The Globalization of Sumo – My talk at MSR SCS 2013

Microsoft’s Social Computing Symposium is one of my favorite conferences of the year. It’s small, invitation only, curated by some of the smartest people in my field, and attracts a wonderful combination of smart folks I hadn’t previously known about and friends I’ve known long enough that they are becoming family.

Because it’s a small conference of people who know each other well, it can get pretty silly. People are encouraged to give talks not just on their current research, but on anything they’re interested in. When we introduced ourselves at the beginning of Thursday, I proposed a talk on sumo and globalization, which was one of the dozen chosen as the pre-dinner entertainment.

The talk went over well, and a few folks asked for the slides or more information, so I’ve posted it on SlideShare along with my notes. It was supposed to be a five minute talk, but it’s probably more like a 10 minute talk that could stretch to 15.

Here’s the talk:

The third slide features a great bout between Harumafuji and Okinoumi, but I couldn’t upload the video to SlideShare. The YouTube video features below.

Nothing here will be news for sumo fans, but this was an attempt to share the sport, and some of the controversies and debates that surrounds it with an audience used to thinking about the globalization of culture, but perhaps not about this specific instance.