Some of my more "usual" posts are coming later this week, but here are some updates following a whirlwind travel schedule these past two weeks. I've gone around the world (Australia, Singapore, Amsterdam, Madrid, then back to the U.S.), done a great job beating jet lag, but fallen mightily to a bout of food poisoning on my flight between Sydney and Singapore - yuck.
Here are some updates, observations, and learnings from this trip:
Some economic / immigration concerns span the globe.- I had conversations on every continent where people were concerned about workers from other countries coming in and working for less money, refusing to learn the local language, and jeopardizing the local culture. You could do a "search and replace" to adjust the conversation to reflect the local "invading culture" and the arguments sounded identical.
- The US is still missing the boat on the Metric system.
- Man, I wish the US would convert to Metric standards. I remember reading that this was "on the way" in my Weekly Reader back in 1976, but it doesn't seem like it will ever happen.
- Kensington has great support for its customers.
- I've reviewed my travel adapter in the past. On this trip, the part of the adapter that lets me run my laptop off the power jacks on airplanes decided to quit working. I emailed Kensington's customer service and they zipped out a replacement right away, with no hassle. Gotta love that.
- Robert Ludlum books are a great way to entertain yourself on long flights.
- I had a number of business-oriented books along with me, but I kept gravitating back to the late, great Ludlum. Great stuff. Even some of the newer ones that they are 'ghost writing' under his name (such as The Ambler Warning, which I read on this trip).
- Sometimes, more business gets decided over drinks and dinner than in formal meetings.
- People do business with people. Never underestimate the power of a little social time after the formal meeting. Just don't go too wild!
- Time zones can be tricky to figure out.
- Here is a web-based tool that helps do the dirty work on time zone calculations for many cities at once.
- Dutch coffee is my favorite in the world.
- Lots of places have good coffee, but I think Dutch coffee is the best. I brought back a kilo of Douwe Egberts' Aroma Rood. Lekker!
Those are a few things I've learned on my recent trips. Looking forward to sharing a little more frequently in the coming days!