Tokyo Blogger Dinner

Japan's Social Technographics 2008
Above photo: I had a great time discussing the impact of social media on culture and business in Japan with Tokyo’s top bloggers. Image taken by Andrew Shuttleworth –used with permission

The following portion is updated the day after the blogger dinner.

Read Michael Whang’s blog report of “Tokyo 2.0”
Jonathen Browne posts his thoughts on the movers and shakers of Toyko

Last night’s blogger dinner with Tokyo’s finest was interesting, aside from meeting the movers and shakers in this space, discussed the social web and it’s impact on culture, we had a fun time enjoying food and drinks.

I encouraged the attendees not to socialize but to also think about how social technologies impact culture, business, and Japan, we had some very interesting discussions, and the viewpoints from many of the ex-pats were often similar to the Japanese. I met some of the social media evangelists at large Japanese companies, as well as entrepreneurs, professional bloggers, and local VCs.

As I tried to circulate to many of the different tables, I started to hear patterns in the discussions. I asked folks to think about the adoption of these tools (this graph aboves shows a high degree of consumption by ‘spectators’) yet I quickly learned that many corporations are not participating with these tools, there’s just a handful of companies using these tools in public (Nissan, Sanyo, and several are conducting buzz marketing efforts). I’m still formulating my thoughts on why this is the case and what can be done –but I want to loop back with Jonathan Browne, Forrester’s expert on Japanese Customer Experience to bounce of him as a sounding board –more to come on this topic soon.

Original post below.
I’m excited to meet Tokyo’s top bloggers at a community blogger dinner, I’m cruising through many of the attendees blogs before the event, sadly, about half of them I’m unable to read –gotta learn Japanese. Here’s the lineup for tonight, quite a few ex-pats.

Akihitok’s polar bear blog
Andrew Shuttleworth
Tokyo Reporter
Clast English blog about consumer and media insights in Japan
Dominic Carter : Tokyo resident and food lover, in English
What’s happening in Japan right now: English blog
Gen Kenai: I’ve met Gen before, and pretty much everyone knows him in Japan to Silicon Valley
Smart Security Blog
Jonathan Browne is Forrester’s analyst in Japan, English and Japanese
Kaorine’s blog:
Kristopher Tate: Founder of Zooomr and personal friend of mine
Primetime
Matt Romaine
Michael Whang is from Toronto, blogs about technology
Mikihiro Yasuda
Nob Seki
Robert Sanzalone
Shin Fukushige: a returnee venture capitalist living and working in Tokyo
ICHINOHE Blog
Honjo Biz
Dseneste
The Western World
J-Magic
Taromatsumura
Social Media Marketing: This one, I really wish I could read.
IT Blog Jiji
Blog Myrss
If I missed anyone, leave a comment, I’ll add you in.

I’ll add my notes and pictures to this post later.

See you tonight!

While we’re all connected by bits and bytes, there’s nothing like meeting people in real life, I’ve met bloggers all over the world, you can see the archives, I’ll be adding to this over the years, it’s a great journey.

The following pics were taken by Midori Allen of Forrester and used with permission


Jeremiah Owyang in Japan 2008 007Jeremiah Owyang in Japan 2008 018Jeremiah Owyang in Japan 2008 016
Jeremiah Owyang in Japan 2008 013Jeremiah Owyang in Japan 2008 010Jeremiah Owyang in Japan 2008 011

8 Replies to “Tokyo Blogger Dinner”

  1. Hi Jeremiah, I’m an American who has recently returned to the U.S. after living in Japan for 20 years, where I was a journalist. I’ve written up a translation (see below) summarizing the main page of Social Media Marketing (http://www.socialmediamarketing.jp/), which you mentioned in your post. Hope it’s useful to your readers.

    Best regards, Dawn

    * CGM Conference 2008: How “kuchikomi” (word-of-mouth communication)
    maximizes the the effects of web marketing (Posted on 10/21)
    Date: 11/14; 10:30-17:00
    Place: Belle Salle Kyudan (in central Tokyo)
    Noted speakers are from JT Beverage, Galabuzz, Blogwatcher, nifty and
    Unilever Japan.

    * Blogger’s Lounge chumby night (Posted on 10/21)
    Date: 10/21
    Blogger’s Lounge is a platform linking bloggers and industry that
    quietly debuted this year. It seems that Chumby, which is due to
    launch the chumby in Japan this year, is becoming a supporter or
    sponsor of Blogger’s Lounge, and this event was held to introduce
    Japanese bloggers/consumers to the device. CTO Andrew “bunny” Huang
    was due to attend.

    * On efffectively using aggregation sites and profile sites (Posted on 10/19)
    This entry appears to be a suggestion from the author saying that
    registering an RSS feed for one’s blog and social bookmarks at feed
    application and profile sites is advantageous for personal branding
    and SEO. S/he then goes on to offer some suggestions for application
    sites and profile sites.

    * A link to a Japanese translation of a CNET report by Caroline
    McCarthy explaining why Gartner analyst Adam Sarner claims that half
    of all social media campaigns will end in failure. This is the original article in English: http://news.cnet.com/8301-13577_3-10058509-36.html?tag=pt1318;continueButton#comments(Posted on 10/19)

    * A notice about the launch of the Japanese-language version of
    Sphinn. It mentions an existing Japanese site called newsing
    (http://newsing.jp/). (Posted on 10/10)

    * A notice about the launch of what is apparently Japan’s first crowdsourcing service,
    called apolon (http://apolon.jp/). (Posted on 10/1).
    The author mentions that on first glance, the site reminded him/her of
    Linkedin, but a closer look revealed that there are portions of the
    site that can be used without registering, making him/her think of
    craigslist.

    * A dinner with an expert in social marketing (you!). (Posted on 9/30)
    (Fujimama’s is a fun restaurant!)

    * A notice about a book titled, “Crowdsourcing: How to Harness the
    World’s Talent for your Business” (Posted on 9/23)

    * A link to a vimeo video describing how to create link hooks. (Posted on 9/20)

    * A notice about “Social Media: The Marketing Summit” held on 10/1-2
    in San Francisco (Posted on 9/20).

  3. The Japanese culrue is embedded with collaborations, team work, process orientation, measures and their language is the art of communications. They get the value of cultures geared towards serving the customer and producing quality. Social Media for them goes beyond marketing and directly into building and understand relationships. Like you said, it is about culture and American businesses still have yet to learn how to lead cultural transformation after all these years.

    Your tweet about “Social Media is Culture” says it all for those who understand the deepth and breath of the meaning behind the phrase.

  4. Pingback: Tokyo 2.0 « Spin On Demand
  6. Pingback: Field Report: How Culture Impacts Japan’s Adoption of Social Technologies in Business and Life

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