On Tour - September Part 2

Still on the road, but did have a few days at home last week. That did not really work out too well as there was a telephone outage for 4 days which had me offline as that was also the Internet connection. I spent 2 days in the local Starbucks, more time than I think I have ever spent there. At least the wireless is pretty reliable, but not too easy using the connection with the corporate VPN connection. Nevertheless I made it through the week albeit with a backlog of work I carried into the weekend. Never a good thing unless I planned it that way.

So, today is Monday and I am in the train again off to Zurich for a meeting tomorrow. Actually only a one hour meeting but we need to prep before the event. I will be working with Thomas again and that means this is easy. We've done this a few times already and have a program which we carry through. I was in the gym this morning trying to get some exercise into my busy schedule, listening to a podcast which is my usual distraction. Most of the podcasts I listen to are tech, social media or general news & education. I had a tech news podcast running and heard the news of HP getting back into the smart phone business. What timing! I needed another slide for our event with the client tomorrow and this heavyweight getting into the mobile business was just perfect. When I got back home I grabbed the news splash from last Friday and a picture of the CEO who made the statement and done. Then off to the train station.

This is my second time in 3 weeks to be going to Zurich and not having enough time to get out to see friends. Each time I am headed back in a hurry to catch a flight off somewhere else. This time it will be to Serbia. I had had quite a long time off of traveling this year and I really liked that too. Now all the travels are coming back to back and that is a pain. At least I will be home tomorrow night for the evening and get to sleep in my own bed. 

So, what have I been learning? I was part of that panel discussion last week, my first panel and it went really well too. Microsoft, Oracle a client of Deloitte's and 'me' onstage for an hour talking about the realities of building social businesses. What really surprised me was how much I had to say about that. I have been spending many hours working the social media angle and as this borders the broader subject I had many comments to make. It was a great experience and look forward to my next chance. I have also been spending much less time in social media getting the regular query from the web asking if I am fine. I decided that I needed a break and more so, needed to find a balance between all the things in life. While on summer holiday I thought I would replace my time saved from social media with exercise. So, the last weeks have had me doing A LOT of exercise. Last week alone it was over 11 hours. The month since we came back from the US I have amassed almost 35. That is really great and as expected has me feeling much better too. Just do miss some of my online 'friends'.