The Western World

Social Technology "Expert" in Japan

On more than one occasion I have been billed as a Social Media or Technology "Expert".  To be completely honest, most of my internal organs cringe whenever I hear this title.
The reason is that to me, there is nothing special about it all.  There are no real definitions or qualifications, pretty much anyone with a twitter account qualifies.  To me introducing yourself as a Social Media expert is like saying you are a real estate agent, just with less qualifications. 
I say this mainly because the field right now is simply too undefined and while there are some amazing individuals in the field, most of the people who claim this title are just unemployed wannabes with too much free time on their hands.  (yeah, I know which group I belong to)

I am however a proud and I believe very qualified gearhead.  I have worked for many years and spent countless dollars and yen to achieve this title, and while it is equally useless, I am more than happy to accept this badge.

So what is a gearhead good for?  Well, I am often asked to help cover or publicize an event.  Sometimes I do it even without being asked.  What I bring along is an understanding of current social media tools, and even more importantly a bag full of electronic gadgets and gizmos.  Here is an example of a bag I brought along with me to the last CGM Night hosted by Danny Choo.



Pictured here is
1 Macbook Air
1 Sony Vaio P series ultralight laptop + Large stamina battery pack
1 LCD projector
1 Portable 32inch projector screen
1 Sony Alpha 300 DSLR + 2 lenses
1 Logitech Orbit webcam
1 Gorillapod DSL tripod
1 Logitech Laptop Pro webcam
1 EMobile Pocket Wi-fi portable hotspot.
1 Plantronics Pro bluetooth headset
1 Buffalo Multi Memory Card reader
1 Power strip
2 Sanyo Eneloop Mobile Power Batteries
2 Poken Digital business cards
Lots of paper business cards and Moo cards
Power adapters, cables, and wires for all stuff above

And I fit it all into a small roller bag that I can drag along to the event.  Now how many people can put together a kit like that?

A setup like this enables me to livestream broadcast and create a two-way portal for online interaction in realtime for pretty much any activity or event. 
Now I don't carry all this stuff around with me wherever I go.  I tend to customize my kit each time I go out to compliment the event and the environment I expect to work in.  Believe it or not, weight and portability are usually the most critical considerations I have when planning out my equipment load.

Understanding the capabilities of all this equipment and finding ways to combine technologies are what I feel are my true areas of expertise.   And as much of a dork as it makes me, I'm pretty proud of my abilities.

KDDI offers Blackberry-style mail service. Was a great idea in 2002.

Story via Impress watch. http://k-tai.impress.co.jp/docs/dotbiz/news/20100219_349793.html?ref=rss

AU introduces a business targeted service that will allow you to route emails from your cellphone through your corporate email account.
This server based solution amounts to a poor-man's Blackberry and would have been truly revolutionary about a decade ago.  I'm still disappointed in AU's lack of a strong enterprise strategy and while this is certainly a positive step, it only highlights the discrepancy between business mobile technologies and services available in Japan and offerings common in the rest of the world.

So for 210 a month you can use an application on your AU phone to access your corporate email server via imap or smtp... Good grief.  Imap or SMTP only?...  never mind.  Nothing to see here.

Wonder Festival

Went back to Makuhari Messe for the first time in a couple of months (yeah, a long stretch I know) to check out the Wonder Festival with Danny Choo.


Unbelievable how many people there were.  Lots of industry booths with all the major Anime/Otaku goods related companies hawking their wares.
Saw tons of Anime figures, dolls, model kits, cosplay, and who  knows what else.









Also had a successful test of my livestreaming gear.  Currently I am running a Logitech Orbit webcam mounted on top of a gorillapod tripod. This is run through a Sony UX microtop computer with a bluetooth headset for audio.  Streaming video to Ustream using my eMobile Pocket wifi worked great and allowed for a very stable video platform and gave me access to all the chat logs.
I am concerned with the power however as the battery on the computer only lasts around an hour while doing all this.  Also would love to have something that can run Ustream producer so will have to look into other microPC options for something with a bit more power and juice.

Still it was a fun time.
More pics are here on my flickr.

New entry level 4/3 Pen Camera from Olympus

Wow! More and more toys that I really want!
Olympus has announced their third 4/3 format pocket DSLR camera. The PEN E-PL1 also adds a flash.

Looks very tasty, but I think I still prefer the Lumix GF-1.

DPReview POWERFULLY SIMPLE: INTRODUCING THE INCREDIBLE OLYMPUS PEN E-PL1 CAMERA

Model Photoshoot

Been working on cleaning out a lot of my work backlog. One of the big things on my to do list is to finish the post processing on this batch of photographs I took last year for a model photoshoot.

Back in August, a few photographers and I gathered together to shoot some pictures. Since then we've all been kind of swamped so we haven't been able to edit the pictures that we will plan to publish into an iPhone app. Not that Appliya Studio has an easy publishing system, I hope to get things on the road, so I sat down today to work some of the post processing on the shots I have.



Next up we'll need to gather together to decide on out favorites, then send the lot off to the model to get her edits. Hopefully the app should be available in the next month or so.



To see all the pics from my editing session, check out this slideshow.

CGM Night #6 Cospa-Mania

Another great meetup last night with CGM Night #6. After a brief hiatus, CGM Night returned with a special Otaku edition.  CGM (Consumer Generated Media) Night is the brainchild of Danny Choo and Andrew Shuttleworth as a place for creative people and media companies to gather, network, and celebrate content creation.

This time, the event was held at the HQ of Cospa, an Anime/Otaku focused company that makes costumes and goods for the discriminating anime fanboy or fangirl.  In fact there were a bunch of cosplayers at the event and after a short presentation by Danny and Cospa CEO Hashimoto-san, the evening devolved into a cosplay photoshoot free-for-all.

Here are some of the highlights, and I posted a ton of photo's on flickr here if you want to check them out.

1080p comes to YouTube - and it's Muppet-tastic!

Just a week since YouTube made the announcement of 1080p uploads and we have an entry.

A super fantastic entry that is. 

Amazon Kindle Comes to Japan

The long wait is over, the Kindle has finally arrived in Japan. Or has it?

As soon as I heard that a new Kindle model with an international roaming would be avail, my pre-order went in. I've been an avid eBook user since my Rocket eBook many moons ago. As a heavy traveler, the ability to carry a library around with me is a must have. Since that first book I have used Sony and iRex readers of varying sizes and capabilities, but the Kindle has always taunted me with the holy grail of mobile readers: wireless updates.

Well, I have had my new Kindle2 International Edition now for over 24 hours, so I guess it's time to see how it matches up.

What's in an "s"? My first look at the iPhone 3Gs

iPhone 3Gs Launch events in Japan.

I think I might be sick. Mentally, you know?

Did I need a new iPhone 3Gs? Nope.

Did I need to stay up all night to wait in line to get one? Definitely not.

Was there a problem with my old iPhone 3G? Not really.

Do I have so much money I need to just throw it away? No way.

So that leaves me with the fact that I have a problem.

oh well. On with the review :)

So obviously I stayed up last Friday night at the all-night Softbank iPhone 3Gs launch event/party. To be honest, I had a pretty good time. Got to spend time with some good friends and meet lots of interesting people. I got to participate in a totally geek centered event that boosts my ego (always nice to know for sure that you are NOT the geekiest person in the room). Enjoyed the presentations, and even managed to win some cool stuff. And of course, I finished things off by taking my brand new iPhone 3Gs home with me.

Since I was mostly asleep when I first posted about this event, I'd like to start over and detail the events of the evening.

I started off my iPhone Night by first stopping by the Softbank store in Omotesando. I got there around 4PM and quickly ran in to reserve my iPhone. Had waffled for several days on the decision, but finally broke down and decided to go for it. Here are the things that led me to my decision.

So scary because it is true

You could ask the question, "Do companies think that their customers are all complete idiots"?

You don't really want an answer to that question do you?