Bob Geldof's song encapsulated the feeling of people who can't face the working week without fear and trepidation, walking into the office on Monday knowing it's a place they don't want to be and a place they can't make a difference in. I know it's true for many and although we often joke about Mondayitis, it can affect everyone at one time or another. Often so much so, that Monday starts to over power days like Sunday, ruining two days of the week and if I include the thinking of a friend, who recently complained about Friday being too close to Monday, we now have a day infecting the whole week.
EMM, Every Monday Matters is a small influential movement taking root in the US corporate landscape with the intention to bring about change including the perception of Mondays as a day of loathing. Matthew Emerzian and Kelly Bozza, co-authors and co-founders, wrote Every Monday Matters: 52 Ways to Make a Difference, to try and bring about change, little by little, one person at a time. It's about taking back Mondays to make it a day of choices, to be a better friend, to be a better co worker, to make a difference fifty two weeks a year, to bring back values long since burned from our memories by the heat of self appreciation, individual goals, disengagement and the "it's always about me" syndrome.
That me focus, so powerful and useless at the same time is something that EMM wants to turn around to create environments that matter because giving back is so much more powerful than taking away. It's about pointing out why people matter, raising the collective unconsciousness and the change that can come from that power at a grass roots level. Very much in the vein of Seth Godin and tribes contributing to the worth of society, EMM focuses people to bring about change on the one day they see as the most difficult to be motivated and engaged on.
Emerzian looks at it from the one vote matters at an election and every vote counts, so it is a social responsibility for all to make a difference, one Monday at a time. Since the launch of EMM corporate program, they have seen companies adopt Mondays to change attitudes of employee and change company culture by focusing on what is best for and matters most for others. One Fortune 100 company wanting to actively engage their employees became so successful, they ended up in the top 10% of companies people want to work for.
Emerzian believes five years from now, EMM will be a household name. That books, radio and television shows along with Internet adoption will have cities and schools, along with companies adopting the new attitude of welcoming Monday and the changes it can bring.
Patience is what he says, is required now for the movement to grow in small increments until it gets to critical mass where people can't wait for the weekend to end and Monday to come around.
I would dispute wanting to end the weekend prematurely and ask the obvious, why not make a difference every day?
Tuesday, April 24, 2012
Thursday, April 19, 2012
Happyness.
Will Smith did a fine job on the movie of the same name, looking for happiness in all the wrong places and eventually working out having a big fat wallet as a broker made him the happiest. We got the message about sticking to your dreams and that living in toilets is a drag unless you're Devine Brown looking for Hugh Grant but Will's happiness was all about the dollars in the end and it seems the United Nations agrees on some levels.
The United Nations Conference on Happiness, and you thought they were about running the world, distilled its findings into a one hundred page document pointing out the GDP of a country did not account for the happiness of its people but there were individually obvious factors playing a big part. Yes Dorothy, rich people are happier than poor people. The obvious then gave way to the also obvious but not always talked about, like mentally healthy people are happier than mentally ill people, while employed are happier than unemployed. So defining happiness seemed to have a certain monetary bent and wasn't about sitting on a mountain top contemplating bliss and your navel.
Columbia University, who put this report together for the United Nations, had the thinking that science has a lot to do with happiness across the world. I thought Disney had a lot to do with happiness across the world? Seems social factors like personal freedom, self esteem, trust and social support play a big part, apart from the obvious factors of money, money, money. These factors bring up divides between western countries as much as between third world developing countries.
Seems Europe has a much dourer view on inequality and the possibility of people escaping their lowly lot and being happy, with only 40% believing the poor have a chance of escaping poverty versus 70% in the US. That's why Disneyland remains popular in the US, it's about the possibilities and not always what's in front of your face. It's about being relentlessly positive in the US and hitching your star to the dollar, regardless of what the rest of the world thinks. Interestingly for third world countries, happiness has correlation with the quality of human relationships versus income.
Obvious factors such as unemployment certainly have a bearing on those affected but also on those not, who build up anxieties about becoming the former and losing their jobs. Seems even low end quality employment is more satisfying than standing in the dole line and self employment yields even more happiness that working for someone else, especially in the "land of the free". The more fuzzy factors like social well being, personal well being and trust, leading to happiness, often depends on cultural and ideological differences and differs from country to country. The old cash stuffed wallet, would you return it test of trust, has fallen in countries like the US and UK but risen in others like Denmark and Italy. Princess Mary would return it but would Silvio Berlesconi?
Sometimes there are easy fixes to being happy, other than the lotto win and one of those is being married. Seems globally, married people are happier than singles, so I thank my lucky stars I recently married after eighteen years of dating my girl. I would have done it sooner but I only just read the report!
In the end, individuals are accountable for their own happiness, no matter what the GDP of your country may be, after all trust, self esteem, how you treat people are more important than what we sell to China.
The United Nations Conference on Happiness, and you thought they were about running the world, distilled its findings into a one hundred page document pointing out the GDP of a country did not account for the happiness of its people but there were individually obvious factors playing a big part. Yes Dorothy, rich people are happier than poor people. The obvious then gave way to the also obvious but not always talked about, like mentally healthy people are happier than mentally ill people, while employed are happier than unemployed. So defining happiness seemed to have a certain monetary bent and wasn't about sitting on a mountain top contemplating bliss and your navel.
Columbia University, who put this report together for the United Nations, had the thinking that science has a lot to do with happiness across the world. I thought Disney had a lot to do with happiness across the world? Seems social factors like personal freedom, self esteem, trust and social support play a big part, apart from the obvious factors of money, money, money. These factors bring up divides between western countries as much as between third world developing countries.
Seems Europe has a much dourer view on inequality and the possibility of people escaping their lowly lot and being happy, with only 40% believing the poor have a chance of escaping poverty versus 70% in the US. That's why Disneyland remains popular in the US, it's about the possibilities and not always what's in front of your face. It's about being relentlessly positive in the US and hitching your star to the dollar, regardless of what the rest of the world thinks. Interestingly for third world countries, happiness has correlation with the quality of human relationships versus income.
Obvious factors such as unemployment certainly have a bearing on those affected but also on those not, who build up anxieties about becoming the former and losing their jobs. Seems even low end quality employment is more satisfying than standing in the dole line and self employment yields even more happiness that working for someone else, especially in the "land of the free". The more fuzzy factors like social well being, personal well being and trust, leading to happiness, often depends on cultural and ideological differences and differs from country to country. The old cash stuffed wallet, would you return it test of trust, has fallen in countries like the US and UK but risen in others like Denmark and Italy. Princess Mary would return it but would Silvio Berlesconi?
Sometimes there are easy fixes to being happy, other than the lotto win and one of those is being married. Seems globally, married people are happier than singles, so I thank my lucky stars I recently married after eighteen years of dating my girl. I would have done it sooner but I only just read the report!
In the end, individuals are accountable for their own happiness, no matter what the GDP of your country may be, after all trust, self esteem, how you treat people are more important than what we sell to China.
Tuesday, April 17, 2012
You have mail.
Everyone loves them and everyone hates them. Work emails, personal emails, joke emails, spam emails, latest offer emails and my favourite, chain emails, extolling the virtue of sending the message from the Dalai Lama onto your fifteen closest friends so peace and harmony will reign in your life along with a big cheque from the lottery office. All those emails you never read anymore, all those emails that seemed interesting the first time you subscribed and all those emails that still make you inbox sing every time they arrive. It has long been noted the amount of rubbish that lands in your inbox far exceeds anything relevant to you but what is the cost of getting rid of all that rubbish?
If everyone printed all of their spam and chain emails and then buried them in landfill, the world would not have enough trees for the paper, nor enough holes to take the load. Luckily with a swipe of your hand or a flick of your mouse, you eradicate the offending distraction to your busy work day, generally without even opening the emails. Depending on how many emails you get, surveys on such information indicate that anywhere from fifteen minutes to thirty minutes a day is used to hit the delete button if you receive more than sixty or seventy emails a day. With fifteen from the Dalai Lama alone, along with the latest Google updates on your name, those numbers are easily reached for most people.
At the upper limit of thirty minutes of distraction, collating the rubbish and hitting the delete button, you end up with seven days spent doing this meaningless task every year. Extrapolating that over a seventy five year life span, emails after all are for life, you get eighteen months just banging away on the delete button. You don't want to get to the pearly gates and wish you had another thirty minutes to clean up your emails do you?
Sure fifteen minutes or even thirty minutes doesn't seem much, in a day crammed with waiting in line at banks or sandwich shops at lunchtime, coffee runs in the morning so the marketing department can function properly or Facebooking you latest night out. People aren't optimised into law firm time segments, they aren't good at measuring their work flow efficiencies and as such, the slow creep of time in small increments of inconsequential key board strokes, doesn't seem to matter much.
It can't matter, otherwise we'd spend that fifteen to thirty minutes a day doing sit ups, walking the dog, writing our memoirs, saving the planet or just doing more work. Watching TV or surfing the net every night for hours, indicates we have the time to do all of the above and more but we fritter away small increments of time just as easily as hitting that delete key over and over and over
The horror of eighteen months of deletion is bad enough but when you add the distraction of addictively checking emails so frequently that no single job gets done without interruption it exacerbates the time situation even more. Consider checking your emails and finding nothing but rubbish? Having interrupted your work flow and thought process you have added the distraction factor where nothing of consequence is accomplished and you still aren't back to doing your work.
I'm thinking another 6 months added and we are now talking years of nothing accomplished, due to rubbish in your inbox. Is it time to consider spending some of that deletion time on unsubscribing time or even hiring someone to hit the delete button? Talk about an investment in your future.
If everyone printed all of their spam and chain emails and then buried them in landfill, the world would not have enough trees for the paper, nor enough holes to take the load. Luckily with a swipe of your hand or a flick of your mouse, you eradicate the offending distraction to your busy work day, generally without even opening the emails. Depending on how many emails you get, surveys on such information indicate that anywhere from fifteen minutes to thirty minutes a day is used to hit the delete button if you receive more than sixty or seventy emails a day. With fifteen from the Dalai Lama alone, along with the latest Google updates on your name, those numbers are easily reached for most people.
At the upper limit of thirty minutes of distraction, collating the rubbish and hitting the delete button, you end up with seven days spent doing this meaningless task every year. Extrapolating that over a seventy five year life span, emails after all are for life, you get eighteen months just banging away on the delete button. You don't want to get to the pearly gates and wish you had another thirty minutes to clean up your emails do you?
Sure fifteen minutes or even thirty minutes doesn't seem much, in a day crammed with waiting in line at banks or sandwich shops at lunchtime, coffee runs in the morning so the marketing department can function properly or Facebooking you latest night out. People aren't optimised into law firm time segments, they aren't good at measuring their work flow efficiencies and as such, the slow creep of time in small increments of inconsequential key board strokes, doesn't seem to matter much.
It can't matter, otherwise we'd spend that fifteen to thirty minutes a day doing sit ups, walking the dog, writing our memoirs, saving the planet or just doing more work. Watching TV or surfing the net every night for hours, indicates we have the time to do all of the above and more but we fritter away small increments of time just as easily as hitting that delete key over and over and over
The horror of eighteen months of deletion is bad enough but when you add the distraction of addictively checking emails so frequently that no single job gets done without interruption it exacerbates the time situation even more. Consider checking your emails and finding nothing but rubbish? Having interrupted your work flow and thought process you have added the distraction factor where nothing of consequence is accomplished and you still aren't back to doing your work.
I'm thinking another 6 months added and we are now talking years of nothing accomplished, due to rubbish in your inbox. Is it time to consider spending some of that deletion time on unsubscribing time or even hiring someone to hit the delete button? Talk about an investment in your future.
Thursday, April 12, 2012
Games people play.
Once, pac man and space invaders were found in every pub and the line up to play at the end of the night could be a dangerous place, depending on the alcohol levels of the participants. When we moved from the arcades of pinball machines and jingle jangle music to computer generated kiosks in the watering holes, convenience was hailed and we were happy. We couldn't think of a better way to have a few beers and still enjoy the benefits of saving the planet from alien invaders. The arcade allure has long since disappeared, to be replaced by the arcade in our hands. The personal arcade where we win all the time, don't have to line up and never get into a fight to use the machine.
Only now the arcade is filled with even more games than we could have ever imagined. All those years ago, the Who's Pinball Wizard sang about addiction, an addiction that today sees people playing games 25% of the time they are online. Good news for the app developers or the share holders of Zynga but not so much for companies, who's employees enjoy online access throughout the work day. Where pong once entranced us with a dot moving across a green screen, Angry Birds of all species, now hold sway over every hand held device on the planet. As goofy as the games are, and many people describe them as stupid, the addiction is a problem for many in the work force.
Popularity that used to be gauged by the number of machines physically set up in an arcade, is today socially chattered about with access to hundreds of millions of players and no longer requires getting up from the bar to play. Any top grossing app list will show birds, fruit ninjas, zombie farms, smurf villages, bejewelled, draw and multi layered Texas poker games taking place while distracting people from their workaday lives.
The first really addictive hand held game for many was Tetris and it's falling walls helped sell 70 million units for the game boy. Twenty five years later Angry Birds started flying out of Finland to become the world's most maddening distraction while being downloaded 700 million times and eating up 200 million minutes every day. The web used to be the greatest distraction invented but thanks to Mr Jobs and the iPhone we now have hand held access to more stupidity than Stephen Hawkins can imagine in a life time.
Yet many pundits and analysts are predicting the gamification time we are spending on mobile phones will soon see commerce adapt the model to sell products and services we will engage with from the palm of our hands. Who knew that space invaders would make way for selling platforms based on our need to sling shoot birds into pigs or that zombie farms could be used to sell more hamburgers?
It may be a distraction now and you may need to hide it from the boss but soon you'll be able to say you are working in e-commerce. How much fun will that be?
Only now the arcade is filled with even more games than we could have ever imagined. All those years ago, the Who's Pinball Wizard sang about addiction, an addiction that today sees people playing games 25% of the time they are online. Good news for the app developers or the share holders of Zynga but not so much for companies, who's employees enjoy online access throughout the work day. Where pong once entranced us with a dot moving across a green screen, Angry Birds of all species, now hold sway over every hand held device on the planet. As goofy as the games are, and many people describe them as stupid, the addiction is a problem for many in the work force.
Popularity that used to be gauged by the number of machines physically set up in an arcade, is today socially chattered about with access to hundreds of millions of players and no longer requires getting up from the bar to play. Any top grossing app list will show birds, fruit ninjas, zombie farms, smurf villages, bejewelled, draw and multi layered Texas poker games taking place while distracting people from their workaday lives.
The first really addictive hand held game for many was Tetris and it's falling walls helped sell 70 million units for the game boy. Twenty five years later Angry Birds started flying out of Finland to become the world's most maddening distraction while being downloaded 700 million times and eating up 200 million minutes every day. The web used to be the greatest distraction invented but thanks to Mr Jobs and the iPhone we now have hand held access to more stupidity than Stephen Hawkins can imagine in a life time.
Yet many pundits and analysts are predicting the gamification time we are spending on mobile phones will soon see commerce adapt the model to sell products and services we will engage with from the palm of our hands. Who knew that space invaders would make way for selling platforms based on our need to sling shoot birds into pigs or that zombie farms could be used to sell more hamburgers?
It may be a distraction now and you may need to hide it from the boss but soon you'll be able to say you are working in e-commerce. How much fun will that be?
Tuesday, April 10, 2012
So Quick.
Who hasn't put on the hindsight goggles (no they are not like the beer goggles, although some things look better through both) and marvelled at where we've come from and wondered how we got so far, so quickly and still manage to keep pace ? A study on household spending over the last hundred years has brought up fascinating insights that show we should not be complacent about our thinking today and that the speed of our progress causes as many challenges as it does benefits. Advancement we take for granted as the speed of innovation carries all before it, like a Steve Jobs tsunami of information and design.
At the start of last century, 10% of families owned a stove or had electricity, life expectancy was 49 years and phones for most were a thing of the future. By 1930 10% of families owned a refrigerator along with a car and by mid century that included clothes dryers and air conditioning. By the 60s 10% of families had colour TV and dishwashers and the mid 70s saw microwaves in 10% of households. Twenty years ago 10% of families had mobile phones or access to the Internet.
Today that is inverted and 90% of families have everything in the above list. How quickly we adapt, innovate, create and accumulate. The above gives a good indication of how much speed we have picked up, especially in the last decade and the thinking for many is challenging, keeping up with the speed and what the next decade will look like? Will we continue to adapt or will the change be too much, too fast with society fragmenting into the 10% speeding forward and the rest, well, just needing a rest?
One hundred and fifteen years ago, New York journalist David Goodman Croly published a compilation of predictions called "Glimpses of the Future" and looked to the year two thousand as a fulfilment of those predictions. The predictions caused much consternation and excitement among his readers, some who were not prepared for the drastic changes envisioned but others who couldn't wait for technology to speed up. Changes that included seeing a novel presented via voice and character actions, photos available for everyone in their homes and information disseminated by phone and gramophones which Croly described as "the ability of every citizen to get into direct communication with original sources of information".
Must have sounded like a Jules Verne novel for many in 1888. Today nothing seems impossible but keeping up for many seems impossible just as it did in 1888. The speed of innovation sees society grappling with the advancement of technology with the benefits involved while struggling to find solutions that seem to confound all, like global health issues, wars of many kinds on many continents, the saving of one planet and the singular challenge of individuals not coping with change at light speed.
The future view is important and we need to have checks and balances in place, to adjust accordingly and this is where hindsight comes to play finding mistakes made in the past that can help us in the future. We need to see the trends, the cycles, anticipations and
prognostications to lessen the anxiety and emotions so the future remains exciting and not foreboding. In the end, even with all that is available to us David Goodman Croly had it right when he said, "I have no notion of being able to tell what the future has in store for us. The best we can do is to indicate the drift of things".
I don't think I'll down load any Apps this week.
At the start of last century, 10% of families owned a stove or had electricity, life expectancy was 49 years and phones for most were a thing of the future. By 1930 10% of families owned a refrigerator along with a car and by mid century that included clothes dryers and air conditioning. By the 60s 10% of families had colour TV and dishwashers and the mid 70s saw microwaves in 10% of households. Twenty years ago 10% of families had mobile phones or access to the Internet.
Today that is inverted and 90% of families have everything in the above list. How quickly we adapt, innovate, create and accumulate. The above gives a good indication of how much speed we have picked up, especially in the last decade and the thinking for many is challenging, keeping up with the speed and what the next decade will look like? Will we continue to adapt or will the change be too much, too fast with society fragmenting into the 10% speeding forward and the rest, well, just needing a rest?
One hundred and fifteen years ago, New York journalist David Goodman Croly published a compilation of predictions called "Glimpses of the Future" and looked to the year two thousand as a fulfilment of those predictions. The predictions caused much consternation and excitement among his readers, some who were not prepared for the drastic changes envisioned but others who couldn't wait for technology to speed up. Changes that included seeing a novel presented via voice and character actions, photos available for everyone in their homes and information disseminated by phone and gramophones which Croly described as "the ability of every citizen to get into direct communication with original sources of information".
Must have sounded like a Jules Verne novel for many in 1888. Today nothing seems impossible but keeping up for many seems impossible just as it did in 1888. The speed of innovation sees society grappling with the advancement of technology with the benefits involved while struggling to find solutions that seem to confound all, like global health issues, wars of many kinds on many continents, the saving of one planet and the singular challenge of individuals not coping with change at light speed.
The future view is important and we need to have checks and balances in place, to adjust accordingly and this is where hindsight comes to play finding mistakes made in the past that can help us in the future. We need to see the trends, the cycles, anticipations and
prognostications to lessen the anxiety and emotions so the future remains exciting and not foreboding. In the end, even with all that is available to us David Goodman Croly had it right when he said, "I have no notion of being able to tell what the future has in store for us. The best we can do is to indicate the drift of things".
I don't think I'll down load any Apps this week.
Thursday, April 5, 2012
A Rose by any other name.
In the early days, long before the news media took any notice of web logs and long before there were 150 million blogs, it was uncertain if anyone cared or noticed personal daily, weekly or monthly online articles, written by mothers in dressing gowns. Seems people in pyjamas were busy writing opinions, news stories, niche segmentations and insights around kitchen tables, in basements and in coffee shops. Or so the media of the time had us thinking, as they cast a disparaging eye over amateurs looking for journalistic validation.
Today there is not a single media outlet from the venerable New York Times ( I will stop using them eventually ) to the local throw away Bugle that doesn't have blog posts. Blog posts from journalists, writers, matter experts, editorialists and likely Mothers in dressing gowns at the kitchen table. The ease with which the humble blog was produced via the plethora of platforms available, gave old media cause to ridicule its content and structure and did no justice to the "blood sweat and tears" of the people writing everyday. Eventually the acceptance level was raised by the sheer volume of words written daily and the legacy mindset of traditional media capitulated with a can't win, join attitude.
With this acceptance comes a new push to validate blogs by giving them a landscape and a new name within a content management structure. Seems there are many wanting to raise blogs into the vernacular of journalistic expertise and as such find a more suitable monicker with gravitas attached. Gravitas to elevate the blog beyond the local, the current, the niche and the pyjama perception. The things that make blogs popular, speed to market, niche insights, local knowledge and personalisation are the drivers of web content enthralling the world via social media sites and show no signs of abating. Is there a jealousy factor around the popularity of blogs versus the sun setting legacy media outlets?
The journey from legacy media to social media has given birth to millions of voices that for so long had no avenue and no option other than to adhere to the status quo of singular points of view. Just because blogs run on different systems to newspapers, magazines and the rest of the publishing world, doesn't mean their content is any less worthy of being read, admittedly by far fewer readers but often by far more engaged readers.
So do we need a branding campaign, an image intervention and a renaming of the procedure to validate the existence and justify legacy media accepting the new kids on the block? Blogs are repositories of information in various guises to appeal to their many audiences but scratch the surface and you'll find reporters, writers, local mavens and people who don't need validation of their work via a renaming campaign.
I write a blog of personal thoughts and insights based around my interests and work environment and with any luck it attracts the occasional reader who's opinion may or may not agree with mine. Hopefully the articles elevate people's thinking on various subjects and give them pause to reflect. If that is the end result, then I feel vindicated in my efforts and am comfortable remaining in this skin called a blog.
Today there is not a single media outlet from the venerable New York Times ( I will stop using them eventually ) to the local throw away Bugle that doesn't have blog posts. Blog posts from journalists, writers, matter experts, editorialists and likely Mothers in dressing gowns at the kitchen table. The ease with which the humble blog was produced via the plethora of platforms available, gave old media cause to ridicule its content and structure and did no justice to the "blood sweat and tears" of the people writing everyday. Eventually the acceptance level was raised by the sheer volume of words written daily and the legacy mindset of traditional media capitulated with a can't win, join attitude.
With this acceptance comes a new push to validate blogs by giving them a landscape and a new name within a content management structure. Seems there are many wanting to raise blogs into the vernacular of journalistic expertise and as such find a more suitable monicker with gravitas attached. Gravitas to elevate the blog beyond the local, the current, the niche and the pyjama perception. The things that make blogs popular, speed to market, niche insights, local knowledge and personalisation are the drivers of web content enthralling the world via social media sites and show no signs of abating. Is there a jealousy factor around the popularity of blogs versus the sun setting legacy media outlets?
The journey from legacy media to social media has given birth to millions of voices that for so long had no avenue and no option other than to adhere to the status quo of singular points of view. Just because blogs run on different systems to newspapers, magazines and the rest of the publishing world, doesn't mean their content is any less worthy of being read, admittedly by far fewer readers but often by far more engaged readers.
So do we need a branding campaign, an image intervention and a renaming of the procedure to validate the existence and justify legacy media accepting the new kids on the block? Blogs are repositories of information in various guises to appeal to their many audiences but scratch the surface and you'll find reporters, writers, local mavens and people who don't need validation of their work via a renaming campaign.
I write a blog of personal thoughts and insights based around my interests and work environment and with any luck it attracts the occasional reader who's opinion may or may not agree with mine. Hopefully the articles elevate people's thinking on various subjects and give them pause to reflect. If that is the end result, then I feel vindicated in my efforts and am comfortable remaining in this skin called a blog.
Tuesday, April 3, 2012
Learnings.
Last week, on a domestic work trip, I went through the airport metal detector and I beeped. I hate to beep, in fact I make it a rule never to beep. To that end, I have my process mapped out long before I get to the detector gate. It involves carry on luggage only, with all my keys and jangly bits inside, never carrying change, slip on shoes in a tray, watch and phones in my shoes, all my technology in trays and always a cheery hello to the security people. It also involves getting in the right line and thankfully with the amount of travel I do, that usually means the priority line. Of course that is everywhere except in Western Australia, where there are so many priority miners and oil and gas workers flying, the general public line is often shorter.
So I'm in line with carry on luggage, 3 trays and a backpack. Only I forget one of the trays with the iPad, because I still have to carry a laptop as my employer like so many others, has not grasped the world is turning Apple, and go back through the detector gate to put it onto the conveyor belt. I of course had already picked up my phone on the other side, not wanting a rogue miner to steal it, put it in my pocket and walked back to take care of the iPad. Then back through the gate beeping like I'm carrying a bomb! Back out to put the phone into a tray and back through the gate. Having now passed through the gate 5 times, do the maths, I look like a naive first time tourist with my belongings scattered along the length of the conveyor belt, and not the confident road warrior I want to exude heading towards the safety of the lounge.
Sometimes the things you've learned and the processes you put into place, while you travel, break down but you never stop learning and refining. I enjoy watching other travellers and learning from their mistakes and successes in navigating what has become a complex journey from my front door and back again.
Things such as turning on the phone the second you land, so as to have scanned all the messages before the plane reaches the gate. Accruing miles not for any free trips but having the little perks of recognition, lounge serenity, time savings, priority lines and the ability to check to the last minute at the lounge, for any seat with an empty seat next to it. Taking note, if by chance you drive to the airport, of where you parked your car because any trip over three days affects that long term parking memory. Always wear shoes to the plane toilet because bare feet and socks along with bad aim are not a good combination.
Figure out a way to uniquely identify your black luggage on the carousel without it looking like your Mother packed your bag and tied that yellow ribbon on. We should all travel with luggage envy, for that will distill the suitcase image down to the most efficient baggage available.
There are countless lists to peruse, online and in travel guides everywhere, but none of the information is a salient as what your learn from the mistakes made travelling yourself. Once you have your list, your processes, your style, you have the opportunity to give back and enjoy travel, even when it is for work. A stoppage by a tourist in Perth recently, asking directions that I could answer, gave me great satisfaction that work travel was more than just hotels and meeting rooms. Yet I struggle with the familiarity that return travel to places brings. The conundrum being I don't want to feel as comfortable on the road as I do at home, regardless of all the procedures I put into place to make things easier on myself. George Bernard Shaw put it simply when noting his proclivity for being home , "I dislike feeling at home when I'm abroad".
So no matter how interesting or exciting a destination can be, it's always good to be home. No metal detectors there.
So I'm in line with carry on luggage, 3 trays and a backpack. Only I forget one of the trays with the iPad, because I still have to carry a laptop as my employer like so many others, has not grasped the world is turning Apple, and go back through the detector gate to put it onto the conveyor belt. I of course had already picked up my phone on the other side, not wanting a rogue miner to steal it, put it in my pocket and walked back to take care of the iPad. Then back through the gate beeping like I'm carrying a bomb! Back out to put the phone into a tray and back through the gate. Having now passed through the gate 5 times, do the maths, I look like a naive first time tourist with my belongings scattered along the length of the conveyor belt, and not the confident road warrior I want to exude heading towards the safety of the lounge.
Sometimes the things you've learned and the processes you put into place, while you travel, break down but you never stop learning and refining. I enjoy watching other travellers and learning from their mistakes and successes in navigating what has become a complex journey from my front door and back again.
Things such as turning on the phone the second you land, so as to have scanned all the messages before the plane reaches the gate. Accruing miles not for any free trips but having the little perks of recognition, lounge serenity, time savings, priority lines and the ability to check to the last minute at the lounge, for any seat with an empty seat next to it. Taking note, if by chance you drive to the airport, of where you parked your car because any trip over three days affects that long term parking memory. Always wear shoes to the plane toilet because bare feet and socks along with bad aim are not a good combination.
Figure out a way to uniquely identify your black luggage on the carousel without it looking like your Mother packed your bag and tied that yellow ribbon on. We should all travel with luggage envy, for that will distill the suitcase image down to the most efficient baggage available.
There are countless lists to peruse, online and in travel guides everywhere, but none of the information is a salient as what your learn from the mistakes made travelling yourself. Once you have your list, your processes, your style, you have the opportunity to give back and enjoy travel, even when it is for work. A stoppage by a tourist in Perth recently, asking directions that I could answer, gave me great satisfaction that work travel was more than just hotels and meeting rooms. Yet I struggle with the familiarity that return travel to places brings. The conundrum being I don't want to feel as comfortable on the road as I do at home, regardless of all the procedures I put into place to make things easier on myself. George Bernard Shaw put it simply when noting his proclivity for being home , "I dislike feeling at home when I'm abroad".
So no matter how interesting or exciting a destination can be, it's always good to be home. No metal detectors there.
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