Presenting at a Gurteen Knowledge Cafe

David Gurteen and I have become quite nice friends and I think that is fab. We pulled together one of his knowledge cafés and I was lucky enough to be the presenter. The key question was "what life experience has taught you the most", here's how we did it:

There were about 20 people in the room and it was the first cafe for about 85% of them. David explained that I will provoke conversation by speaking for 15 minutes without PowerPoint, then we'll split into small groups of 2-3 people. Each group discusses the key question, or frankly, whatever they want to discuss. Then, we randomize the groups, have another conversation for another 15 minutes. Then, the final rotation is a group circle where we all discuss the topic at hand. 

Here's what I presented...

3 stories and an idea. The first story was Wimbledon, the second story was Lost Car and the third story was Mud Path. The idea came between the second and third story. What's behind the stories is that this experience of living in the UK is one of my most impactful learning experiences and I was fascinated to learn others top learning experiences (maybe to recreate their structure, or just to purely share and learn them)

Wimbledon, I talked about how it took 3 times before I finally got in. How I learned about how the tournament started, how dedicated they are to being the premiere tennis org and how they leverage culture, process and technology to do that.

Lost Car. I talked about my first time in Guildford, how I parked the car and walked for hours. My cell phone battery almost died and I really had no idea where I was or how to get home, so a bit of panic started to set in as I thought about what to do. A great guy helped me out and it ended well. 

Then I offered the idea that most orgs are not feeling the panic regarding collaboration and org learning. It is time for us to understand, embrace and at least consider "working out loud". A way for employee passions and customer needs to be matched up and resolved in the most expedient and quality way possible. I think it looks and feels a lot different from our standard org designs and cultures of today. I think it feels like "one learns, everyone knows" as my buddy Andrew Muras and the US Army would say. I think there's a whole new way to embrace these engagement, strategic alignment, project management and execution problems we all face. A highly dynamic, emergent, agile organization that has culture, process and tools to leverage the collective wisdom will do the best job creating and delighting customers. And that's what it's about these days, creating and delighting customers, it's a shift away from market share and competitive advantage. 

Mud Path. I offered my experience of hiking Cheddar Gorge. I talked about hiking up 274 steps with my head down focused on making each step successfully. I said the steps changed after 274, they became more like railroad ties where you could step up, then walk a few feet, then step up again. I found myself noticing a mud path to the side of the steps. I tried the mud path and funny enough, it felt a lot different than the stairs. It felt more empowering, like more freedom. On the mud path, I didn't need to look at each step so as not to trip, I could look up and enjoy the full view and journey. It was then I realised that people had been kindly saying the whole hike, "you alright", in the British way of saying "what's up". It's just a friendly, informal hi.  It wasn't until I was on the mud path, looking up, when I found I could see others more and even be the first to say "you alright". And to me, it wasn't just the words "you alright" anymore, it was a slightly more meaningful, "hey we're both here, isn't this great, enjoy". 

The folks seemed to enjoy the talk, I received a few compliments and of course I'm always looking for honest feedback. I closed by saying, I hope I humbly, vulnerably shared some learnings of mine and I hope we can now do the same in this room and maybe even bring that approach back to our orgs after leaving this room.

It was my first time presenting to a full proper British audience. I was slightly surprised by what was funny to the group and what wasn't funny to the group. Always a lot to learn for me :)

In case you're interested in the themes that came out as most meaningful learning experiences, they were global rotations, amazing mentors and "before/after events". Before/after events are moments when change is so profound that you actually can't go back to the before state, and you may not even be able to talk about the before state. 

So let me thank David Gurteen again for the opportunity and a great little event. Looking forward to more success and continuing the openness/process to conversation!

Naples to Venice

We jumped on the train from Naples to Venice and our online printed tickets finally worked perfectly! We didn't have to validate them or anything, just get on the train and go.

It's a 5 hour ride, so we had plenty of time to talk and think. One thing that came to mind for me was a comparison to business. The voice over the loudspeaker on the train repeatedly said enjoy your journey in a very nice voice, and yet I found myself looking at a lot of graffiti. Don't get me wrong, graffiti isn't all bad, but it did seem to clearly contradict the culture they were trying to create on the train. I wonder if we do that in our orgs too, do we say enjoy the journey and yet everyone is looking at graffiti, wondering if we see it? Is it best to acknowledge the graffiti, or ignore it, or what?

We jumped off the train in Venice, it was pouring rain so we decided to eat right next to the station. It was kinda funny that we ate at a hotel restaurant in the same chain of hotels that we were staying in just 15 minutes up the road. The nice folks at this hotel said it was a quick easy bus ride to the other one, so I went on a mission to find tickets while the girls ate.

The first ticket machine I found had a Windows 2000 error on it. I eventually found a coffee shop that sold tickets and we were all set. It took a few minutes to know exactly which bus to catch, but we caught it. Then we sat there, waiting for the bus to move. It quickly became apparent that the bus driver was in a verbal argument with someone outside the bus, especially when the guy outside the bus slammed his fist into the window. Great, I got to put on my protective "hat" again and make some quick decisions. 

After checking it all out, it was safe and easy to just wait on the bus while the police came. The verbal disagreement was in Italian, so we couldn't quite understand, but it appeared as though the car driver thought the bus was blocking his way out. Just that simple. It took 30 minutes for the police and next bus to come, but we safely arrived at our hotel and got some good sleep :)

Rome to Sorrento

We loved Sorrento, Positano and the Amalfi coast so much on our first trip here years ago, we knew we had to come again. Without a car, I suppose your best bet is a train from Rome to Naples, and then a separate train from Naples to Sorrento. It took us about 2 hours and I honestly can't remember the price, sorry I could look it up. The second train was crazy inexpensive, maybe €8 or 9 total for the four of us. There's a bit of a trick in switching trains, so make sure you look up those details, they were priceless for us (basically you walk one block from one train station to another)

Sorrento is just so perfect. It was slightly bigger than I remembered, even more kid friendly, even better food, and even more beautiful. It's pretty rare that I remember places as well as I remembered Sorrento though, I knew exactly where our first hotel was, I remembered restaurants and shops, that's just crazy after almost a decade. 

We had great food, walked and shopped, and watched the beautiful sunset over the white cliffs.

Capri and the Grotta Azzurra

We took the hotel shuttle into downtown Sorrento, which was a fun 10 minute ride with 14 people sitting in 8 seats :) We walked down the cliff to buy a boat ticket and jumped right on the next departure.

It's about 20-30 minutes to get from Sorrento to Capri, then you buy your Blue Grotto tickets right there at Capri. There are many boat options for the Blue Grotto, we chose the 2 hour ride around the beautiful island.

We got all the way to the grotto, and the wait was 2 hours, so the captain took votes and everyone decided to not wait that long. It was a little disappointing since that was probably the whole reason we came to Capri, or at least high on the list.

So we are lunch, walked around, did some shopping and enjoyed the views. We already had a 4pm boat ticket to get back to Sorrento, but we wondered if we could miss that boat and take the next one. One of the employees at the dock said it was no problem to take a later boat, so we decided to take that risk and try to get back to the blue grotto on the short 30 minute ferry straight to the grotto.

We jumped on the boat to the grotto with about 20 college kids, so it was a bit of a party boat. We got to the grotto and the line was much shorter than before. Most of the kids wanted to swim in the cave, but we wanted the row boat version. The row boats took each of he kids at few at a time, and we were last in line. Then the employees at the entrance of the cave said it was 5pm and the cave was closed!! Oh no!! I shimmied around and got us on the next row boat and sure enough we were one of the very last spins inside the blue grotto. It was even more beautiful than 6 years ago :)

We had no problem getting on the next boat back from Capri to Sorrento. The girls waited at the train station while I walked up to the hotel to grab the luggage. The hike started easy, but man, I must have burned at least 500 calories by the time I got up the mountain to the hotel. I jumped on the next shuttle and went straight to the train station, where we planned to meet at 8pm. Plenty of time to take one of the next 4 trains heading up to Naples.

Well, the train workers went on strike right at 8pm, so no trains or busses were available. Oh boy. We made lots of friends right there in the station and we all started negotiating with taxi drivers. The first offer was €150. No one wanted to pay that, so it became a big group negotiation. We ended up getting a group of 8 of us to pay €20 per person to get in a big van. Actually, that's not much more than the train cost and he took us straight to the front door of the hotel!

Honestly, we were a little nervous to stay in Naples. We knew we'd be fine, but it's not exactly the safest area with a family. It turned out that the hotel was absolutely beautiful! My oldest daughter and I went to their restaurant, which was up on the rooftop. It was pretty dark outside, so it took us a few minutes to realize that we were looking right at the Naples Duomo! It was so close it felt like we could touch it, so the size was impressive being that close. I think they custom made chicken nuggets for my daughter, with a custom BBQ sauce- and my truffle rissoto was amazing.

We went to bed and heard fireworks outside, so we peeked out to see them and then realized, oh, that's probably not fireworks. We didn't hear any police sirens or hear of any problems, so maybe it was just firecrackers or something, or so we'll hope!

How to do (a tiny bit of) Rome in a day (or two)

We started by taking a taxi straight to the Vatican. I kinda knew where to stand in line from previous trips, it's not the most obvious line. We literally didn't even make it one step out of the taxi before people were offering us tours. 

Our online tickets worked perfectly! Finally, some planning that worked out :) The tickets were so good, we must have passed at least 500 people, probably much more, probably saving at least an hour. 

We walked almost every hall in the Vatican. They're beautiful, full of sculptures, paintings and other treasures.  The big finale is the Sistine Chapel. The chapel is a little smaller than you might be imagining, but it's every bit as beautiful. It's basically covered in every inch by Michaelangelo's painting. We learned that one side of the chapel has paintings about the life of Moses, the other side is about the life of Jesus. 

We left the Vatican quite fulfilled, and it was still early. We double checked and it's true that the Vatican is a separate country, so that's exciting to think about.

We took a quick break at a wine bar and did some shopping. Then we headed over to the Colloseum. We hadn't bought tickets so we jumped in the main ticket line, where we immediately saw that you can use a QR reader to download and purchase tickets while in line. Brilliant use of technology, but a big fail on my part for not having a QR reader on the phone I had! The wait was only about 30 minutes and the video guides were sold out, but we did use the audio guide (which you can skip). It's always interesting to see inside the Colloseum, hard to imagine everything that went on there a long time ago. 

We sat down for dinner and didn't even quite realise that we were literally on top of the Roman Forum ruins. It was a great view and we had fun looking up the history of the forum and what happened there. Lots of Julius Caesar if you're wondering. 

As we were walking out, an elderly couple two tables over stopped me and said something in Italian. I apologised for not understanding, and then in English they tried to say that I was very passionate or patient, I'm not sure which. Either way, I took it as a huge compliment, had a 60 second conversation with them and moved on.

On a side note, we've heard at least Bruno Mars song every day while in Italy, and Imagine Dragons almost every day. We stopped in a toy store in Rome and they had never heard of Moshi Monsters, interesting. And, I'm not sure I've seen a Starbucks in Italy?

We ended the day at Trevi Fountain, which had no water in it and was under construction. Can you believe that. They had a strange walkway that took you over where the water used to be, which had no less than 3 police officers on it. They had a tiny little bucket of water where you could still toss a coin over your shoulder for good luck. 

All in all, we've learned that even a quick hop from London to Italy requires quite a bit of planning. We're having an absolutely great time, laughing a lot, but the number of surprises has been, well, surprising :)

Florence to Siena to Rome

There's a jubilant and boisterous feel to the culture and people of Italy. I'm seeing it in every Italian city we visit. It makes it a little easier to travel with kids. I read an article recently that said "we've lost the village that used to help raise the kids". I think the village is alive and well in Italy. 

Upon arrival in Siena, we chose to walk the 30 minutes from the train to the city centre. Since I've learned the hard way to out in exact addresses, we knew exactly where we were going. It's hard with a stroller, so we casually stopped after 30 minutes for a meal (we still had at least 20 more minutes to walk, google maps estimates are about half what they should be for families of 4 :) ) Of course we ate pizza and spaghetti. 

We finished the meal and made it over to the duomo. Oh, first we stopped at a hotel to see if they'd be willing to hold our bags. I offered money, but they were so kind to keep it for free, and later they even called a taxi for us (which came in less than 5 minutes!) Stay at Hotel Duomo next time you're in Siena for me. 

Then the frustration kicked in. I had pre-ordered tickets to the duomo online. The online transaction went perfectly, except I only received confirmation on the screen, I didn't receive an email. It made me a little nervous, but I came with the onscreen confirmation printed in hand. Well, I talked to 4 different people at 4 different places at the Duomo and none of them were willing to let us in . I couldn't bring myself to paying again, so we frantically tried to check our credit cards through our phone to see if we had paid. It seems as though the transaction never really went through, but we definitely didn't go through the church. After a glass of wine, tiramisu, and a few deep breaths, all is well again :)

We walked into the city centre and straight up into the main tower. My youngest daughter calls every old building a "castle", which is very cute and she loves castles. Then we grabbed some gelato and sat right in the middle of the piazza with about 1000 new friends. Awesome.

Then it was time to get to Rome. We got very lucky to jump on an early train right as it was leaving. It's a little unfortunate that you have to go back north to Florence (for over an hour), to then take a train to Rome from there. I guess it works out though because the really high speed train from Florence goes straight to Rome without stops in just over an hour.

Well, we got on that high speed train and pretty much knew immediately that something was wrong. We had "open tickets" and everyone else had numbered tickets. The conductor came around and taught us that we were supposed to take a slow train from Florence, but she let us pay the difference in price and stay on. Little embarrassing, but I guess it's fine.

So we arrive in Rome and I had booked a hotel right next to a train station. Well, technically it was right next to a "light rail" station, which is different. That difference was important because the light rail was broken due to heavy rainstorms. 

There were many other options to get to our hotel, but we opted for the quick and expensive taxi. We paid €50 and upon arrival the hotel said it should have been €20-30, so we were taken a little but it was a long day and I was actually fine with it, we paid for ease I guess. 

We're in Rome and ready to have a great time!

How to do (some) Florence in a Day

First, use an app called "city planner". The free version is a nice start, but after that start, I went in for the full $4.99. The app has ever major attraction from museums to architecture to restaurants to shops to nightclubs and more. It helps you map out a walking route and how to travel to each location. I guess the only it doesn't have is special events, but that was ok in my case.

We started in the museum designed by Michaelangelo. Of course it's beautiful, we especially enjoyed hand written manuscripts and these cool sculptures holding globes made of gold. The floor was original so we had to walk on thin carpets on the side of the room in single file (which added to the fun).

When we made it to the main room there was a crack of thunder and lightening outside, just for extra dramatic effect.

After leaving the museum, we walked around to a few locally owned shops. Really stuff nice, and owners too. We saw ceramic work, sculptures, art/paintings, furniture and some other odds and ends. 

The Santa Maria Maggiore church is a nice little church in the heart of town. It's one of the few places that allows photos inside. The main altar is quite "plain" compared to other churches, there isn't stained glass or painted walls/ceilings. It actually makes for a nice, clean look. 

Next door is the Basilica of Santa Maria Novella which is stunning. It's beautiful inside and outside, we barely noticed the pouring rain :) Its hard to explain how there are gardens inside the church, or around the church grounds, just know that it's a can't miss site. Which, by the way, is part of the city planner app, it lists "can't miss" sites and I tend to agree with all of their suggestions.

Ponte Vecchio is the bridge of Florence like Rialto is the bridge of Venice. It's a fairly wide bridge with shops lining the edges. The view from the middle of the bridge is outstanding. The shops are mostly jewelry shops, and each shop has it's own little window with an amazing view. 

At that point, the rain let up for us and it was almost cold outside, which is pretty amazing for late July. 

We crossed the bridge and visted a place called Palazzo Pitti. It's basically connected to a set of gardens called Boboli Gardens. We hadn't been there before, so we were anxious to check it out and compare to UK gardens. It was no surprise that they were beautiful. It was a little surprising to see the great view of Florence from the gardens. It almost rivaled Piazzale Michangelo! We drank wine in the palazzo while we relaxed and enjoyed the views.

Walk back over a bridge and go to the Uffizi, which is a can't miss museum. There's a replica of David out front, plus a cool "outdoor hallway" of famous sculptures.

Do more shopping, it's all there, whatever you like. My family and I went our separate ways for shopping for a little while. Within 3 minutes of separating, I thought for a second I had been pick pocketed. I was getting on the merry go round with my youngest daughter and a gypsy came shaking for change. I had to say no about 5 times and she knew full well I was holding a child and a stroller and a bunch of other stuff. I was doing my normal situational awareness (e.g. head on a swivel, like a haunted house) when I noticed a man move away quickly. My first reaction was that he was probably working with her, so I visually scanned his hands and pockets. He certainly saw me checking him over and he ducked away. I thought maybe the camera or iPad were gone but I was lucky to still have both. It goes to show they really are professionals and they're watching everyone at every second, but I was lucky this time. 

We walked over to sit and enjoy the live music of a violin, guitar and upright string bass. Then we got back together with the family and had a great dinner at a random restaurant that we chose because it looked busy. The live music continued as there was now an accordion being played outside.

Close the day with the absolute must see of sunset at Piazzle Michealangelo. This time, there was solo guitarist with an amp and repeater pedals. He played at least a couple of songs that had meaning to me, so I loved it, not to mention the phenomenal sunset over Florence. 

And that's about it, we grabbed gelato on the walk home and just enjoyed the sights, sounds and smells of an amazing city. By the way, on that walk home, we watched an artist use chalk to paint a fantastic painting right on the asphalt in the middle of the road. Great stuff.

Thinking

I noticed the awestruck look that both of my daughters had on their faces as we walked up to the Florence Duomo yesterday. We told quick stories about Michaelangelo, Galileo and other greats, which led to wonderful conversation. 

Whether any of us realise it or not, I think that moment may stick as a long term inspiration. Maybe seeing a physical masterpiece like that can help us understand that anything is possible, especially with passion, resilience and perseverance. And while things are changing faster and faster every day, some things really do last a long, long time.

Here's to finding the ever-moving balance between fast and slow, team and individual. 

Venice (Venezia) to Florence (Firenze)

We didn't buy train tickets far enough in advance so that delayed us a couple hours this morning. We missed our tour of the Galleria dell'Accademia di Firenze, or "Gallery of the Academy of Florence", which is an art museum and the home of Michelangelo's sculpture David. That's fine I guess, we enjoyed the extra time in Venice.

The machines to buy train tickets only take credit cards with chips and PIN numbers. We have chips in our cards, but not PIN numbers, so we waited an hour to buy tickets from an official ticket booth (from a guy). The ride down was just barely over 2 hours, and it was quite nice.

We walked straight to the hotel then dinner. We needed a little break from pizza and pasta, so we found some great steak and chicken. It was very fresh and authentic, add in some bruschetta and gelato and the meal was complete (ie. fantastic)

We walked over to the duomo, where I was quickly reminded that it's one my favorite anywhere- I love the painted colors and the feel of the area around the Duomo.

Walking back to the hotel there was a live band playing big band music. We enjoyed that. There were also dueling accordions at dinner, so the whole night was full of live music.

Venice!

We're on holiday! We started in Venice. We were here about 6 years ago and it's such a great spot to come back to. Several Italian words jump right out at you when you arrive, chiuso is closed, biglietto is ticket, uscita exit, grazie is thanks, prego is you're welcome.

We're using the trains a lot and it took a minute to figure out how to validate a ticket. First you buy a ticket (from a machine), then you go to a separate machine to validate it. Validation makes the ticket usable for some period of time. Our ticket said "vale 6h da convalida", so we looked it up and that means good for 6 hours.

I stopped by an ATM, which by the way, most people call them cash machines or cash points. I'm not sure what kind of machine it was but the English translation was pretty funny. My two choices to get cash were were "flash people" or "public services". I laughed, had no idea what that meant, cancelled and went to a different ATM (which was much more "normal"). Flash people, really? 

So I think we all know that Italy has gypsies. We had at least 3 people walk up to us and give us a rose, or try to, anyway. The newer trick is an exploding pig thing. It's about the size of your palm, made of some elastic goo substance, and they throw it at a piece of cardboard on the floor. It splats for 10 seconds into a flat goo pancake, then it slowly regains it's original pig shape. They do sell them but it also seems to be a cover for selling other things.

There's nothing in the world quite like the feeling of walking the narrow alleys in Venice, it's just plain awesome. The passion of the people jumps out at you, especially in comparison to the UK. They're not quite angry here, but it certainly borders on it, they like to get their point across in a passionate way. For example, I was taking a photo for a group and an Italian got fussy at me for standing in the middle of the alley. No big thing, he just had to make his point.

We made it to San Marco square and all the great sites there. We crossed Rialto Bridge several times too. We then scouted out a "good" Gondola guy and took a great tour, at a good price (€80).

Oh, we stopped at a random place for lunch. It was recommended by the yelp app. It was fantastic, check out the view:

Unlike London, Venice does NOT shut down at 6pm. In fact, I'd say it's just getting started at 6pm. You know Italian meals take 2-3 hours and by 9pm people are ready to party. We're old, so we headed back home about 9pm, but the energy of the city was great. I had good ol Lemoncello at dinner and wow was it strong, so I was ready to sleep :)

The next train was 2 hours away, so we asked locals for a taxi. We were pointed to Piazzle Roma where we easily grabbed a taxi. It was pretty expensive, but we had probably the nicest taxi driver I've ever had, it was a great conversation. He taught us some Italian, local culture and just nice small talk. 

Ok, going back to sleep now! Ciao!

Farnborough Airshow!

We had our first real British thunderstorm at 3am last night. It was legitimate cracking of lightning and roaring thunder with a heavy downpour of rain. I guess it really does rain heavily here sometimes :)

My youngest daughter learned to say a new word this morning. At her age she learns new words almost everyday, but this one was exciting because she said "sah ray" as opposed to "sar eee". She's got a British accent! 

I think I officially have a favorite pub. I couldn't tell you why I like it so much, but it just seems perfect. It's called Ye Old White Hart in Frimley. It's dark wood and quaint inside and outside it sits right on a main road for a fun scene. Great homemade food and nice service (of course in British fashion you order at the bar, tell them your table number, they bring it to you, then you leave it on the table when you leave).

Then the highlight of the day - and probably a highlight of the whole secondment - the Farnborough Airshow!

We had been told at work that we could watch from a balcony so I was on my way there for the "flying display". I ran into a colleague and she asked if I'd like to have her pass onto the airfield- um, yes!!

I was able to not only see, but also touch about a dozen fighter jets, small planes, helicopters and other flying machines. There are short lines to sit in cockpits, so of course I did that. I've been very fortunate to see these jets in the sky for work before, but this was still something very special. 

Let me see if I can describe it - there's a small airport in a town called Farnborough. Once a year they setup 3 rows of covered grandstands like the 18th hole of a huge golf tournament. There had to be room for about 5-10k people in those stands, it seemed huge. Then, down on the airfield, they have about 50-100 jets, planes and flying machines. You can walk right up to them and touch them. Each major companion the defence industry has an "area" marked with logos, planes, videos, etc. I was really proud to work for BAE Systems. I'll guess there were 1-2k people walking around the airfield. I bought a couple of official airshow coffee mugs to remember the day.

While your walking around there are constant airshows happenening above you. I'm talking 200 feet above you, if that. It's heart shaking loud and as exciting as can be. Lots of flips, dives, rolls and high speed. I'm uploading videos to the website and photos are already on Instagram.

When I play with RC airplanes or online flight simulators, one of my favorites is the Harrier. Of course there was a real one in the air, and I felt like a 5 year old boy with my mouth wide open and smiling while I watched that thing. Then it did the unthinkable, just like a video game, it hovered about 100 feet in the air, about 200 yards from me for about 60 seconds. It was phenomenal. I got the whole thing on video and I'll share the link here when I get a chance.

Cheers!

Another Inflection Point

I think I've recently passed another key inflection point. Today marks 14 weeks of living in the UK and I think there's a groundswell of people that understand that I'm here, and what I might be able to offer to help them. I guess I'm trying to say that "random" emails and requests have started to come in, which is great. I hope it's because I'm providing value!

Looking back, I've noticed that learning new words has considerably slowed down. Other than marmite, which is a food they put on toast/bread and a few other things, I can't think of any recent new words. I wonder if there's a whole new swell of new words coming or if I'm pretty much caught up? I suppose it'll be a few words here and there.

I saw a nice technology in a parking garage recently. When you pulled in, you didn't take a card, it took a picture of your license plate (which is "registration" here, which I guess is a new word/translation I've learned recently :) ). When you're ready to drive out of the garage, you type your license plate number into a machine and it looks up how long you've been there and charges you appropriately. Kinda nice, although it would be even better if it just automatically charged  (and you didn't have to visit the machine at all).

I met another one of our neighbors in the elevator, he seemed very nice. Talk about an elevator pitch, we really didn't have more than 30 seconds to chat.

Since it's not too work-related, I'll mention that I enjoyed being a judge for the Chief Learning Officer awards this week. It's done online and when you're finished you receive a nice little graphic. The graphic is a badge that you could put on your resume or LinkedIn profile or something. It's very nice but I probably won't post it anywhere because I'd like to apply for more awards in the future and I think there would be confusion about when I'm judging and when I'm applying (CLO Magazine does a great job of separating those, by the way)

Still enjoying the Farnborough Air Show, most of the flying displays are in the late afternoon. I've noticed the traffic is quite light and I can't decide if that's because the attendance is low, or traffic control is that good, or maybe everyone comes on the weekend?

Airshow and Goodbyes

The airshow has started! We can hear the loudspeaker and crowds from our office. We can see all the flyovers as well. We walked outside to watch the first flyover together as a team, celebrating a team members' birthday at the same time. I'm grabbing video and I'll post it as soon as I can, rest assured it's awesome.

We dropped our family visitors off at the airport early this morning. That's always a bittersweet moment. It was so great to have them here, it was a nice reminder of home and priceless time together. It wasn't easy for them to get here and it wasn't easy for us to host, but it's absolutely worth the effort. They especially enjoyed Kyoto Garden, Leeds Castle, London Eye, Wimbledon, walks in London, and so many other things that it becomes hard to list! Good times.

Bath and Date Night

We drove our visitors past Stonehenge on Saturday morning. We wanted to get to the town called Bath and the road goes within a few hundred yards of Stonehenge.

We made it to Bath, but I messed up a little bit. I put "Bath" in google maps, which would be like putting "London" in the search. It took us to a strange back alley and it cost us about 20 or 30 minutes of driving in circles. So I updated the search to Roman Baths, which is exactly where we wanted to start, and then we were much better off. 

We watched some Cricket, then walked over to the baths. The bath are great, I'm always amazed by the engineering that has lasted thousands of years.

Bath continues to be a very musical town too. We saw at least 4 street performers and all of them were great. It's hard not to stop and enjoy their performance for awhile. One of them had a Frank Sinatra type of sound and he played trumpet too, so we enjoyed his performance a lot.

Our guests were very kind to watch our daughters for the night so that my wife and I could go on a date. We googled "most romantic restaurants in London", made reservations and popped over to a place called Beach Blanket Babylon. It's in the very nice neighbourhood of Kensington, so we used trains, tubes and buses to get there. We had lots of great conversation and had the rare opportunity to really talk and just he together. It was great and the food was some of the best we've ever had. It was so good, we ordered a third main course to share, which we had never done before and even the waiter was surprised by that move :)

Loving Leeds Castle and Business

Our visiting family loved Leeds Castle so much that we drove back on Saturday. We had spent £5 extra for the Annual Pass, so we got in for free this time. We took lots of photos and we had been warned that the grounds would close at 2pm. We walked up to the castle at 1pm and they didn't let us in because the castle closed at 1pm. Unfortunately we had missed that message, but we still had a great time walking the grounds.

My daughters wore matching bright yellow shirts that said I love London. When we walked through the gardens there were little black bugs that were highly attracted to the yellow, so they were half covered in those bugs. We even noticed a yellow plastic water cooler was also completely covered. Sure it was a little gross, but we had a little laugh about it and moved through the gardens pretty quick.

On a business note, I noticed that Chinese investors bought a popular pizza chain here in the UK. I remember those same investors buying a popular food chain in America too, I find that very interesting on an international note.

Continuing the business theme, we noticed the CEO of Mind Candy is stepping down. That's the company that makes several very popular games for kids, my daughter loves them (remember she took a tour of their HQ in London).I noticed the press release said they'd like to grow the American market, so I wrote my friend at Mind Candy and said my daughter would love to help in any way :)

She wrote me right back and said very nice things about my daughter. I guess we'll see where that goes.

Rochester, Leeds and Canterbury

We started the day in Rochester. We drove about an hour to get there, my brother and his fiancé came with me. They wandered the town while I went to work. They enjoyed the Rochester castle and cathedral.

After work, we drove to the castle in Leeds. That's the one I went to a few months ago, I remembered it bring beautiful and surrounded by a moat.

It was slightly rainy all day, but I thought the castle was even better the second time. The grounds were beautiful and the castle was even more memorable. We noticed a map of Northern Virginia in the castle, which was there because Lord Fairfax lived in this castle and owned that land. That was a really nice tie to back home.

I didn't realize the grounds were so huge the first time I went. This time we wandered over to the gardens and a fantastic hedge maze. At the end of the maze, you walk through an underground grotto which is very cool.

We still had plenty of sunlight, so we drove over to Canterbury. We went straight to the cathedral, which is probably my favorite cathedral in all of the UK. There was a guy singing (professionally) in the basement and the acoustics were amazing. I'm a big fan of the hanging sculpture in the basement too, it's captivating to me. I wish I could explain it in words, you might just have to google it and see if it's out there, sorry.

We had some great fish n chips in town since it was Friday. And we stopped by a place called Tiny Tim's Tearoom for afternoon tea and scones. We absolutely loved that place, I'd drive an hour to go back there, it has great food, ambiance, view of town, selection, service, decor and everything you'd want to experience in a tea room.

Family visiting

We have family here visiting and we're enjoying that a lot. It's fun to see London and the surrounding areas through their eyes. It's like seeing things again for the first time. My brother used our shower and came out saying "it's like taking a shower in a porta potty". Which is very true and some good American humour.

First we walked around Guildford to give them a feel of a little UK town. We stopped by the castle, the shops and the train stations. I can't believe how comfortable the whole town feels to me now, compared to how new it feels to visitors. 

On their second day/night, we took them around London. They saw all the major sites and walked until it hurt, as we all do :) They especially enjoyed the Eye, Tower Bridge and a stroll along the south bank.

Their credit cards and cell phones don't quite work, so I guess you can never do too much planning for those. We're getting by without them, but it sure would be easier to have them. 

Yesterday was a big day because my brother proposed to his girlfriend! He did it at Kyoto Garden and it went perfectly. We had been planning the day for quite some time. It was a hard decision to choose the exact location and I had been trying to help as much as I could. I had called several folks that control the garden to get their help, they were very nice people. Technically, we didn't do anything special such as rope off the area or mark "private event", we just used the natural beauty of the spot. I got there about 15 minutes before they arrived, I let everyone know what was about to happen, and one family stuck around to watch and cheer. In fact lots of people cheered for them, it was a special moment. Congrats to them!

Farnborough Air Show

The Farnborough Air Show starts next week. I've heard about it for years, really decades since I've been working in the defence industry. I would have never thought I'd be here in person to see it. In case you haven't heard of it, its a huge airshow where thousands and thousands of people come to watch the skies. I believe its celebrating 100 years of aviation this year and apparently you can see everything from the first planes to the latest, greatest ones.

I happen to be in Farnborough today and while walking to lunch, I saw a smaller plane flipping through the skies. They've started practicing for the airshow and this particular plane looked like what I can do with a tiny remote control (RC) plane. Its not easy to do the flips he/she was doing even in an RC plane, let alone a real plane with a real person. This is going to be good :)

I hear from the locals that we need parking passes and I hear its quite difficult to get into the show. The ticket prices have doubled since last year and free/shared passes don't seem to be an option. We'll make it work somehow!

4 July Weekend

I visited the Barrow site for work last week. Its a 5-6 hour drive north of London and its just south of a beautiful region known as "The Lakes". I haven't made it to the lakes yet, but Barrow is close enough that you can start to see and feel the beauty. Its basically a region of pristine lakes with mountains and fields.

One joke that came up in Barrow was that its 'junior prom' season. Apparently its a season that didnt exist one generation ago, but 'America' has brought it over. One dad had spent over £500 on a dress, and he knew of a family that was using a helicopter to take their sons/daughters around that night. I learned these things while we went out for dinner. At dinner they warned me that the 'mixed grill' dish was a very large portion. I was fascinated to see how large it might be, and sure enough, I could only finish half of it, but it sure was delicious, especially the local sausage. We shared a good laugh about it all, and many other things.

In light of Indedepence Day in America, they had "Independents Day" in Guildford. They gave away prizes for people that shopped at shops owned by independent folks. It was a really nice way to celebrate local business. My older daughter decided to take part in it directly, she opened a lemonade stand and took donations. She explained to people that donations were going to two local charity shops in Guildford. I stood a few feet behind her in support, but she made the lemonade herself and talked to 'customers' herself. Proud daddy :)

Saturday night we went to a live show of James and the Giant Peach. It was a great show and it was their final night, so I think they poured a little extra effort into it. I think the audience included many family members of the actors and actresses so thats always nice to see. Our younger daugther did very well, she watched and even enjoyed the show. She only made a lot of noise one time when she yelled out 'oh no', but it was well timed with the story, so mostly people just laughed or smiled.

My wife had taped the entire day of Wimbledon that I was there, so I spent a few minutes going through the video to see if I could spot myself on video. Sure enough, there's about 1-2 seconds of clear video that shows me in the stands, fun! I also watched the final championship match on Sunday, what a great match that was! I found myself rooting for Federer, but mostly because I wanted good, competitive tennis. The positive of Djokovic winning is that I can say I saw him play from the second row at Wimbledon!

On Sunday morning we drove down to Brighton. Many local folks have mentioned how much they like it there. The drive was pretty quick and easy, and the family loved it. We had a great time and I think we've already all agreed that we'll head back someday for more time there. The beach is nice, the pier has a lot to do, the food looks great and the shopping seems amazing. It has the feel of a 'holiday town', which is great. Oh, there's some great architecture there too, a dome and a theatre right in the heart of town...

To wrap up the weekend, we had dinner at a local friend's house. They invited us over and we had a great time. We cooked together, talked about our interested, and we didnt even discuss US/UK very much. We did learn a few little things such as flashlight = torch, 911 = 999 (in UK) = 118 (in France). There's something really special about sharing time and meals like that, it helps you really learn about people and life.