risktaker

Moriyama x Takizawa Talk

Went to see a panel discussion by Issey Miyake designer Naoki Takizawa and well known photographer Daido Moriyama. The main topic of discussion was their recent collaboration on a fashion shoot Novembre done just this past November in Paris.

Moriyama-san was very blase about the whole thing, but he did seem to express a lot of pleasure in having been able to work on something new to him. And Noaki Takizawa was impressively well-spoken -- to the point where it strained my good, but apparently still limited Japanese ability just trying to follow the details of what he was saying. I was particularly happy to hear him comment on what he perceived as a recent shift in Japanese thinking about fashion. He claimed that while in the past, the commonly held view was that a woman's body exists for the purpose of clothes, this is no longer the case and Japanese women are starting to try and express themselves more and more through their body with clothes selected to complement their bodies. (Quite a sensible change if you ask me.) He claimed that the growing popularity of fitness clubs, body modification (piercings, tatoos, etc..) reflected this trend.

Another interesting point that he brought up to help clarify things for a number of the young designers in the audience was that there is more than one starting point in the creative process, starting from a vision and moving it towards reality, or starting with reality and moving it towards your vision.

Quite heady stuff.

5th Meeting of the Agora Society

Yesterday I attended the 5th meeting of the Agora Society -- an organization run by my friend Christos who wants to bring together VC's and people with ideas worth investing in. The idea being to see if we can ever get new business venture activity in Tokyo to even come close to that of the US.

In a departure from the previous dinner format, we had a speaker for the first 45 minutes talk to the group about his experiences as a VC in Japan. Despite his rather impressive track record, he was fairly negative about the prospects for venture capital investment in Japan. He contended that deal flow is so small that no matter how busy VC's in Japan may appear to be, in reality they are not busy at all. Hence most foreign VC's have pulled out of Japan.

Attackers Business School

Last night I was at a seminar on venture capital sponsored by Attackers Business School (ABS). I have to admit that I was a little skeptical of this school, but then again with Ohmae-san (ex Mackinsey Japan MD, Venus Fort owner, etc...) running the place I figured it was at least worth a look. And I have to admit that I was impressed by the quality of the material presented at the seminar -- it was very practical and specific with respect to what items to be careful of when raising VC funding.

Hitotsubashi ICS MBA

I will be starting at Hitotsubashi ICS in the October of this year and today the "pre-enrollment" package containing various information, including preparatory studies arrived.

So it seems that I will be spending some time over the next five months learning financial accounting, etc... If there is anyone else preparing to enter Hitotsubashi ICS this fall who would like to study finance and accounting with me (in Tokyo), send me an email.

Title of this blog...

A good friend surprised me with a question recently, "How long do you intend to live?"

The point being, if you actually plan to live for a fixed amount of time, it makes it very clear how short a time one really has left. Nothing like a little belief in mortality to keep one's motivation up. Hence the title of this blog.