This is 3Bits & Change, an email about building a service and retail business. This one was written to the sounds of folks at a Starbucks NOT on their laptops.
Good day!
I started the day at the river. Oh, and, I had another convenience store meal. Ha. Folks, it’s not all fish and sushi in Japan. There is plenty to eat, even at the Family Mart. In this case, that’s all there is near the very select service hotel.
Let’s go to a knife festival.
Who should I say “Hi” to you?
A friend of mine, Tim Brunelle, is teaching in the entrepreneurship track at Minneapolis College of Art and Design (MCAD). In one of our recent conversations he was talking about teaching networking. I reflected to him that I’ve done very little “networking” in recent years. I was thinking of it like the ad agency world. In those days I’d go to an industry event every month, often a handful, and smoosh coffee and drink meetings in between. I’ve done very little of that brand of networking in recent years - even before “the vid.”
And now?
Tim reminded me that I’m networking my way into the knife world. Those words hit like a hammer hitting a gong in my head. “Ah. Right. I am.” It just looks way different than my previous networking.
While the knife world spans the world, it’s actually a relatively small “world.” And, folks in the know want to be at this festival, even when they can’t attend.
I used Instagram (the Linkedin of the knife world) to reach out to everyone I already know to let them know I was attending and asked them who I should say “Hi” to on their behalf. The approach rendered great results. Cheers to opportunistic and alternative networking approaches.
Chance meetings
The train ride from the hotel included a 22 min walk and a 18 min ride and another 17 min walk (thanks for the detail Google). I decided to go ask the hotel team (no Kipsu at this hotel, yet) for a taxi (no taxi app either). I wanted to “be on time.”
While I was waiting in the lobby, two dudes that looked like “knife people” walked through and we started chatting. They had already rented a car and offered me a lift to the festival with them. I did not want to disappoint my “host” and cancel the taxi. But, I took the chance and canceled it anyway. I’m glad I did!
It turns out these guys had connections to Kershaw and Kramer (IYKYK) plus decades of experience in the industry. And, they went straight to the outdoor portion of knife festival, as one might expect. I would not have done that. I’m not an outdoor knife enthusiast. Yet, it turned out to be exactly the thing to do!
At these festivals makers bring a finite number of knives they can travel with and they hope to sell. Often it’s stuff they have laying around. They bring “new” stuff and the fancy stuff for entering in competitions too. The limited and exclusive supply tends to make the first hour of a show is a rush. It’s kinda like a Thanksgiving door buster sale in the States. But in Japan it’s done with very orderly and maticulos shuffle of locals, industry folks, and enthusiasts.
One of my goals in attending this festival was to build relationship with makers at Takefu Knife Village. They make great stuff… like great stuff! I’ve heard that “networking” in Japan is about being present regularly. So, attend.
Another goal, and one I think will be ongoing, is to find younger quality craftsmen whom are not yet “big” and help them grow by being a good early customer.
Two makers from Takefu and a young maker, with a storied heritage from Sanjo, had booths at the Outdoor Show. Go figure. It was absolutely the place to be and the right time to be there.
I got so lucky.
I spent a few hours in that little room with a few hundred people. The more time I spent the better it got. A Japanese exporter to the states who had been to Minneapolis many times helped me translate with one of the makers. We had just meet each other while both on our hands and knees looking at the same stash of knives. I met a collector who has been coming to the show for a decade from Hawaii and he intro’d me to a maker from Takefu. I chatted with a knife shop owner with a Levis 49ers Jacket, a Yankees hat and a Sony A7 (hey, nice camera!) from Seoul (I still want to go there too!).
Anyway. Chance meetings are what I hope for when coming to these. To invest days of life and a 1/2 a million Yen on the chance to make and build relationships but without the assurance of doing so is really hard for me. With Edina under construction and opening soon, I needed a big nudge from my wife to attend this festival.
I was so delighted that after the first few hours I had a load of positive chance meetings and the whole trip had already been worth it! I got so lucky.
Wrap the day
As much as the show is an national and international event it’s also a very local event. Makers line up for blocks and there is food all over. It really felt like the whole town was out, families and all. Afterall, knife making is one of the town’s main industries and I bet it’s like living in Rochester MN where 3/4 of the town works for the hospital or in support of it. In Seki that main industry is knifemaking.
Check the Tiktok and Insta for a video of the street.
I was invited to attend a party after the show at what turned out to be an old sword forge. A legit, for real, one. It was a “swords all over” kind of place. I was also asked not to post photos of the forge or the swords. Bummer. Catch me sometime. I have ‘em on my phone. They include an old forge room. Just woah. An upstairs full of sword blanks and crazy calculators with a physical abacus built in. What? Large 50 ton presses and on and on. One day, there will be a Vivront Atelier and it’ll be fantastic in unique and similar ways. Until then, we build other things, like our knowledge, the Edina store and our network.
Speaking of learning, the photo above is a of a “sweet fish.” It’s what the fishermen (all men) in the river were fishing for near my hotel. When I got to the forge I followed the music and found kettles of soup, kegs of beer and folks all over, including a few around a fire pit. I thought little of it until I was abruptly given a fish an hour later after leaving the forge room.
Some of the crew had been out the night before fishing in a different way than I’d seen up river. Apparently when you raise ducks from birth and train them you can also light a fire on the front of your boat and go night “fishing.” Er, the ducks will fish for you. Yeah. Note to self, delegate more.
Sum
One quick Saturday morning in Seki and a handful of chance meetings with wonderful humans made the whole trip to Japan “worth it.” I think I got more meaningful networking in a few hours than I should expect in similar events in the future. And while I type that I think about quotes I’ve heard about luck. Many of them are some twist on the idiom of being in the right place at the right time. Turns out you can be smart about that and “be there.”
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