February 4th, 2008
Once upon a time, taxi drivers had to demonstrate that they could find their way around a city before they were given a license. It may be folklore, but my understanding is that prospective London taxi-drivers had to memorize most of the arcane streets and points of interest within that ancient city. At the very […]
December 3rd, 2007
A couple days ago, I wrote about implementing some techniques for reducing e-mail distractions and interruptions, based on suggestions that I had found in Tim Ferriss‘ book, The 4-hour Workweek. I’m pleased to report that — at least so far — the techniques work. Significantly, none of the people who interact with me by email […]
February 2nd, 2007
Hunkered down at the Tokyo Admiral’s Club, waiting to board my flight back to New York. Now, this is what an airline club ought to be like. It’s far and away the most comfortable, high-tech club/lounge I’ve seen, with any airline, anywhere in the world.
According to the website, the club will seat 265 people, and […]
February 2nd, 2007
… but what’s interesting is to see how they respond to their mistakes.
I just had a typical road-warrior’s experience at the Tokyo Westin Hotel, where I’ve been staying all week: I ordered a room-service meal just before checking out and heading for the airport, and it didn’t arrive. This was a surprise, because everything else […]
December 6th, 2006
Do you remember showing up at the gate of an arriving airline flight, so that when a friend, business colleague, or family member disembarked, you were there to greet him or her? Did you ever have the experience of flying first-class on a transatlantic Pan Am flight, and enjoy being served a five-course meal on […]
September 27th, 2006
I took a relatively uneventful Northwest Airlines flight from New York to Minneapolis this afternoon, and was delighted to find that (unlike most flights these days), it was only half full. Lots of empty aisle seats, and even a few empty window seats. Nevertheless, the automated “kiosk” check-in system at LaGuardia assigned me a middle […]
September 7th, 2006
I know it’s a small thing, but I enjoyed the all-too-rare pleasure of eating lunch with a real knife today — and a real fork, and a real spoon, not those cheap plastic imitations — while traveling from New York to Boston. In case you, too, have forgotten how nice these little pleasures are, I […]
August 3rd, 2006
I’m on my way from Pittsburgh to Boston, at the end of a day-long meeting, to attend the 3-day weekend Wikimania conference — which I’ll be blogging about over the next few days.
It’ sobering to remember that we sill have to transport flesh and bones from one geographical location to another in order to participate […]
July 6th, 2006
I’m in Amsterdam, de-jet-lagging in preparation for a Web 2.0 conference tomorrow. It looks like a timely and relevant conference, and the participants are coming from 14 countries. The agenda looks interesting, and I’m hoping to get a better sense of how the European marketplace is reacting to Web 2.0 technologies, cultural trends, and business […]
April 30th, 2006
This posting isn’t about computers or technology, so feel free to skip it…
We drove from NYC down to rural Virginia this weekend, to visit some friends on their farm (hence the lack of blog entries on April 28th and 29th). I was curious to see if there were any signs of a stagnant economy, or […]
