Jim Grisanzio

I took a couple of days off last week to attend the New Context Conference at Digital Garage in Tokyo. Excellent venue. Excellent conference. The event was an interesting mix of traditional tech conference with a formal keynote and panel sessions on the first day, but on the second day the format evolved into an open un-conference where anyone could present. I think the combination of the two styles was implemented very effectively by the organizers. The theme for the conference was primarily focused on social media. It all worked well. I have organized and participated in a bunch of un-conferences (BarCamp, Community Leadership Summit, Developers Lounge), and I very much like the concept because it levels the playing field and honors the expertise in the audience.

More photos from the 2010 edition of the New Context Conference on Flickr. And there was a New Context Conference in 2008 a couple of years ago as well.

Do your shoes match your scooter?

Some Tokyo Tower with a touch of antique from January 2010 …

I ride the trains in Tokyo all the time, and I rarely see such rude behavior as sleeping full length on the seats. Well, sometimes on Friday nights things get messy when people get drop dead drunk, but I have only seen this bed behavior one other time. This particular train below is actually full, but everyone got out of the way when I got my camera out and started taking images of the sleeper. And although people always sleep on the trains in Tokyo, they generally have the courtesy to sleep while sitting or standing. But at least this guy didn’t put those fancy shoes on the seat. That would be really bad.

Here are some images from the Tokyo Linux User Group meeting on Saturday. Many more images from previous meetings over the years here as well.

Last night I posted the schedule for TLUG’s August 14, 2010 technical meeting. Zev Blut will talk about Emacs and Patrick McKenzie will present search engine optimization. We’ll do regular introductions, news, and the auction as well. As always, anyone involved in open source community development is welcome. Also, we’ll have a short discussion about new meeting space requirements for the group. If you participate in the Linux or FOSS community in Tokyo, let us know if you have access to meeting space at your organization and are interesting in donating that space on a monthly basis for technical meetings.

The Tokyo Linux User Group met on Saturday, and then we had a little FOSS nomikai with OpenSolaris developers in Tokyo. 36 images here.

Rakuten switches to English for their internal corporate meetings. For Japan, this is a rare move. But they want to be a global enterprise and that means doing business operations in English across multiple languages and cultures. And they are hiring more foreigners as well. Again, rare for Japan. I heard about this story at BarCamp Tokyo the other day and to be honest I didn’t believe it. It just didn’t make any sense based on any of my experiences thus far in corporate Tokyo. But I guess it’s true. See The Japan Times and Asiajin. Good deal, Rakuten. Good luck.

Here are my images from Tokyo BarCamp 2010 on Saturday. It was a long day — 18 hours door to door, actually. But that’s BarCamp. And it was frustrating to miss so many great sessions since there was so much going on simultaneously. But that, too, is BarCamp. Aside from that, though, it was a really great day getting together with the international community in Tokyo.

This is the third BarCamp here in Japan in the last year where OpenSolaris community members have contributed in a significant way — either by presenting, organizing, or sponsoring. Also thanks to the organizers and participants who directly contributed, and to the sponsors for offering so many resources so freely. People from dozens of communities participated all day in sessions on software development, networking, security, content, hacking, science, ecology, politics, community building, activism, language learning tools, etc. Great to see so many guys from the Linux community participating again as well. Hope the images came out ok.

I tag all my BarCamp blogs here. And I have thousands more general community images here. More BarCamp Japan stuff here: Fumi Yamazaki, Rick Martin, Johan Rooms, Yoshifumi Yamaguchi, BarCamp Tokyo tag on Flickr (tbarcamp). Also, for more on this type of open community conference, see the Community Leadership Summit.

Lessons learned here.

Shoji, Matthew, and I took Duke to Aoyama tonight to get ready for the BarCamp conference tomorrow. I guess Duke does not ride the Tokyo trains very much because we got some interesting looks. And some people took photos with their cell phones. Then we met up with the core organizing team for BarCamp to get things set for tomorrow.

Tokyo BarCamp tag: http://jimgrisanzio.com/tag/barcamp/. Also, for more on this type of open community conference, see the Community Leadership Summit.

We just posted the schedule for BarCamp Tokyo 2010:

• 09:00-10:00  Arrival and Breakfast
• 10:00-10:15  Welcome/Orientation
• 10:15-10:30  Sign-up for Morning Sessions
• 10:30-12:00  Morning Sessions
• 12:00-13:00  Lunch & Sign-up for Afternoon Sessions
• 13:00-18:00  Afternoon Sessions
• 18:00-19:00  Dinner & Sign-up for Evening Sessions
• 19:00-21:00  Evening Sessions
• 21:00-21:00  Close

These are just the time slots, of course. All of the actual session topics will be filled in on yellow stickies and moved around on white boards (very high tech) at the event in real time. So things will be pretty flexible. Anyway, if you booked to go to BarCamp, come by at 9 a.m. Stay all day. And all night.

I tag everything involving BarCamp here: http://jimgrisanzio.com/tag/barcamp/

For those attending BarCamp Tokyo 2010 this Saturday the 29th, I look forward to seeing you soon! If you’ve never been to a BarCamp, here are two examples of what these events look like from right here in Japan: BarCamp Tokyo 2009 | BarCamp Yokohama 2009. And there is some basic information about BarCamp here and here. BarCamp Tokyo 2010 is just four days away, and it should be a really great day. We’ll have some nice donations from some sponsors (multiple servings of food, shirts, stickers, pens, software, and the building itself, of course).

But as Karamoon said in his opening speech last year, BarCamps are basically living human wikis. People make BarCamps. People sharing interesting content and experiences openly and actively in many-to-many relationships. It’s all about direct participation. That’s the key. There are no special speakers standing on elevated stages lecturing at people safely separated from passive and silent audiences. Everyone engages. Everyone contributes. Everyone teaches. Everyone learns. And everyone picks up the trash.

So, start thinking about what you will present. Or what conversation you’ll lead. Or what idea you’ll plant. Or what project you’ll start and with who. Formal, informal, technical, non-technical, software, hardware, community, panel discussions, debates, photography, artwork, evangelism, marketing, hacking, leadership, activism, internationalization, science, innovation, development techniques, environmental issues, solutions to the world’s most difficult problems, health and safety challenges, economics, etc. What ties all these things together is a spirit of doing and building and sharing and that’s what community is all about.

We have plenty of time and space for everyone to present something. We have multiple rooms for short 15-minute talks, and a larger room for longer 1/2 hour sessions (or even longer events if needed since the schedule is made up on the spot and must remain flexible). And if you don’t actually deliver a talk, that’s ok, but please participate by engaging in discussions with speakers and others and in hallway conversations or over lunch or dinner or at the bar afterwards. You could very well find yourself directly involved in a new life changing experience just by showing up and discovering a new project to which you can contribute. Your input is valuable. Your voice matters. The world changes by people doing things at the grassroots level, not from the top down. This is where the ideas come from. This is where the real value is generated. Down here where people do things.

The facilities we’ll have for the day are seriously beautiful. Bring your cameras. The views of Tokyo are great. Bring your laptops. We’ll have free wireless. Bring your ideas and keep your mind wide open. Also, keep checking the wiki this week for more information and schedules.

NOTE: If your name is listed on the wiki that means you are committed to come. If you can’t make it, please remove your name so you give someone else the opportunity to participate from the waiting list.

We are getting close …

Here are about 90 images from the Tokyo Make Meeting 05 2010 this weekend at the Tokyo Institute of Technology, Ookayama Campus. I saw a bunch of guys from the OpenSolaris, Linux, and Java communities and also the crew from Tokyo Hackerspace. Great fun. Lot of interesting hacking going on in Tokyo, and everyone I spoke with said the community is growing in size, diversity, and quality.

See Make on Twitter here. See Make Magazine here. Also related from the past: Tokyo Hackerspace, O’Reilly Make Tokyo 04 2009, Tokyo BarCamp 2009, Yokohama BarCamp 2009. And don’t forget to participate at BarCamp Tokyo 2010 next week on Saturday May 29th!

Here are 320 more images from Tokyo Make 05 2010 from Lem Fugitt (Robots-Dreams).

A few shots from the Tokyo OpenSolaris Study Group 2010.05 today …

I really enjoyed this lovely program about Toshiro Kanamori’s 4th grade class in Kanazawa, Japan. It’s called Children Full of Life (One, Two, Three, Four, Five). It’s a wonderful look into how Kanamori-san draws out feelings and emotions from deep inside a bunch of 10 year olds. He’s a natural community builder and he seamlessly mixes academics and life in his classroom. Was your 4th grade class like this? Mine wasn’t. Warning: There are some sad scenes in this little film. If you have children you may cry as you connect with these kids in Japan. They are inspirational. Thanks for the link, Paul.