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FORUM The Tokyo International Forum and me
President, Pia Corp. |
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This autumn, a new ticket centre will be set up in the Tokyo International Forum, operated by the Pia Corporation. So, for this issue, we visited Pia's President Hiroshi Yanai. We asked him about his company's problems to date in the information society and his ideal directions for the future. |
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Pia magazine, founded in 1972.
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We founded the monthly "Pia" when I was in my fourth year at university. We didn't have any money, let alone the knowhow to run a magazine. We just wanted to create something that didn't exist in those days, something we ourselves would find satisfying. The biggest barrier we faced was in marketing the magazine. In the publishing industry, wholesale agents mediate between publishers and bookshops. Without them, there could be no nationwide delivery to bookshops. But 28 years ago, the agents weren't interested in an unsolicited approach from a bunch of students. So then we tried to interest the bookshops directly, in the fashion of the "MiniComi" magazines that were so much the rage then. But when we actually started negotiating with them, they turned us down flat! Then we were introduced to President Nakamura of the Ginza Kyobunkan publishing company, via the late President Tanabe of Kinokuniya in Shinjuku. Mr. Nakamura wrote letters of introduction to all the bookshops. Shops that had rejected us before now started to stock our magazine. This was how "Pia" started. It was all down to "who we knew". It was like a gift from above. But it still took four years before the wholesale agents would take us on. We started with 89 bookshops, but in four years this had grown to 1,600. Our circulation was now more than 100,000 copies, and at last the agents started to contact us. With that, we had reached the starting line as a publishing concern. But I don't look back on all that as a particularly hard time. We were all far too involved in it! |
"Ticket Pia" starts from self-awareness as an information provision business.
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After going via the wholesale agents for about two years, we could at last afford to think about our future strategy. Around that time, a new medium emerged in London, one that was completely ahead of its time. It was called "Prestel" (a word made up from "press" and "telephone"). We felt a strong sense of threat that Pia could be replaced by Prestel. And when we heard that the Ministry of Posts & Telecommunications had jointly developed similar technology with NTT, we started knocking on their doors. We were told they wanted to recruit information providers for an experiment. Pia took part in the experiment, which turned out to be the most epoch-making event in the history of our company. By actually getting involved we learnt a lot of things. I felt that the coming age would be one in which more and more new information provision systems would be developed by matching computers with communication technology. The conclusion we reached on the theme of Pia's survival was that we were not a publishing company - we were a company in the information provision business. That is, Pia's role was to collect information from theatres, cinemas, and other places and to process it in the form of a magazine. Pia should have the function and structure of a gigantic information centre. This conclusion spawned the idea of "Ticket Pia". If we print information on paper and compile it, we have a magazine. If we add seating information and print it on smaller paper we have tickets. And since the readers of Pia and the users of Ticket Pia are very often one and the same, we could expect reciprocal effects. |
Moving into the 21st century with a balance between the rational and the irrational
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In future, I think society will move in pursuit of rationality and efficiency as we go through the 21st century. IT will be the tool. But people aren't machines. They're living beings, and as such, they won't be satisfied with that alone. If a pendulum swings one way, it will always swing back the opposite way. As much as we move towards rationality and efficiency, we will also move towards irrationality and non-productivity to the same degree. This is the element of "play". People in future will need more "play time" than ever before. In music, for example, the sound of a CD in your own room is unbeatable. In a concert hall the sound is broken up, and the musicians are no more than the size of peas. It's completely irrational. But everyone wants to go to concerts. I think this is a highly symbolic phenomenon. Our work at Pia should also proceed in awareness of these two opposites. Although leisure and entertainment belong to the realm of "play", if we view them from a business angle we naturally have to pursue rationality. An example of work we tackle from the rational point of view is our digital ticketing. Digital tickets are non-contact cards with IC chips embedded in them. One card can carry any number of tickets for entry into an event. A display monitor can show the event schedule, a map of the venue, the seating plan, details of the ticket purchase, and other information. Our company is also advancing towards digitalization and greater efficiency. But on the other hand, events like the Pia Film Festival that we hold in the Tokyo International Forum have nothing to do with rationality. And they're certainly not profitable! But we need these too. We need to create a balance in the awareness of our employees. Pia is based on a spirit of play. That was our starting point, after all. |
TIF should be a base for international networks between young people.
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This autumn, we will open a Pia Ticket Center inside the Tokyo International Forum. This is very appropriate for the image of a venue, especially as we also hold our "Pia Film Festival" there. On top of this, there are many other theaters in the Hibiya, Yurakucho, and Marunouchi area, making it a suitable location for a ticket center. There are also a lot of new ideas for ticketing there. Worth looking out for! Going back to the Tokyo International Forum, I also think it should function as a base for international networks between young people. When Japanese culture is introduced abroad, there is a tendency to concentrate only on traditional performing arts. But actually, I think people now want to know more about the up-to-date, contemporary Japan of today. At the Tokyo International Forum, you can go to concerts or events, and see the newest in Tokyo today! Witness the modern era! See Japan as it is right now! I hope this can be the biggest attraction of the Tokyo International Forum. |
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