It's a new year - all hail the Golden Pig - and we're looking forward to the Mobile Monday kick-off, on 5 February, with a relaxed evening of person-to-person networking with plenty of the best gourmet pizza in Tokyo.
In 2007, Mobile Monday Tokyo enters its fourth year, and the size - over 350 at our last event - and sophistication of the MoMo community continues to expand. MoMo is now regularly attended by CEOs and professionals from Japan's best-known mobile players, as well as a large number of entrepreneurs, developers and other tremendously knowledgeable people.
Moreover, as many MoMo participants tend to arrive on Monday evening direct from work, it's clear that providing a reliable networking venue - complete with food and drink - are prerequisites for fostering a growing, ever-more dynamic community.
Therefore, starting in February, your humble organizers have decided to adopt the MoMo Beijing model and charge a modest entry fee (¥1,000 with preregistration - OR - ¥2,000 at the door). The revenue will ensure that we can book suitable locations and offer a decent light buffet, which we think will be appreciated by those ‘running on empty' come 19:00 ish..
Regardless, corporate sponsorship will remain the primary support for MoMo Tokyo. Our sincere thanks to Jonckers and Robert Leonard for their fantastic on-going support! We remain keen to sign up additional forward-thinking companies interested in sponsoring the most switched-on mobile community in Japan.
Finally, we are delighted to announce that Tokyo's very own NaviBlog was selected as the Japan nominee for the upcoming Mobile Monday Global Peer Awards, to be held at 3GSM in Barcelona, 12 February. NaviBlog presented to us here last May and also received Red Herring Asia's Top 100 award in August. Good luck to Mandali and his team, we hope you bring home some hardware like Opera Japan did at the Global Summit in Helsinki last year.
Date: Monday, 5 February 2007
Venue: Pizza Express in Harajuku
18:30 - Doors Open
19:00 - Networking - Buffet
22:30 - Last Call
23:00 - Close - Nijikai
A quick tip for the pre-registration form: Save the trees! Use your keitai email address to have the confirmation email sent to your handset and just show that for easy check in at the door!
MoMoers had a super time during the last two mixer events, and it was truly great to see so many attendees and meet with such a wide range of mobile-savvy folks. Now it's time to get back down to business! While we certainly plan to hold those ‘open-to-all' evenings several more times throughout 2007, our next event is reserved for people working in the mobile community only in an effort to focus on our core audience.
We have arranged for two Tokyo-based VCs to present an overview of their operations and discuss what they are looking for when they are approached by start-ups for funding. This “get the money to meet the talent”-theme evening should certainly result in some interesting conversations and new connections for everyone concerned. So mark your calendar for 19 March at KDDI's fabulous Designing Studio, Harajuku, and please RSVP so we can prepare enough food for the post-presentation networking session in the 5th floor Wired Cafe.
Michael Korver - Co-founding Partner - Global Venture Capital
Global Venture CapitalMichael was born and raised in Tokyo and first developed his insider's perspective on Asian business from his experience as an analyst at the Nomura Research Institute in Tokyo from 1983 until 1986 - where he first met Hirokazu-san, GVC's other managing partner - and as an international transactions lawyer with Richards & O'Neil in New York and Tokyo from 1987 until 1993. Since 1993, Michael has worked as an international business consultant, corporate lawyer, venture capitalist and entrepreneur in Tokyo. GVC's partners have been active in entrepreneurship, venture capital and private equity globally for over 20 years.
Masaaki Suga - Vice President - CYBIRD Investment Partners
CYBIRD Investment PartnersMasaaki Suga joined CIP in January 2007. Earlier, he resided in Vancouver, Canada, and managed a number of projects in which he helped companies and products in North America to enter into the Japan and Asia market. Previously he worked for Macromedia (Adobe Systems) to run product and marketing division of server side products in Japan. Masaaki received an MBA from McGill University, Montreal Canada. CYBIRD Investment Partners Inc. (CIP) is a capital investment management company and 100% owned by CYBIRD Holdings Co., Ltd. CIP manages CYBIRD Plus Mobile Fund, the first mobile focused fund in Japan.
Date: Monday, 19 March 2007
Venue: KDDI Designing Studio
18:30 - Doors Open
19:00 - Welcome/introduction
19:15 - First presentation
19:30 - Second presentation
19:45 - Q & A
20:00 - Networking
22:00 - Last Call
As part of the digital spring cleaning craze that's sweeping the web these days, we finally managed to roll out our new site design for Mobile Monday Tokyo. We are looking forward to providing a few extra offerings here for everyone in the near future as well, so stay tuned!
We're pleased to announce the next MoMo event, on 23 April at KDDI's Designing Studio, will feature a mobile mash-up of micro presentations in the super-cool “Demo Night” format — which has been popular in other chapter cities. For Demo Night, a line-up of interesting mobile companies will be allowed a 5- to 7-minute show & tell session for their mobile content or service offering — displayed on an actual handset and projected on the big screen for all to see.
Confirmed Presentations:
Tracey Northcott, VP at Enfour Group will demonstrate Camera Jiten [.PDF]. A native Brew dictionary application for use on KDDI handsets for instant scanning of English words giving their Japanese translations. This product is linked to their full dictionary service “Sougoeigojiten” for a drill down into the full definitions and pronunciation text to speech.
Mandali Khalesi, CEO of award-winning mobile marketing firm Naviblog, will present how to find Guinness with your mobile phone. The Guinness service is already available in selected Irish pubs and across the 23 wards of Tokyo, and is compatible with over 160 Japanese handsets from NTT Docomo, au by KDDI and Yahoo! Keitai.
David Collier, founder and CEO of Pikkle, will demonstrate technology which enables a new type of full-screen mobile flash service. Building on top of this core technology they provide a mobile flash social network engine (SNX) that allows the creation of niche social entertainment sites. Full flash gives impact, making this a demo you'll want to take home.. and you can!
Nobuyoshi Noda, Mobile Division Deputy GM of Adways Co., Ltd, will present their Mobile Affiliate Advertisment Smart-C product. Capable of running mobile ad campaigns on all three carrier platforms, this opt-in management service - designed specifically for mobile content publishers - is based on a reward-per-transaction revenue model.
Tim Smith, Director of Freeverse Consulting, will “debut” Malibu IVP. A middleware approach to creating useful and viable 3G videocall applications it allows the developer and service provider to effectively approach this huge market opportunity. Malibu contains patented, exclusive technology directly associated with managing advertising on the 3G video network.
Special Guest Presentation:
Hiroshi Oda — VP Corporate Communications — CIAJ
CEATEC JAPAN 2007In 2007, CEATEC JAPAN will launch a new special exhibit area under the theme of Digital Contents. This area is designed to support exhibitors' efforts to win contents work, market contents and recruit high-quality contents personnel. As co-organizers of the annual CEATEC event, Oda-san's presentation will center on an outline of the new Digital Contents exhibit area.
Our first Demo Night should be rather popular and will fill up fast! Online registration will remain open until Friday, 20 April — or until we hit maximum venue capacity. Finally, Welcome Aboard MoMo Taipei 8-)
Date: Monday, 23 April 2007
Venue: KDDI Designing Studio
18:30 - Doors Open
19:00 - Welcome/introduction
19:10 - Presentations
19:50 - Q & A
20:00 - Networking
22:00 - Last Call
22:30 - Close
We've decided to throw a Yorishiku party for all the great folks who make MoMo Tokyo events possible. Our sponsors, volunteers and “friends of” have all generously pitched-in to make this exciting project work, on behalf of the community as a whole we thought a proper Arigato casual mixer is in order. Get the full details for location, date and (new) registration procedure below.
Mobikyo has announced our activities related to this years Wireless Japan tradeshow, running 18 - 20 July at Tokyo Big Sight, including; a dedicated Mobile Intelligence guided mission, an About Mobile Monday seminar and our first ever Massive Mobile Mix event at Tokyo Fashion Town.
We are pleased to announce the 3rd annual Net Tokyo super summer fund raiser is coming up on 21 July. This ‘gathering of the tribes' is one of the best networking opportunities around with all proceeds going to charity. Also note that Red Herring has an all-star lineup for it's first ever conference in Japan the following week, 22 - 24 July, in Kyoto.
Finally, note the annual Mobile Monday Global Summit in Helsinki will run from Sept. 10 - 12 including a side trip to attend MoMo in St. Petersburg introducing the Russian mobile market. See you there 8-)
Date: Monday, 18 June 2007
Venue: Bane Bagus Akasaka
18:30 - Doors Open
20:00 - Kanpai!
22:30 - Last Call
23:00 - Close
We are pleased to invite interested delegates to our “About Mobile Monday” seminar on the afternoon of Weds. July 18th at Tokyo Big Sight during the Wireless Japan 2007 tradeshow. We will have speakers on-hand from local and international chapter cities to provide an overview of the community and their respective markets.
MobileMonday is a global community of industry visionaries, developers and influentials fostering cooperation and cross-border business development through virtual and live networking events to share ideas, best practices and trends from the world's wireless markets.
The Global Networking seminar will showcase local and international MoMo chapters providing an in-depth introduction to their cities, their markets and where the profit opportunities are to be found - from Beijing to Helsinki.
15:45 Doors open for pre-registered guests :: East 1 Hall Entrance
16:00 — Introduction of MoMo Tokyo by Ryo Umezawa, Business Dev. Manager at Mobikyo, providing an overview of the local Mobile Monday community activities to date.
16:10 — Introduction of the Japanese mobile market by Christopher Billich, VP Intl. Business Dev. at Infinita, providing an overview of current content and service offerings.
16:40 — Introduction of Mobile Monday Bejing by Benjamin Joffe, CEO of Plus8Star, providing an overview of MoMo activities to date in China. Benjamin will also offer a current snapshot of the Chinese mobile market.
17:00 Delegates mingle and meet :: casual Q & A
17:30 Move to Tokyo Fashion Town for the Massive Mobile Mix event.
Seminar seating is limited therefore advanced registration is required.
Advanced registration is now closed - See you at Wireless Japan!
Our Massive Mobile Mix event will bring together some of the brightest and most influential players from the wireless industry for an evening of casual drinks, gourmet eats and one-on-one networking. Hosted at the ultra-trendy ‘Tokyo Fashion Town' event space, directly across the street from Tokyo Big Sight after the opening day of Wireless Japan, this is as a great chance for the mobile industry from overseas to mix and mingle with deal-makers and market movers from Japan's mobile community.
During the afternoon of July 18th we will run a “Global Networking Boosts Mobile Connections” seminar at Tokyo Big Sight to showcase both local and international Mobile Monday chapters providing an in-depth introduction to their cities, their markets and where the profit opportunities are to be found.
A final reminder that the 3rd annual Net Tokyo super summer fund raiser is coming up on 21 July. This ‘gathering of the tribes' has become one of the best networking opportunities around with all proceeds going to charity. Also note that Red Herring has an all-star lineup for it's first ever conference in Japan the following week, 22 - 24 July, in Kyoto. It's gonna be hot-hot-hot!
Date: Wednesday, 18 July 2007
Venue: Tokyo Fashion Town
17:30 - Doors Open
20:30 - Last Call
21:00 - Close
The Tokyo MoMo crew managed to escape, barely due to Typhoon Fitow, Tokyo's sweltering concrete jungle for some nice cool breezes at the 3rd annual MobileMonday Global Summit in Helsinki last week. It was a fantastic opportunity to meet once again with chapter founders from around the world and mingle with some of the industry's more interesting players in a relaxed and somewhat secluded atmosphere. We arrived a day early to check-out the sights, do a little recon for a new Mobikyo EU office location and play with a couple of fancy handsets at the Nokia store.
We spent all day Sunday in conference with MoMo reps from over 20 cities who made the journey to discuss current status and future issues while taking in presentations from the OMA (Open Mobile Alliance) and GSMA. We would love to go into more detail about some of the topics covered but all parties were required to take a blood oath (well, pinky-shake actually) to keep the specifics confidential. Needless to say that with over 50 chapters now operating worldwide and new locations set for launch in Adelaide, Berlin, Caracas, Croatia, Jakarta, Moscow and Philadelphia - to name a few - we're rather excited about the potential this grassroots community has going forward.. 8-)
According to this report, the actual summit day on 10 September was well attended with some great presentations, panels and seminars. We took part in the Mobile Entertainment Panel discussion and managed to conduct a few video interviews as well.
Tuesday morning saw most of us catch the 7:00AM train to St. Petersburg, arriving early afternoon for a boat tour (meet Nidal from Venezuela) and check-in at the hotel before making our way through traffic for Part II of this year's event, which was held at the Museum of Communications. While the PA sound was not great, the massive satellite was pretty cool and we met several key players in the Russian mobile market. After a few false starts we managed to get a late dinner, complete with super-sized draft beer, in the Tinkoff Pub and then a few brave souls wandered late into the night for some un-scheduled local action… it was almost exactly like this classic Canadian Club commercial: "Remember we beat the Russians in ‘72".
The Wednesday morning agenda included presentations from a few more companies, which I skipped to risk my literal life crossing three lanes of traffic for a few snaps of Freedom Square. Then then several of us hit the streets for a bit of local flavor before making a white knuckle cab-ride to the station - just in time - for our 4:00PM train back to Helsinki. The highlight of our Russian adventure had to be visiting the Winter Palace it was incredible! We had only about an hour behind the gilded gate to tour the halls, chat with Peter the Great and see the throne, while sneaking a shot of his crown. The collection of masterpieces from the likes of Da Vinci, Rembrandt, Renoir and Van Gogh on display - pix in that room definitely not allowed - were simply stunning.
Relieved to be back in Finland we checked into our comfy prison cell and hit the town with a local guide (thanks, Vesa!) on Wednesday evening, making a few stops where the locals hang out, and finally got to bed at a ‘reasonable hour' for the first time in a week. Thursday morning saw four MoMo founders attend a very interesting meeting, details of which we can't for the moment disclose, which hopefully will result in a powerful new tool for all global chapters.
It's basically not possible to summarize the whole adventure, and no doubt others will post their thoughts as well; however the organizers and sponsors of this year's event deserve massive thanks and praise for bringing everything, and everyone, together for a memorable experience. We managed to spend some quality time with old friends - making plenty of new connections as well - during the week and arrived home late Saturday afternoon pretty fired-up for the future of Mobile Monday.
Note: We are planning the next MobileMonday Tokyo event for mid-October and will get the details out for that soon.
After a hard-earned summer break, your MoMo Tokyo team are back in the Dohyo and ready to push around any big guys who get in the way! Many thanks to all who attended our Massive Mobile Mix at Wireless Japan in July and to those who took a moment to submit feedback via our Call-to-Action form in September. We had a great time at the Global Summit in Finland and Russia last month - see the full trip report here - and are pumped-up and ready to roll into our fourth year of running MobileMonday Tokyo.
We are thrilled to announce the next gathering, 22 October, at the fabulous Designing Studio, will feature presentations from Dr. Hitomi Murakami, former executive director and principal research engineer at KDDI's R&D labs, and Tomi Ahonen, best-selling author and strategy consultant for digital convergence and advanced mobile telecoms. Both gentlemen are long-time industry insiders and the evening promises to be extremely informative and very well-attended. We look forward to meeting you there!
Hitomi Murakami Ph.D - Professor - Seikei University
Seikei UniversityDr. Murakami graduated from Hokkaido University with a Ph.D in Engineering and started his career as a research engineer with overseas telecommunication operator KDD in 1974. As Principal Research Engineer at KDDI R&D Laboratories, his area of expertise includes video compression technology, television transmission and satellite communications. Murakami-sensei served as Executive Director for the Corporate Technology Sector at KDDI, where he was responsible for development of new technologies for future services. In April 2007, he retired from KDDI and joined Seikei University as professor and is now working with the next generation of engineers.
Tomi T. Ahonen, MBA - Author and Strategy Consultant
Tomi T AhonenMr. Ahonen is the author of five bestsellers and an advisor to the telecoms, IT and media industries. He lectures at Oxford University's courses on 3G telecoms, digital convergence and social networking, has been quoted in over 200 press stories and has presented papers to over 180 conferences. His client list includes Ericsson, Orange, Motorola, Nokia, DoCoMo, Siemens, TeliaSonera and Vodafone. Mr. Ahonen consults for telecoms, industry analysts, the venture capital community and other parties involved in understanding the profit potential of wireless. A new services evangelist, Tomi has discussed over 1000 existing mobile concepts in his presentations and his books detail over 500 examples.
Date: Monday, 22 October 2007
Venue: KDDI Designing Studio
18:30 - Doors Open
19:00 - Welcome/introduction
19:15 - First presentation
19:45 - Second presentation
20:15 - Q & A
20:30 - Networking @Wired Cafe
22:00 - Last Call
22:30 - Close
Many thanks to all who attended our 22 October event - it was super to have everyone out for a great evening. Also: a quick welcome aboard to the folks in Moscow and Frankfurt who held their debut gatherings on that very same evening - and Madrid just launched last night - Congratulations! We wish you the very best going forward.
MoMo Tokyo returns to the ultramodern Canadian embassy venue in Akasaka for our upcoming Shichi-Go-San event on 12 November with presentations from smartphone makers RIM and HTC. Those who were on-hand with us there last year know it's a fantastic location and we expect this will be yet another really great evening for members of the local mobile community!
John McAndrews - Senior Technical Account Manager - RIM
RIMJohn McAndrews joined Research In Motion (RIM), in May 2001, as a Technical Account Manager. With a solid background working with Information Technology Solutions, John brings a wealth of knowledge and experience to assist BlackBerry Enterprise Customers. Currently John is on assignment with Research In Motion Japan LTD to assist clients and partners in analyzing, planning and deploying the BlackBerry solution in corporate environments. Before joining RIM, John worked as a Senior Systems Consultant with Quest Software, primarily with focus on assisting customers in designing/implementing a migration strategy for Microsoft Windows and Exchange 2000. John received his Bachelor of Science in Information Technology from Western International University and is a Microsoft Certified Systems Engineer.
Jennifer Chang - General Manager - HTC Nippon K.K.
HTCHTC Corp. is the world's leading provider of Microsoft Windows Mobile based smart devices. Founded in 1997 by Cher Wang, Chairwoman, and Peter Chou, President and CEO, HTC made its name as the company behind many of the most popular operator-branded devices on the market. It has established unique partnerships with key mobile brands, including leading global operators. It has also brought products to market with industry leading OEM partners and, since June 2006, under its own HTC brand. Since launching its own brand 12 month ago, the company has introduced more than a dozen HTC-branded products across the world. The company produces powerful handsets that continually push the boundaries to provide true mobility and freedom for those who use its products.
Date: Monday, 12 November 2007
Venue: The Canadian Embassy
18:30 - Doors Open
19:00 - Welcome/introduction
19:15 - First presentation
19:45 - Second presentation
20:15 - Q & A
20:30 - Networking
21:30 - Last Call
Thanks to everyone who attended our 12 November Smartphone Series-event at the Canadian Embassy! Nearly 200 came through the doors, and we have posted video of the presentations from RIM and HTC for those of you who were unable to attend. A quick heads-up: Mobidec 2007 will be running all day at Meguro Gajoen on 27 November. Co-organised by the good folks at the Mobile Content Forum - MCF, this “Strategy for Mobile Economy”-themed event (held in Japanese) - will feature presentations from the main operators, who will cover topics ranging from Flash to WiMax.
On 3 December, Mobile Monday Tokyo is back at KDDI's fashionable Designing Studio with a mobile video theme. 2008 is promising to be a break-out year for broadcast television and on-demand video streaming in Japan, so we expect this event will be both insightful and very well attended.
Kazuhiko Masuda - President - MediaFLO Japan Planning Inc.
Kazuhiko Masuda was appointed President of MediaFLO Japan Planning Inc. in 2005. After KDDI's merger, he has worked in the handset planning, sales planning, and global business planning section. Before 2000, he worked in the development of infrastructure. Kazuhiko Masuda joined DDI (currently KDDI) in 1987.
Takeatsu Yamauchi - Director Advanced Services - NHK
NHK1Seg is the mobile terrestrial digital audio/video and data broadcasting system in Japan. Based on the ISDB-T standard, which was designed by NHK, each channel is divided into 13 segments plus one segment for separating channels. HDTV broadcast occupies 12 segments, and the remaining (13th) segment is used for mobile receivers. Thus the name, ‘1seg'. Utilizing the BML (Broadcast Markup Language) methodology, text and graphic images with links for further information, such as news, sports, weather forecast, program guides and voting is also displayed along with the TV content. This popular mobile service officially launched on April 1, 2006 and has just over 13M enabled handsets deployed as of August 2007.
Date: Monday, 3 December 2007
Venue: KDDI Designing Studio
18:30 - Doors Open
19:00 - Welcome/introduction
19:15 - First presentation
19:45 - Second presentation
20:15 - Q & A
20:30 - Networking
22:00 - Last Call
22:30 - Close
Update: Thank you for coming out to MoMo on December 3rd. We hope you have enjoyed the Mobile Video theme and the 2nd free drink on behalf of our generous sponsors. As mentioned during the event, we have a special seminar to be held together with MCF on the 14th, next Friday afternoon. Presentations will all be in Japanese. Speakers information and registration, is now available via the Japanese MoMo site. See you there!
Thanks to all for attending MoMo Tokyo on Dec. 3rd, we hope you enjoyed the Mobile TV theme & 2nd free drink on behalf of our generous sponsors.
As mentioned we are thrilled to co-organize, with the Mobile Content Forum, a special seminar series to be held on the afternoon of Friday Dec. 14th. Speakers information - note all presentations will be in Japanese - and advance registration is now open. Those who can't make it during the day are still most welcome to attend the evening mixer afterwards. We look forward to see you there!
A quick shout-out to everyone we met during last weeks APAC adventure. We hit MoMo in Singapore, thanks to the good folks from iDA and location hosts at Microsoft, toured Kuala Lumpur over the week-end with RamG and Co. to conclude details for a major announcement regarding our 2008 Global Summit - details coming soon - and then off to Jakarta for the launch of Indonesia's chapter. Andy and his team did an outstanding job pulling everything together for that and no doubt there will be plenty of photos coming online soon.
Thanks again for your kind hospitality and Welcome Aboard Indonesia..!! Meanwhile, heading into year-end here and, aside from doing taxes, we are planning our events schedule, including a not-to-be-missed Shinnenkai for 2008. Stay tuned for more details.