JPNewTech Pre-Party on Jan 22

On Saturday 22nd January, the Nakameguro Lounge space played host to a new event: “JP New Tech”. The event, that sets out to bring together the brightest stars in design and web programming, not to mention tech-evangelists of various kinds, was an astounding success.

Chaos

The instigators of this galactic happening, Masaaki Yonebayashi @yone098 (Abby, Inc) and Masanori Hashimoto @hsmt (Nulab Inc), kicked off proceedings by explaining their vision of how chaotic interactions can fertilize new relationships, and ultimately lead to the birth of new web services, and who-knows-what other things with equally stellar potential. As they expounded on their theory of how simple exchanges amid the chaos could lead to the genesis of new entities, the desired ‘productive chaos’ had actually already ensued among the gathered crowd, and continued without relent for 3 hours, fuelled by a very attentive bar and classy buffet.

Tomihisa Foun

Only time will tell what will be born of the chaotic meeting of information and energy, but in the meanwhile the side show of ‘organized’ discussion and exposition for #jpnt Episode 1 got underway with a panelist discussion. Curated by co-organiser Tomihisa Fuon @tomihisa of Gihyo, 5 topics were proposed under the theme of “2011 – a new beginning for web services”. The panel comprised experts from diverse backgrounds, namely:

• Takako Kansai @kansai_takako from User Local, Inc
• Takako Horiuchi @horri from Places, Y.K.
• Akio Katayama @c9katayama from Capital Asset Planning, Inc
• Kazuki Tanaka @Tkazuki from Mixi

Panelist Discussion

The first ice-breaker topic invited the panelists to volunteer the services that had most influenced them in 2010, yielding a disparate set of responses, never again to be mentioned under the same discussion topic!: Kickstarter from the venture-minded Kansai, while Horiuchi, aiming for the intersection of design and functionality, picked instapaper as the app that rocked her 2010. Mixi-brat Tanaka responded logically by naming his employer, showing that he clearly had not been able to have his way with the all-you-can-drink bar prior to the discussions kicking off.

No doubt influenced by “The Social Network” movie hype (still awaiting cinematic release in Japan), the second topic asked the panelists which movie they would make. Had there been any Hollywood producers in the room no doubt there cheque books would have remained firmly in the their pockets, although some resonance was felt around SoftBank’s industrious figure-head Masayoshi Son (Wikipedia profile).

Kazuki Tanaka

The remaining questions targeted more emotive territory around personal goals and ambitions of the panelists, and honed in on the overall theme of the event. Debate raged around the difference between the ‘designer’ and ‘engineer / programmer’ archetypes, concluding without contention that actually they are the same, to the extent at least that both are creative disciplines aimed at making something original! Totally immune to this psychoanalysis, the majority of attending designers and programmers continued to rub up against each other unabated in the spirit of cross-fertilization.

As the discussion approached its climax, the panel’s collective sentiment oscillated between social patronage with Tanaka’s youth-nurturing online school, and Kansai’s ambition to do a big  start-up “exit”, ultimately (and thankfully) coming to rest with the latter, expounding the necessity of monetization and business-minded thinking prior to selling up. Let’s all drink to that! Actually, everyone was already!

Takako Kansai

Four LTs (Lightning Talks) were programmed, a request for volunteers having gone out prior to the event, and were enjoyed by an attentive fraction of the attendees, while the networking juggernaut rumbled on in the other half of the space. The unbruised egos were:

• @kansai_takako explaining her “4 types of engineer” theory, and other pertinent thoughts
• @jishiha on developing his iPhone App “kanabun”
• @machida on how his two-man company Fjord deal with the designer-engineer dichotomy
• @jameshollow on his company Alien-Eye’s unique approach to strategy and creativity

Alien-Eye

After the LTs wrapped up there was still just enough time for the last few unexchanged business card pairs to be swapped before an elated Hashimoto, drunk on the fumes of freshly catalyzed ideas (one assumes) thanked everyone for their enthusiastic participation and promised a monthly event series with an expanded invitees list and bigger space planned for February.

Kanabun

As attendees stumbled shell shocked from the venue, their newly exposed collective potential still throbbing in the chilly night air, there was a definite consensus that something quite special had just taken place, and that it remained for all of us to get on with realizing that potential.