The “Jetaany 2.0 Digital Media” Issue

This issue is really just an experiment.

Shoujiki ni itte, my true goal was to reduce the amount of time required to put the Newsletter together. This whole “Digital Media” theme is just a concoction to cover all that up, as I’m sure you figured out by now. But it turns out that, much like gaseous matter, content tends to expand to fill up the space and time allowed and new formats present their own quirky challenges, and such has been the case with this issue as well.  (No doubt those of you reading the PDF version understand quite well what I’m talking about.)

That said, experiments usually lead to learning and new perspectives, such as the profiles of JET alums working in digital multimedia, or the search for a suitable JET alum blog to review, which led to the discovery of the website jetsetjapan.com (a terrific resource which is about to get an overhaul). And the on-line format allows for linking to various fun and unexpected places, as you’ll find out when you click about the articles. Plus, you can add comments at the end of articles, creating the opportunity for an INE (”interactive newsletter experience”). (I just made that term up. Another fun feature of working in digital multi-media.)

Of course, we’ve kept an eye on some of the off-line happenings as well, such as the review of Martha Stewart’s talk at the Japan Society and the review of I and Me & You and I, a two-woman Japanese play that ran here in New York. Articles like these require someone to log off Second Life, make use of comped tickets and actually sit and watch non-digital humans perform.

In the end, whether in the real or virtual world, life is about taking risks and trying out new ways of doing things. Adapt or perish. That’s the only way to grow. And if we don’t do it, then some leaner, hungrier Japan-oriented alumni magazine will eat our lunch.

So hopefully you will appreciate the plunge we have taken into the ethosphere and read this issue on-line. Or, perhaps if you’re like me and don’t like reading articles on-line, you’ll just print out the PDF and read it on the train. Or, quite possibly, you’ll come up with a completely different way of imbibing the content that I had not even contemplated.

Whatever your chosen mode of content processing, I sincerely hope you enjoy this issue and benefit from the new perspectives we’ve inadvertently stumbled upon.

Yoroshiku onegaishimasu!