APR
26
2013

Job-Hub’s In-house Development Team Uses Cacoo to Create & Deliver Design Blueprints

In the previous post CacooUp Tokyo & Taipei 2013, we featured some of our Cacoo users who were involved in the events as presenters. One of our Tokyo presenters, Hideki Okubo, has joined us for an interview together with his colleague, Issei Nomiya, at Job-Hub - a web-service provided by Japan-based Pasona Tech Inc., sharing more extensively with us their opinions on Cacoo’s utility in relation to their work.

About Job-Hub

For those who are not familiar with it, Job-Hub is a Japanese online crowd sourcing service that provides recruitment and staffing solutions for your business.

The service provides a highly customizable and tailored platform for job listing and job search. Whether you’re searching for a job as a “Co-worker” or you’re looking to hire someone as a “Client”, Job-Hub allows you to input preferences such as workload, employment availability, and location etc, to ensure that you find the job that well accommodates your lifestyle, or the right personnel who can meet all the prerequisites and demands of your business.

Job-Hub is a commission based service, which means that it is almost entirely free to use. Job-Hub only charges the Client when a hiring contract has been established and completed (10% of the Co-worker’s remuneration). To date, this web-based service has successfully matched jobs with remuneration values between ten thousand to a million yen. Its extensive and thorough service sees its customers through job appointment, procurement, and until all aspects of the employment contract have been secured. Pretty incredible, don’t you think?

In-house Planning & Development Teams

Job-Hub’s development processes are both allocated in-house as well as outsourced. The in-house team consists of two sub-teams: the planning team and the development team. According to Issei, differences between the two groups with regards to their respective roles and responsibilities pose certain challenges to communication flow, which essentially led them to discover Cacoo. They needed a tool that allowed every member from both groups to be able to work on Job-Hub’s screen design, a tool that even individuals without the necessary technical background could tinker with.

After searching around for a suitable tool, they found Cacoo. Issei, who quickly started experimenting with Cacoo, was thoroughly impressed by the simple UI which didn’t require him to pore over manuals and guides to learn. Soon enough, the team was sold on the idea of using Cacoo as a common work tool.

Designing Blueprints and Testing Concepts with Cacoo

Meetings have become more productive as Cacoo allows all team members to view the design blueprint simultaneously, as well as to make comments and execute changes directly onto diagrams in real time. With the design blueprint and its specifications frequently changing, Cacoo enables the team to always have access to the latest, most updated versions.

“The tool is like an extension of my own hand” says Hideki, as Cacoo allows him to annotate his thoughts and the visuals in his head onto diagrams in a flash. Right now, the team is also using Cacoo to develop and organise their plans, experimenting with ideas on the canvas by tiling stencils together, dismantling them, and then gradually forming feasible outcomes.

As for their future plans for Job-Hub, the guys also talked about its expansion through the integration of other web services and are considering the possibility of employing Cacoo API to develop something new for Job-Hub. That would definitely be an exciting collaboration for us at Cacoo.

For now, thank you, Issei and Hideki, for taking time to share with us this great piece of user story with us!


Pasona Tech Inc.  http://www.pasonatech.co.jp/
Provides human resource and staffing solutions in the field of IT and engineering, as well as crowdsourcing services via Job-Hub.


Job-Hub  http://jobhub.jp/
New crowdsourcing platform by Pasona Tech Inc. providing job appointment, procurement, and settlement services.

AUG
2
2012

Interview with Colleen in Taipei

We’ve been requesting face-to-face interviews to our users when we visit different countries. The purpose of these interviews is to understand what users in the other part of the world are expecting from Cacoo and receive feedback about our future plans.

Colleen in Taipei 01

We interviewed Colleen during our visit to Taiwan. She also helped the CacooUp in Taipei as a volunteer with her colleague, Sandra.

They welcomed the event's guests with their cheerful smiles and seeing them enjoying helping Cacoo event made us feel happy, too.

Colleen works at the same mobile AV game developing company as Sandra and she is in charge of planning mobile application servies. Since Sandra recommended Cacoo to her, she has been using Cacoo when she plans iPhone, Adroid and iPad applications. She likes to use Cacoo because to plan the UI, she just need to drag and drop stencils.

She listed 3 points she likes about Cacoo:
1. It's easy for Taiwanese users as Cacoo supports Chinese
2. Cacoo saves diagrams automatically so she doesn't need to worry about losing her diagrams in case the browser or her computer crashes
3. User friendly interface makes Cacoo easy to start using

We started to accept inquiries and communicate with Cacoo users on Facebook and Twitter in Chinese recently. We hope it makes users like Colleen enjoy using Cacoo in Chinese better.

Also using items for UI designs from the Cacoo Store helps to planning mobiles apps even easier. Please check the Store if you don't see Stencils and Templates you need for your diagrams.

Xie xie, Colleen.

Colleen in Taipei 02

AUG
2
2012

Interview with Sandra in Taipei

We’ve been requesting face-to-face interviews to our users when we visit different countries. The purpose of these interviews is to understand what users in the other part of the world are expecting from Cacoo and receive feedback about our future plans.

Sandra in Taipei 01

The next interviewee is Sandra. She replied to our email when we asked the volunteer at the CacooUp in Taipei.

She and her colleague, Colleen, helped the event as receptionists and I'm sure those who attended the event remembers them well as they greeted our guests in a very cheerful way.

She works as a manager for a mobile AV game developing company. For the interview, we visited her office which was located on the 32nd floor. Most of her colleagues seemed young and the office was filled with fun and creative materials, in addition to the nice view.

As she needs to follow the IT news, she checks the new technologies and applications every morning. While she was browsing her favorite blogs, she found Cacoo among the top 50 innovative services.

When she makes AV plan or drafts, she prefers to use Cacoo as it has varieties of beautiful stencils that help her diagrams to be rich.

She has been recommending Cacoo to her friends and colleagues. She emphasis that Cacoo can be used online and multiple users can edit the same diagram at the same time.

Xie xie, Sandra.

Sandra in Taipei 02

APR
19
2012

Interview with Belle in Taipei


We’ve been requesting face-to-face interviews to our users when we visit different countries. The purpose of these interviews is to understand what users in the other part of the world are expecting from Cacoo and receive feedback about our future plans.

Belle in Taipei 01

Our last interviewee at an university in Taiwan is Belle. She volunteered as an MC at the CacooUp in Taipei and her wonderful personality and skills led the CacooUp in Taipei to the success.

She is an English Bachelor of Business Administration student and also helping younger students as a teaching assistant.

She was having a hard time drawing on her desktop drawing applications and her friend recommended her Cacoo. Now she is happy as she can output the images that she has in her mind without struggling with difficult applications.

She believes visual explanation is easier for both speaker and listener to understand so she draws many diagrams. When drawing many easy diagrams like she does, complicated functionalities are not necessary. She became an expert of Cacoo in one night and since then she's been using it all the time.

She has been recommending Cacoo to her friends at school because students are always busy and they can draw nice diagrams fast and easily on Cacoo.

Xie xie, Belle.

Belle in Taipei 02

APR
18
2012

Interview with Lily in Taipei

We’ve been requesting face-to-face interviews to our users when we visit different countries. The purpose of these interviews is to understand what users in the other part of the world are expecting from Cacoo and receive feedback about our future plans.

Lily in Taipei 01

The next interviewee in Taiwan is Lily. She's an university student, majoring Industrial Engineering. She is interested in analyzing and designing cooperative machines for humans.

Her friend at school recommended Cacoo and she has been using it for drawing network charts and presentation materials.
In the last semester, her team was asked to renew the school's website to be optimized for the mobiles. She used Cacoo for designing the site so that students can find the school's information easily and smoothly on their mobile devices.

She recommends Cacoo because it's easy to make a sample using plenty of ready-to-use items and she just need to put items in the certain space and move them around.

Xie xie, Lily.

Lily in Taipei 02

APR
11
2012

Interview with Wendy in Taipei

We’ve been requesting face-to-face interviews to our users when we visit different countries. The purpose of these interviews is to understand what users in the other part of the world are expecting from Cacoo and receive feedback about our future plans.

Wendy in Taipei 01

The secound user from Taiwan is Wendy. She is majoring Applied Linguistics at university and she can speak Japanese and English as well as her native language, Chinese. She helped us to communicate with other students and teachers while we visited her school.

Her club members recommended Cacoo to her. According to her, she's not good at technologies so she liked the simplicity of Cacoo. She makes organization charts and presentation materials and she said "I can do what I want to do and what I want to present in a very short time".

She recommends Cacoo as it is user friendly. For her simple process is more important than comlicated process for great features.

Xie xie, Wendy!

Wendy in Taipei 02

APR
5
2012

Interview with Jeff in Taipei

We’ve been requesting face-to-face interviews to our users when we visit different countries. The purpose of these interviews is to understand what users in the other part of the world are expecting from Cacoo and receive feedback about our future plans.

Jeff in Taipei 01

The first interviewee from Taiwan is Jeff. He is an university student and majoring Social Science and Business Administration.

He has volunteered as a speaker at the CacooUp Taipei. He created a presentation material on Cacoo and used another application called Prezi to make the presentation more dynamic by zooming and leading the audiences' focus.

Jeff in Taipei 02

He found Cacoo while he was looking for a tool to draw a diagram for his previous presentation. He needed something he can make diagrams quickly and neatly. Also as he was going to do the presentation with his friend, he needed a tool that can be shared with others easily.

During the search on the Internet, he found Cacoo and he liked it. According to him, since he's not good at drawing (though his presentation looks great), he told us that Cacoo's stencils are very useful to draw a diagram as he play a jigsaw puzzle.

He showed us how the use of Cacoo can be expanded by using with other applications. If you have any recommended application that works with Cacoo nicely, please let us hear

Xie xie, Jeff!

Jeff in Taipei 03

JAN
20
2012

Cacoo team visited Taiwan!

A Happy New Year everyone!

During the holidays, Tabata-san and I visited Taipei. One of the main purposes of our visit was to research how Cacoo is used and recognized in Taiwan, as the number of users in Taiwan has been growing rapidly. (Other than that, I wanted to visit my friend in Taipei, be spoiled by yummy foods in Tawain and run away from the cold weather in Japan.)

We scheduled to meet one of our reliable Traditional Chinese translators, Planetoid, and his friends who are famous bloggers/editors in Taipei.

Our meeting was held at Hiiir Space near MRT Zhongxiao Dunhua station. It was kind of hidden café in the area but we really liked the atmosphere.

One of the people we were introduced to was Vista. He told us that he just introduced Cacoo in "雲端服務大閱兵,十大新秀亮相 (10 new good cloud services)" article on Business Next, a very popular magazine in Taipei.

Business Next

Though he hasn't used Cacoo much prior to our meeting, he started to use more and soon he became an expert and shown his diagram in his blog post.

Esor came in later after his work. He is an editor at P CuSER and has been using Cacoo for a while. He wrote a blog post a while ago about Cacoo and we were so happy to meet him finally as his post triggered Cacoo to be popular in Taiwan.

It was a very meaningful meeting for us. We now know how Taiwanese people expect Japanese products be. Thank you Vista, Esor and Planetoid!

Hiiir Space

The next day, we visited Fox's office. He owns a company that provides iCook, a Taiwanese cooking site and app. As iCook and Cacoo are both new services, we discussed more about startups in Taiwan and Japan. It was a good opportunity for us as it gave us good ideas how we can improve our service in Taiwan and in the world.

Fox

After the meeting with Fox, we had a dinner meeting with Jeremy from TechOrange Global. Being raised by Taiwanese and American parents, his opinion was a bit different from other people we met in Taiwan. He told us, for example, Taiwanese people like cute designs, while American people would prefer more professional-looking sharp designs. We also discussed about how startups in Taiwan are working to grow in and beyond Asia over good Dim Sum. (I really enjoyed the meeting and food and totally forgot about taking a picture with him...)

Through walking around the city of Taipei, I recognized that people in Taiwan are open to services and products from other parts of the world. Also, people are kind to each another and happy to share information and willing to listen other people's opinion. These might be reasons that Cacoo has been accepted by people in Taiwan.

Now we are planning to hold a CacooUp in Taiwan and are hoping to see more users in Taiwan. More details will be announced soon. Please stay tuned!

OCT
6
2011

Interview with Nico in Amsterdam

We've been requesting face-to-face interviews to our users when we go on our World Tour. The purpose of these interviews is to understand what users in the other part of the world are expecting from Cacoo and receive feedback about our future plans.

Nico in Amsterdam 01

The last interview movie from our Euro Tour 2011 is Nico in Amsterdam.

He works at a large IT company and uses Cacoo for taking notes at the meetings and negotiations. He draws what others said and make sure that he understood them by sharing the diagram.

He likes Cacoo because he can use it for free, and from time to time he can upgrade to Plus plan to use extra functionalities.

Nico in Amsterdam 02

He believes that the business documents should be handed over so that the new people can have access to older projects even after the personnel changes. With Cacoo, everything is saved online and it's easy to give access to new members when they join the project.

Besides being a power user of Cacoo, Nico has been a very reliable Dutch translator for Cacoo. He pointed that even though Cacoo is intuitive tool, for those who are not comfortable with the available languages, it could be hard to get start using Cacoo. He took away the language barrier for Dutch users, and thanks to him, the number of Cacoo users in the Netherlands had increased after the Dutch version was added.

It was very inspiring for us to hear feedback from him, especially because he uses Cacoo for different purposes in the different fields than most of other users, who use Cacoo for designing.

Dank u wel, Nico!

AUG
26
2011

Interview with Anup in London

We've been requesting face-to-face interviews to our users when we go on our World Tour. The purpose of these interviews is to understand what users in the other part of the world are expecting from Cacoo and receive feedback about our future plans.

Anup in London 01

In London, we interviewed Anup who attended our Meetup there. Anup is a developer and he works on cloud computing system and web services.

He uses cloud tools, such as Gmail and Google Docs. He started to look for cloud solution for diagramming tool and he found Cacoo. He spread Cacoo to his team and even their manager started to use Cacoo.

They've been using Cacoo for creating flow charts, data flows, designing architectures of their systems, etc.

Anup likes Cacoo because it offers true collaboration. He can create a diagram and can say, "This is what I've done. What do you think?" and other team members can add their feedback on the diagram or edit the diagram directly.

His recommendation of Cacoo: "It's very intuitive and easy to use. Just start using it."

We believe that users can make the best use of the Cacoo's collaborative and sharing features when it's used at work. Cacoo has a variety of stencils for non-designers, too. Team members can create and share project plans, system designs, website designs, etc. on Cacoo.

If you haven't introduced to your colleagues, why don't you start collaborating with them? When they also become Cacoo fans, you can apply for the Team plan with them and get a better deal!

Thanks, Anup!

Anup in London 02

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