careful about in internal communication

Yapuri Sano

I am more careful about what I say than I think, because what I say has a bigger impact than I would think. I don't wear earphones . I work alongside my colleagues in the same company as usual.

Chatwork Yamamoto-san

I try not to use phrases like "This might be a good idea" or "Personally, I think this" too often, because it can lead to people assuming,

It's difficult to communicate with everyone, so "chat" session . Weird things are thrown at us every day, so I interject.

How will communication change in the future?

sansan Fujikura-san

Well, I don't know. In addition to oral communication, things like Line stamps have also appeared, but the one that made me think "Wow!" the most was Nico Nico Douga . It's a form of communication that transcends time and space. I'm excited to think about the new communication tools that will be coming out in the future.

Chatwork Yamamoto-san

I think that synchronous communication will be used only when it is important and urgent, and asynchronous communication will increase from now on. Synchronous communication is by phone, and asynchronous communication is by chat or email, which can be viewed later.

I think it would be great if we could decide how to use our time, and if the internal line rings while we're writing code, we can't use our time freely. I want to create a society where we can choose how we communicate so that we can concentrate as much as possible when we want to. Productivity would also increase, and I think business chat is effective in that regard

Some companies place a high value on face-to-face communication and have policies , "Make sure you look people in the eye when you speak! No chatting!" it's inefficient . It requires time and space. So, we communicate digitally to increase the amount of time we spend talking analogically. Digital is a way to create time to talk analogically. Some people think that cold forms of communication like email and chat are on the rise, but I think that's not the case; on the contrary, we're living in an era where analog is being put to good use.

It is also important to communicate by distinguishing between sharing information and sharing emotions, and I think it is best to share information efficiently and keep things creative in an analog format

Yapuri Sano

I think that in the future we will see the birth of new forms of communication that we can never have imagined. When that happens, I think it will be useful to try out things that seem interesting, even if you don't know what they can be used for, and even if they fail, to try out what went wrong and to accumulate information by playing around with new technology yourself .

I also think that consideration is important, and I think that non-engineers often ask engineers to "do this" or "do that. If a non-engineer does something inefficiently, an engineer can just quickly create something convenient , so I think it's important for engineers to be sympathetic to the problems the other person is facing, rather than saying, "That person was asking such a troublesome question."

A tool for sharing emotions

Chatwork Yamamoto-san

I think it's common to hold meetings via chat, but there are some meetings that can't be held via chat. For example, morning meetings, kick-offs, brainstorming sessions, and retrospectives - I don't think it's a good idea to do these sorts of things via chat

When doing creative work, a lot of information is exchanged between people, so it's hard to brainstorm over chat, but as we talk, what's interesting and the ups and downs, so I think that's the good thing about face-to-face meetings. It's hard to do 1-on-1s over chat either (laughs).

sansan Fujikura-san

I'm also an engineer, so I feel that current technology can't keep up with real-life communication. I think the key issue is how to use technology to recreate things like "transmitting emotions." Even when you're talking face-to-face, there can be emotional misunderstandings. Even couples fight. So I would like technology to eventually improve real-life communication even further, , "Apparently, couples missed each other a lot in the days before that kind of thing .

Chatwork Yamamoto-san

When I thought about what kind of technology it was, I realized that typical American couples go to a counselor when they have a fight. When you're married, things get so heated and you get angry, but if you talk to a third party, you can become more objective. I thought it might be that kind of technology, using a smart speaker or something to listen to each other (laughs)

Communication that only engineers can do

Yapuri Sano

I think there are some types of communication that only engineers can do, and they can show this through the things they make . I think it's something that only engineers can do, like secretly making something for someone they see struggling with in a chat.

Chatwork Yamamoto-san

This is just my personal opinion, but engineers are well suited to being managers . Engineers are good at thinking in the abstract, aren't they? I think you can find that in everyday communication as well. I think it's great to be able to communicate by switching between the abstract and the concrete, like creating a department to standardize the wasteful parts of an organization, or saying that this and that are in a loop.

sansan Fujikura-san

I think so too. The things that engineers use every day things that don't have a physical presence and can't be felt . The output of results is also intangible. So discussions between engineers are always vague. Every day we have to think about how to grasp that as a structure, communicate that to others, create a common understanding, and then have discussions. I think that engineers who grow rapidly are good at that kind of thing.

Whether it's sales or marketing, the problems in the work in front of you are almost tangible. I think that people who are able to achieve results in the workforce are generally good at that kind of thing. Engineers are forced to do that from their first year in the workforce. So I think that's an advantage.

▼After the panel discussion there was a social gathering. Mix leap social gatherings are always lively!

summary

At the social gathering, I asked Fujikura-san from Sansan, "How can I, a non-engineer, communicate with engineers?" and he replied, "Don't think about the fact that they're an engineer, just trust and like them completely ." I thought that was so true. It made me realize that the foundation of communication, both inside and outside the company, is to "trust the other person."

This CTO Night featured IT company chief technology officers talking about communication. It was a luxury to be able to hear such rich content in one night, and I simply thought that all three of them looked cool while speaking, even though it's a rather ordinary impression. Thank you to Yahoo for always planning such interesting events! I'll definitely be visiting Mix Leap again in the future!