Editing The Pen Addict 729/transcript (section)

== Stationery Fest ==


'''Brad Dowdy:''' Good. Yeah, I'm feeling good too. We have some fun stuff to talk about today. I'm always excited to talk stationery. This is, you know, the week after travel is always tough, like for me, just so you're always catching up, you feel behind. Now this is the week after the week after travel. I feel like I'm actually able to get some work done, so I'm excited to get into it today. Cool. Sounds good. Yeah, except I want to talk about last week already.

'''Myke Hurley:''' All right. We've still got some stuff we need to clear out from stationery first.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yes. Yeah. Two quick topics. One that I want to jump right into is the category at Stationery Fest that was called a spacewalk. Because I think a lot of people didn't understand what that was, either online or even at the event, which Myke and I did not have a clear idea of what it is. And luckily, we just happened to walk into a spacewalk. So it's a dedicated area. And I'll explain why in a minute. At Stationery Fest, separate ticket. And just happened to run into Neil from Yoseka. And Neil was just like, hey, great to see you guys. Because I hadn't seen Neil all of it. And I was like, Neil, I need a minute. Can you explain what a spacewalk is to us? So he spent five or ten minutes discussing it. And I think, and you can correct me or jump in here, in the short version that I want to have today, it's essentially a collective of vendors and makers from Japan put together by Tono and Limbs, by Tono at Tono and Limbs, who runs this collective. And they all kind of move together in Japan to various events. So let's say...

'''Myke Hurley:''' Probably in Asia, too. It might not just be Japan. But yes, they're all kind of in the same collective. They go to different stationary shows, trade shows, and they go together. They don't sell together. They're individual vendors. But they all go to the same shows together.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. And I don't have the exact number. But for this conversation, let's say that's 20 vendors. Okay, that's probably in the ballpark. You know, it's somewhere in the teens, I think, just looking at that room. That group works together to attend these events to travel together and support each other when they're traveling. Because like a lot of them, we had learned like this time, some of this was their first time in the US.

'''Myke Hurley:''' One person hadn't left Japan before.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah, one person had left Japan before. So it's a way for this group of small makers, vendors, retailers to have their own built-in support system. So why is it ticketed differently? I'm still a little bit unsure why, number one, and that it needs to be number two. I feel like I have a good feeling of that. I feel like I have a good feeling of that. They wanted a more controlled space for this group.

'''Myke Hurley:''' There was a concern that the throngs of people that were at Stationery Fest may have been a little overwhelming, especially because the clientele are different in personality. Just like the general average personality of the American consumer is felt to be very different from the Japanese consumer. And there was a concern that unleashing the full 10,000 people may have been a little overwhelming for people who are used to something very different. But it seemed as the weekend went on that that feeling was not accurate as they kind of opened up a spacewalk and allowed more people in than were coming in at certain times. But I think it was out of an abundance of caution, I think, is why they set it up this way. That's fair. And it also felt like it was testing the waters. Like if this worked, then maybe more could be done in the future. That was the sense that I got from the explanation we received.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' And that reminds me, and this is to your point, that the category of product a lot of them were selling were a more dedicated one-on-one conversation needed to be had. So having 20 other people surrounding the table while you're trying to sell a $2,000 glass nip pen, that's an extreme version, but there was one. But to my point, while trying to sell very specific products or trying to sit at the Toto and Limbs mixing table, it gets a little bit overwhelming. So we'll see what the future holds for like the Spacewalk Collective is still going to be their thing, and they might change the name. The name doesn't really define anything, right? It's from Tono and Limbs, and they're just doing fun things, right? So that was their theme, and they might change the theme, but it doesn't really mean anything. But again, it's like this kind of collective that goes together. And it helps some of these vendors, like you said, who've never left Japan before, feel comfortable coming to other areas.

'''Myke Hurley:''' They literally traveled all together.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yeah. Stay all together. Traveled all together. Stay all together. Yeah. You know, get rooms, you know, adjacent to each other so they can have the built-in support systems that, you know, allow them to do this for the first time. So it's interesting. I will see what the future holds like as far as like a stationary fest or something like that for this group.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' And yeah, I don't know. I just wanted to bring that up because we didn't cover that. I think we just mentioned the area and passing. But I wanted to kind of say what we learned about it and still, you know, still have questions, you know, generally. But I at least got a better grasp of it now and what they're trying to accomplish on the spacewalk side and on the event side. So outside of that, we did meet Ryder Carroll. We did meet Ryder Carroll. We totally forgot. That was on my notes. And then we totally, we ran out of time last week. We went so long. So Ryder Carroll, if you don't know, is the creator of the Bullet Journal. And of course, Myke and I like to say we talked to him in the before times when there was only a website that he made. We don't like to say it. That is true. We do. We do say it. We do say it. But that was like I've talked to him over Zoom many times, like not face-to-face in person, but face-to-face, you know, online. We've interviewed him, I don't know, several times on the podcast. It's been many years since we interviewed him. So it was great to actually meet him in person. And we didn't know he was going to be there until we finished our panel that had Leuchtturm on it. And they said, yeah, and Ryder, they just mentioned they didn't know our relationship with Ryder. Matt from Leuchtturm had no clue. And I was like, wait a minute. He's going to be here? I was like, okay, let me explain like how we first met Ryder. And he's like, oh, no way. And so, yeah, we got to go meet Ryder. We have a fun picture. The picture is kind of funny. I don't know if you noticed this, Myke, when you look at the picture. It looks like a Ryder Carroll cutout.

'''Myke Hurley:''' Oh, my God. Why does it look like that?

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I think because he's in all black and everything else is white. And he's in the middle.

'''Myke Hurley:''' That is so funny. I had not noticed that until this moment. The link's in the show notes. You have to go look at this Instagram photo. It absolutely looks like we're standing. Because I think it's also made worse by us holding the massive Drigafel that it makes it look like more of a posed image. And he just looks like a cutout. Oh, my God.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I can't unsee that now. Except I know he was real because we were there and we talked to him. And we, of course, got to talk to him about working with Leuchtturm and how that came to be. And he's like, oh, yeah, you guys were the reason why I do this. And we're like, yes, we know. We say that all the time.

'''Myke Hurley:''' It's a story we have told many times that you suggested after an interview with him. Like, oh, you should look at Leuchtturm as maybe the collaboration partner for you. And he wasn't really that familiar with them. He looked into it, felt like it was good. And they somehow got in touch. I don't know if you had anything to do with that part.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I did not connect them.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I did not connect them. But Ryder remembers that and credits it and says it in front of the Leuchtturm people who were so happy with us. It was fun. They really wanted to take pictures of us all together at that moment as well.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' There were a lot more pictures following that. Like, people I don't know were starting to take pictures. I was like, okay. It was funny. So I wanted to mention that because that was left out of my notes.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I was really happy that we got to finally meet him.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' I was so happy, too. He was excited. We were excited. Yeah, he's a nice guy. He's a super nice guy. Yeah, super nice guy. Lastly, my next video has come out from the Yoseka YouTube feed. It's Brad's Techo Kaigi, where I go over the notebooks that I use. This came out yesterday. I watched it back. It was super fun. I really enjoyed this video. Shout out Daisy for doing this, having me on, and letting me ramble about my notebooks. We talked about the origin story of the pen addict and stuff. So it was a really good interview. You got to stand in the rain and watch this interview.

'''Myke Hurley:''' I've got to be a one of two person audience for this.

'''Brad Dowdy:''' Yes. Yeah. And I shouted you out and also my wife, who was in the audience as well. So it was funny. That was really good. It came out nice. They do such a good job. It's fun to just talk about this stuff. And we happened to record it.