Tokyo CGM Night, March 09

Sun 15th Mar 2009

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I had a great time on Friday night at the 3rd Tokyo CGM Night hosted by Danny Choo, Andrew Shuttleworth, and sponsored by smart.fm. Back in the UK I didn't get a chance to connect and chat with people doing similar things online. I'd never really thought about networking before, and since coming to Japan was an "If I don't do it I'll regret it" thing, I decided to continue on that thought.

So I was looking forward to meeting everyone. I was a little nervous, since it was my first networking event and I'm a bit of an introvert, but I thoroughly enjoyed myself and can't wait for the next one.

I first of all met up with Ken Lee who has more photos of the event on his blog. We had a good chat about our blogs, met up with a few others and headed to the venue.

At the entrance we were given a few small gifts. One gift was called Poken. These little things are like electronic business cards. You put them up to another persons Poken and the hand flashes green meaning you've made a connection. When you get home you then pull the hand out and it becomes a USB stick, put it into your PC, sign up, confirm all your connections, see their online profiles and connect further.

It looks funny when two guys try and Poken, holding these little cute things up. The name just makes it even more hilarious ^^ Despite that, I can see them catching on very quickly here and it was a great place to launch them.

I spoke to lots of people and completely lost track of time. I even forgot to take photos!

Towards the end I went for Ramen with Ken, Lester Ho and a few others and then I headed back to catch the battle for the freebies.

The battle involved either playing janken (rock-paper-scissors) or arm wrestling.

It looks like Peter Payne from J-List is about to turn into the Hulk! It was a tough battle for those figures ^^

Here's some link-love to those who were kind enough to stop and chat: Shane Sakata, Toddatron, Rick Martin, Jérôme Sadou, Jason Ball, iMorpheus (thanks for the photography tips!), Neil Duckett, Kynapple, Tkyosam. Apologies if I forgot anyone!

It was good to get out of the guest house, since I was starting to get cabin fever! Looking forward to the next one!

Comments (imported from the previous Wordpress site)

GoddessCarlie said on Sun 2009/03/15 22:44 JST:

Seems like a cool night, I'm jealous!! :)

M-kat said on Sun 2009/03/15 22:49 JST:

wow looks like you did have a great time. I hope to go to one someday (after getting to Japan that is)
It's really something to have a chance to network and just make new friends in the process.

I've never heard of Poken. before but it seems really interesting and easy to use. I wonder though how well it would o in the States? (if it isn't in some states here already?)

What were the ain topics discussed, or is it simply an open evening to just chat it up with others?

~Mary

Chris Gaunt said on Sun 2009/03/15 22:54 JST:

I think Poken has a good chance in Japan due to the cuteness factor, not sure how it would do in the States.

There was a slideshow presentation by smart.fm, Poken and Danny Choo but mostly it was an open evening to chat and meet new people.

Rick Martin said on Mon 2009/03/16 04:50 JST:

Good to finally meet you too Chris!

LesterHo said on Mon 2009/03/16 07:38 JST:

Nice to meet you Chris. How's the taste of the ramen? I myself find it quite delicious. LOL!

Chris Gaunt said on Mon 2009/03/16 12:55 JST:

It was nice to meet you too Lester, I enjoyed the ramen ^^

Claytonian said on Mon 2009/03/16 18:31 JST:

Psst: Guy in the blue trench coat that defeated all challengers is rumored to be Claytonian!

Shane said on Mon 2009/03/16 19:32 JST:

Great to meet you in person Chris! Hopefully we'll get to do it again soon as I really enjoyed meeting the people behind some of my favorite blogs!

Jamaipanese said on Mon 2009/03/16 22:24 JST:

i so want a poken, it seems everywhere I go in the j-web someone got one free!

nice pics though, wish I could have been there

Kynapple said on Tue 2009/03/17 19:41 JST:

Psst. Girl Junkening Clayton is meeeeeee! And ultimately, I went home with the Daredevil statuette, so really, Clay, I won :p

Hi hi Chris, it was cool to see you there, always good to meet another Brit :D

Chris Gaunt said on Tue 2009/03/17 20:39 JST:

It was good to meet you too Kyna.

I'll have to join the Junken battle next time!

Chris Gaunt said on Tue 2009/03/17 20:40 JST:

I was great to meet you too Shane! Thanks for introducing me to Todd.

Chris Gaunt said on Tue 2009/03/17 20:42 JST:

I didn't get to meet you but there's always next time. Thanks for the link-love at Japan Probe!

Jordan said on Thu 2009/03/19 05:03 JST:

I missed out again some how. :(

Jay Zimmermann said on Thu 2009/03/19 17:14 JST:

That was a fun night, although I don't we actually met.
I got the same "voodoo" model poken too. Until next time!

yonasu said on Fri 2009/03/20 06:03 JST:

Hey Chris! I love what you've done to the front page, how you show the excerpts and the big read on button. Maybe you changed that a long time ago? I usually navigate directly to your post via the RSS feed so I wouldn't know... Well, it looks great anyways! :)

NandaSoreya? said on Fri 2009/03/20 14:26 JST: