Early October, I was contacted by Cedric Ingrand, famous news tech anchor of the biggest TV network in France, TF1, about the possibility to do a special report on the Japanese startup/tech scene for Plein Ecran on LCI, a French 24/7 news channel.
Since I’ve regularly witnessed that most people cannot even name one single startup from Japan, as those, more often than not, only operate in the country, this idea seemed like a brilliant one. I dove in.
Here’s the result.
It’s in French and was aired on October 24th.
Oh, one thing. Cedric contacted me on a Wednesday night. I was in Manila. The filming had to take place on the following Monday in Tokyo :-)
So many thanks to the promptness of Cedric to give me the details I needed (even with the timezone difference), my large network of connections and friends in Tokyo and to one man in particular, Nobuyuki Hayashi, a fantastic freelance journalist in Tokyo, for helping me getting the line-up I had in mind:
- a pure Japanese startup, the #2 social networking site in Japan, with the CEO of Gree, Yoshikazu Tanaka
- a Silicon Valley entrepreneur in Japan working exclusively with locals, with the CEO of Bluebridge, Kristopher Tate, and
- an entrepreneur (and otaku icon) based in Tokyo but whose audience is largely international, with the CEO of Mirai, Danny Choo.
Many thanks to technology specialist and Tokyo live blogger Steve Nagata for his always invaluable help.
I really had lots of fun being with these cool and acute journalists (Danny had fun too). I appreciated how kind, professional and fun Cedric was throughout the whole process. How Guillaume Delalande, LCI Journalist, had to suffer to film such a tall guy like me (he got to see Astro Boy in Tokyo as a reward) –and make no mistake, he knows a lot about tech!
How knowledgeable Olivier Levard, the MUJI fan, LCI blogger and author of a future book in French about social networks, was about cultural differences over the use of the social web, a passion of mine.
Don’t hesitate to work with them. Really.
Yes. Excellent reportage !