Writing for Designers in Tokyo

I had the great pleasure of visiting Tokyo recently, to speak at the long-running, COVID-interrupted UX Days event. From my perspective it was over 3 years in the making, from the initial invitation to actually being able to attend. Wild.

Marc uses his height to help us capture a group selfie of the 2020 / 2023 UX Days Tokyo speakers.

The trip was a lot of firsts for me; my first time in Japan, my first time leading a workshop and presentation with simultaneous translation, my first time running a full-day workshop in the timezone opposite my own, my first time eating eel! I did well enough with the time change while I was there, but friends I am feeling it now, back home here on the other end … haven’t been able to confidently guess which day of the week it is for a few days now 😂.

So I don’t have any fully cogent insights to share from my time there, not yet, anyway. Just grateful for the experience and still trying to capture as much of it as I can. One thing is for sure: I deeply admire the courage my workshop participants demonstrated last week, diving into activities explained on translated worksheets, presenting work to a room full of mostly strangers, on totally new topics. They really crushed it, and their final presentations for the day were one of the more rewarding experiences I’ve had yet in my training and public speaking career. The cool digs at Accenture Song, with Tokyo Tower in the background, sure didn’t hurt.

A group presents their writing workflow planning work from the day’s final activity.

I probably don’t need to tell you this, but if you get an opportunity like this, you say yes, friends. You say yes.

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