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Arrived in London
Arrived in London
Originally uploaded by wilhelmus.We have arrived in London. The flight was great. We both slept most of the way. Arrival at heathrow was painfull. It took over two hours to get out of the airport. Most of that time was spent waiting for our packs at the carousel.
The tube was a new experience for Sheri. She has never been to London and the tube during rush hour with a giant pack is not that different from our public transportation experiences in Nepal. My role was to buldoze a path for Sheri. That went reasonably well although she almost didn’t get on one train I was already on. But we made it fine.
Our hotel is right at Hyde park. The sun was setting when we got there and the weather is nice so I went for a walk to get some fresh air. I came across prince Albert hall. A beautiful building. I don’t know what it is exactly but it sounded familiar and it was packed. There was also a typical over-the-top imperalistic monument. A little too much for my taste.
Its 9pm now and I think its time for a beer.
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personal
Ready for our trip
Ready for our trip
Originally uploaded by wilhelmus.We been through the pele and Nala goodbye drama session and we’re now sitting at the airport for our traditional pre-flight ‘milestones’ meal. I’m also testing my blackberry-to-blog functionality. Sheri is already impressed because it takes a while to type this up. A sign of things to come babe…
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personal
Going on vacation
03.25.07 | Permalink | 2 CommentsThe next month my blog will turn into our travelogue as Sheri and I travel to London, Amsterdam, Salzburg, Zell am See, Ljubljana, Budapest, Krakow and Prague. In my 26 years in Europe I’ve never been to Eastern Europe and I’m looking forward to travel to the cities on our itinerary. Stay tuned for updates.
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personal
Happy Birthday to me
03.07.07 | Permalink | 2 CommentsI’m in Toronto for planning sessions. It’s minus 15 outside. The freeway was closed because sheets of ice were falling of the CN tower. Happy Birthday to me…
UPDATE:
Things picked up later. Rob and myself had a chance to celebrate our latest CW “Leffe” Release by grabbing a Leffe beer.
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personal
Back from a Hiatus
It’s been almost 3 months since my last post. Besides the fact that I’ve been busy, I was also re-thinking the purpose of my blog. I notice that it started to look like a collection of funny YouTube videos and random links. I didn’t spend enough time to write about the stuff I would really like to post about. So here are my intentions for the future.
- Tourism BC’s websites. We’re doing some interesting things with our websites. I’m going to share some of our thinking and ideas behind our releases.
- Travel and Tourism. Other tourism organizations and businesses are also doing interesting things. I’ll share what I hear and observe.
- Management. I believe that team=product. Without the right people and processes, you can have all the great ideas in the world, but nothing will get done. I have learned a lot about how to get things done.
- Personal. My family lives half way around the world and they like to know what I’m up to. So expect travel pictures and updates about my cats. I also have some views about life in general.
I’ve re-organized my categories according to the above list. I intent to post at least once a week.
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personal
I’m on the Scoble Show (well, half)
I was watching some Scobleshow’s this weekend and I realized I saw Robert shoot one of his videos at Web2.0. And what do you know, I got caught on tape (well, half). Just as I was thinking “hey, isn’t that Robert Scoble?”. -
personal
Ozomatli is awesome, Killa Kela is unbelievable
I went to see Ozomatli again last night. A great band from LA I highly recommend to go see live if you ever have a change.
One of the open acts was Killa Kela is a one man multi-vocalist, according to his MySpace site. In the old days, we used to call a guy like this a human beatbox. Check out the video below I found.
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personal
Web 2.0 Summit Summary
So the Web 2.0 summit is over and I’m back in Vancouver, reflecting on the last days. What did I learn? What can I apply in my work?
I think the most important thing I realized is that the circle of people who direct the business side of the internet is relatively small. And events such as the Web 2.0 summit very much influence the future of the internet. That doesn’t mean it’s an elite group that control the future. But by putting together so many key players, new directions are taken.
I’m currently reading Bob Woodwards “State of Denial” and it’s very much the same thing. In the Whitehouse, decisions are made based on a culture that is created by a few, who have access to the leaders. Opinions of leaders and influencers are often more powerful than data or subject matter experts.
The same thing happens everywhere, at senior levels in companies, back home, and at the Web 2.0 conference. When CEO’s or senior executives of Google, Yahoo, Amazon, AOL, Microsoft, YouTube, IBM, Adobe, Newscorp, Ask, eBay, Craigslist, FedEx, NBC, InterActiveCorp, Expedia, Alibaba, EMI, Digg, The New York Times, CyWorld and more all speak in a 3 day window and interact with a leading group of influencers, seeds are planted, ideas discussed and directions set.
Now the good news is that the direction I see is one I can go along with. And I consider myself fortunate that I was able to participate in it in some form by discussing things with other attendees. This direction is one of decentralized control of media, open standards, interoperability, connectivity, innovation and new business models. Change is massive, continuing and relentless. -
personal
In San Francisco for Web 2.0
I traveled to San Francisco today. Tomorrow the web 2.0 conference starts and I’m super excited. Come back for updates about it. I took the BART from the airport to downtown and loved it. No more sweaty, expensive, traffic jammed taxi rides for me. Should have tried that a long time ago. This city is great. It’s like Vancouver, but bigger. Case in point, the art galleries have Picassos in their windows. One day I hope to live here. -
personal
Crow View
I’m rushing home these days to watch a nature show coming by our window. As the sun is starting to set, the crows are all en mass flying east to…. wherever they go. Hundreds of them. We’re on the 28th floor and we’re facing what city planners call a “viewing corridor”, it’s like there is a canyon going through the city. Therefore, it’s also a crow corridor and we’re exactly at their cruising altitude. A little bit of nature in the city, it’s a cool thing to watch.
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William Bakker's Destination Marketing blog
William Bakker is Chief Strategist at Destination Think!. These are my personal thoughts.
