Networking Alert – TSEA

The Association for Exhibit & Event Professionals (TSEA) NorCal Chapter is holding a Chapter Kick Off Meeting: “The Next Evolution of Trade Shows: Working with Virtual and Hybrid Events.”

I haven’t been to one of TSEA’s events yet, so I am looking forward to learning what it’s like.

Speaker/Panelists:
Kathy Sulgit – Director Corp Events, Cisco
Dannette Veale – Manager Virtual, Cisco
Steve Iwaki – VP Exhibit Design and Sales, splash!
Scott Kellner – CMO, 6Connex

Date & Time:
Tuesday, July 27, 2010 – 3:00-4:30 pm

Location:
Cisco
3700 Cisco Way, Bldg. 16 – Conference Room Waimea Bay, First Floor
San Jose, CA 95134

Registration Fee:
There is no registration fee for this event. For more information please email Helaine deTomasi at hdetomasi@yahoo.com.

Uh, Oh! Jury Duty! As a volunteer?

Last weekend, early Saturday morning, I headed out the door. My destination was the San Jose Courthouse and my reason for going was jury duty. This wasn’t your normal jury duty, however.

The Benchmark Institute, a legal education and training nonprofit in San Francisco, runs a week-long workshop for attorneys who serve low-income communities.

I heard about this event through the Silicon Valley Japanese-English Toastmasters Club, which I am a member of. Indeed, out of 16 jurors 13 were from various Toastmasters clubs.

In addition to being a great volunteer opportunity, it was great practice for my speech evaluation skills and a no-pressure introduction to what goes on during a jury trial.

The Benchmark Institute only runs this training once every two years, however, so you will have to wait until 2012 to get your chance.

Networking Alert – Keizai Society

The Keizai Society will be holding an event, “How to Use Twitter as a Marketing Weapon” next Wednesday the 28th. The speaker will be Guy Kawasaki, Co-founder of Alltop.

Last I heard, there are only 11 seats left for the event! If you can’t make it to Mountain View for the event, we also have a live cast available, but you have to register before the 26th.

WHEN:
Wednesday, July 28, 2010
Registration/Networking: 6:00pm – 6:30pm
Event: 6:30pm – 8:20pm
Networking: 8:20pm – 9:00pm

WHERE:
Fenwick & West LLP
801 California St.
Mountain View, CA

FEES:
$20, Registration by July 24 (by midnight)
$35, Late Registration by July 27 (by 5:00pm)
$50, Walk-ins (Walk-ins welcome, but seats may be limited)

Live cast is free.

Networking Report – PRSA/ Tweetup Mixer

The Public Relations Society of America – Silicon Valley decided to schedule this month’s networking event in conjunction with Silicon Valley Tweetup. I have to say, if this is what most Tweetups are like, I have to go to more Tweetups!

The location was Fahrenheit Restaurant & Lounge in San Jose. One drink and food were included in the cover charge. The food was very good, but went very fast.

Turnout was great. I’d estimate that there was about 40-50 people in the crowd. I got to have great conversations with many people. One long conversation was about cross-cultural communications issues and another conversation was about Japanese language networking and resources in the Silicon Valley area.

The event ran from 6-8, but I didn’t get home last night until almost 11.

Overall, I had a blast. I would recommend future events to anybody looking for some quality networking as well as anybody just looking to have fun.

One Simple Step to Writing Better Copy

1) Go through your copy.

2) Highlight every time you use I/me/my/we/us.

3) Rewrite using you/your.

This works because marketing has to be about the customer’s needs. Marketers, Project Managers and even Copywriters can easily get wrapped up in “My Message,” “My Product,” “My Company,” or “My Copy.” By using “you” and “your” it forces you to center your writing on your customer and their needs and wants.  (Knowing what those needs and wants are is another issue.)

Try it sometime. It’s not just a change in word choice, but a shift in thinking.

Free Online Japanese Language Resources

Jim Breen’s

The granddaddy of Japanese Language websites. This is the best free online dictionary. Period. If this mirror site gets busy, google variations of “Jim Breen wwwjdic” and find another mirror.

Smart.fm

This is a startup based in Japan. It helps you memorize lists. Because the people working on the site are foreigners living in Japan, a lot of the lists are Japanese words, kanji and grammar. Edit: Smart.fm is no longer in service. It has transitioned to a paid service called iKnow.jp.

PopJisyo

Rikai

These two sites help you read Japanese websites by adding pop-ups with definitions to Japanese text. Just enter the url and hover your mouse over what you need to see. A drawback is that the program doesn’t always know where the break between words is.

Tae Kim’s Guide to Japanese Grammar

This is the best free online Japanese grammar site I have found. As a bonus, it comes in several languages (including French). It covers basic to intermediate grammar.

Jisho.org’s Kanji Lookup

Don’t know the reading? Fine! This sexy little tool will help you find it quickly. Just pick which radicals are present in the character and the list will narrow down until you only have to look though about 10-20 instead of 1000-2000 characters.

Furiganaizer

This tool adds furigana to kanji. Hover over the highlighted words and you will get a pop up that gives you the definition. Definitions are taken from Jim Breen’s. This is a rather weak tool, though, and it is not able to handle more than a couple of paragraphs at a time.

You speak Japanese? Why?

It seems that the current ‘in’ language in business is Chinese. When business contacts find out that I speak Japanese there is a very good chance that the first comment they have is “Great!” followed by “Why not Chinese?”

The rational explanation:

Japan is still the second largest economy in the world. Given it’s high rate of growth, China may soon become #2, having just passed Germany earlier this year.  Even then, Japan would still be #3, and a very important player on the world stage.

The real explanation:

I have a deep and abiding passion for the Japanese language and culture. There is no other way to describe something that has dragged me across the world twice and endured for almost nine years now.

So when I get this question, I just smile and give the other person the answer they can understand.