Travels in the Riel World

On Americans’ interest in the world…

The majority of the American people in the run-up to this election said they believe that the next president, one of his most important priorities should be restoring America’s position in the world. That to me says it all: That means that there is an openness, that there is a desire, a hunger to know about the world, and to know about where America is and fits into the world.

                                                          - Christiane Amanpour, quoted in a recent news story

What do you think? Are Americans more interested and engaged in the world?

I’m a fan of out of the box thinking. Too often, when we go off in search of a solution to some challenge, we find ourselves hamstrung by old presumptions and structures. We and the world would be better off if, instead, we were able to look at issues and problems with fresh eyes. Wouldn’t it be nice if we had a refresh button for our mind? Easier said than done, of course, which is why we’re always in awe of those individuals who do manage to shatter assumptions and to reconstruct a product or an idea in an original manner.

I’d like to explore some out of the box ideas in this blog, and what better time to begin than when we are on the cusp of a new U.S. presidential administration that embodies new thinking? After all, were it not for the Obama campaign’s innovative use of social networking as a campaign tool there may not be an Obama administration, so there is at least the hope that this same team will utilize out of the box thinking when constructing policy in the years ahead.

So here is my first nominee for an out of the box idea in government: to reconsider the need for an agricultural department and instead focus on the more broad issue of food policy as it relates to any number of issues. Full details are in this blog entry by Ezra Klein. He first quotes Michael Pollan, the originator of this idea.

But as important as USDA is, we also need someone in the White House, a food policy advisor, to help coordinate policy across the Cabinet departments, so that health impacts are considered when write USDA rules, or food safety when writing trade rules, or climate change impacts when drawing the farm bill, etc etc. You need someone who can connect the dots between agriculture and health and energy and climate.

Klein then takes up the issue and argues it in more depth himself:

There’s an argument to be made that the Department of Agriculture is an anachronism. It was first established by Abraham Lincoln, in 1862…the domestic agricultural industry was rather different in the 1800s than it is in 2008. It was, for one thing, larger. In 1862, farm products made up 82 percent of American exports. And we had a lot more farms…

Meanwhile, back then, what people ate came out of the agricultural sector. Food essentially equaled agriculture. Today, what we eat is considerably more complicated than what we grow and what we raise. Which is all to say, the Department of Agriculture was built when agriculture was a major employment sector, our primary export, and synonymous with our diets. As an industry, it was integral to our economy and our lives. Today, it’s an interest group. It begs subsidies and mainly supports massive corporations…

Our country once needed an agricultural policy. Today, it needs a food policy. The agricultural industry no more deserves a cabinet-level agency than the automotive industry or computing industry. But food is a different issue. An array of federal programs deal with nutrition and food security. Given the federal share of health costs, there’s a compelling national interest in aligning public policy with public health. Supply chain safety is a relevant national security concern. Coordination among those competing priorities is important. Agriculture is a part of the equation. But in 2008, it’s not the whole of it.

Not a sexy idea, perhaps, but a compelling one. More importantly, it goes to the heart of what we need to do more of in this country. Connect the dots. We’ve become a nation of specialists, and of special interests. It’s time for policies that address the broad, interconnected realities of our world.

I just finished reading a book called “Four Seasons in Rome,” by Anthony Doerr. One the surface, it’s the tale of a husband and wife who move to Rome for a year (for a writing fellowship) with their two children. The catch is that the children are twins and are only a few months old when the sojourn in Rome begins, so the story is really about learning to navigate Rome while also learning how to be a parent to two young boys.

The story is fun to read and has the added benefit of wonderful prose and interesting insights into Italian life. A sample of Doerr’s writing about Rome:

Every time I turn around here, I witness a miracle: wisteria pours up walls; slices of sky show through the high arches of a bell tower; water leaks nonstop from the spouts of a half-sunken marble boat in the Piazza di Spagna. A church floor looks soft as flesh; the skin from a ball of mozzarella cheese tastes rich enough to change my life.

And an observation about Italians:

“Italians,” our friend George Stoll says, “will stop anything for pleasure.” And the longer we’re here, the more we feel he’s right. Espresso, silk pajamas, a five-minute kiss; the sleekest, thinnest cell phone; extremely smooth leather. Truffles. Yachts. Four-hour dinners.

I’m always amazed when writers catch my eye with just the poetic power of their prose, and I love to discover random nuggets of cultural insight buried in manuscripts about other topics. On both of these counts, “Four Seasons in Rome” was a good read.

Since I’ve long been an advocate of sabbaticals, I was intrigued to come across this article on the Brazen Careerist website. The piece is titled “10 Ways Generation Y Will Change the Workplace,” and sitting there at number four is - “We’ll Redefine Retirement.” How? Through a series of sabbaticals, or mini-retirements, throughout one’s lifetime.

Retirement is dead. It’s dead for a number of reasons, including the issues with social security and middle class America’s inability to save any money. But Gen Y will figure out how to save money to retire–we’re already demanding 401K’s and excellent benefits. However, we will re-invent retirement by taking multiple mini retirements instead of calling it quits a few years before its time to croak. Maybe in our late twenties we’ll take a few months just to travel the world. Then, as we approach parenthood and our kids grow up, we’ll take a year off to enjoy time with our family. Then we’ll return to work, refreshed and ready to go. When we hit 65, it will be the new 45 and we’ll have a solid 15 to 20 years left before we take our final, very brief, mini retirement. 

Have you heard of the Lost Girls? They’re three twentysomething New York friends who left their jobs and hit the road together for a one-year journey around the world. Along the way, they blogged about the trip and are now back home working on a book about the experience. Sort of like Sex and the City meets On the Road. They recently stopped by the Vagabonding site to chat about their travels and their writing. An excerpt:

What are each of you up to now?

Despite our passion for full-time vagabonding, the three of us accepted desk jobs in order to restock our bank accounts (boring, but necessary!). Amanda is a nutrition editor at a health magazine, Jen does integrated marketing for an independent film/television channel, and Holly now taste-tests chocolates all day for a major candy manufacturer (well, that’s her dream job…she’s actually a freelance writer and editor for several national publications).

Recently, both Jen and Amanda approached their individual bosses about the possibility of going part time in order to focus more attention on book writing. And to their shock—both supervisors agreed to the arrangement! We’ve realized that if you put in the time and hard work to cultivate a successful career, your company/boss is generally more willing to allow time off to travel, or to rearrange your schedule to accommodate special project.

Now, all three of us spend our Fridays together at a coffee shop in Union Square, so we can make the task of book writing a collaborate process—and a fun one, at that.

Do you still crave a life on the road?
Absolutely. After living out of a backpack for a year, we found that we craved the stability and comforts of home. But now that we’ve been back in NYC for a while, all three of us find that we miss the freedom and ever-changing nature of life of the road.

Travel brought us rewards in the form of new friends, discoveries, and cultural experiences. It’s kind of fun never knowing where the day will take you, and we can’t wait until our next adventure.

Are there any trips in the works?

When we finished our year-long trip, we vowed to take a Lost Girls Getaway together once a year for the rest of lives. Since returning, we’ve planned a few weekend excursions together in the United States, and have traveled independently to Antarctica, Ecuador and the Bahamas. For the next six months, we’ll be staying close to home in order to write and promote the book. Once we finish the first draft of the memoir in January ’09, we’re planning to return to Argentina, the country that inspired our around-the-world adventure.

In 1975, Paul Theroux published a bestselling travel memoir, The Great Railway Bazaar, about a train trip from Europe to Asia. In the years since he has become one of the world’s most successful and best known travel writers. He recently published a new book, Ghost Train to the Eastern Star, in which he retraces much of his first route to Asia by train. He spoke with USA Today about the trip and his writing.

The most striking change you saw?
Without question, Vietnam. From a country that was a muddy, flattened, bloody, beleaguered hell hole … to the country it is today: flourishing, forward-looking and, almost incredibly, forgiving.

How tempted were you to try to retrace your 1973 route through Afghanistan?
After I read about the numerous abductions and killings of Western wanderers like myself in Afghanistan, it was an easy decision to detour through Georgia, Azerbaijan and Turkmenistan — some great train rides in those countries. And lately they have been in the news, so I think I was lucky in my timing.

Do you agree with The Guardian’s description of you as “the Indiana Jones of American literature”?
Very nice. I’m flattered. But I have only been shot at three times: twice in Africa, once in the Philippines. I have been bitten by snakes, and once by bats in an outhouse one night in Central Africa. I think Indy can top those.

Any advice to travelers?
If you’re planning to write something about your travels, go alone, go overland, go cheap, and leave all electronics behind. To all travelers, I urge patience.

On living in a multipolar world. I think Eugene Robinson nailed it in a recent op-ed column:

The lesson that’s being brought home this summer is that we live in a multipolar world. We knew that, but in our political rhetoric we prefer to ignore it. Now, neither the Democrats nor the Republicans are going to be able to make it through their convention without acknowledging the world’s complications and interconnections.

Obama will probably talk more about engagement and the “international community,” while McCain is likely to sound more confrontational. I’m pretty sure, though, that neither will come clean about a central truth: Our future is being decided not just in Washington but in Beijing and Moscow — and in Riyadh, Islamabad, New Delhi, Dubai, Caracas, Abuja, Brasilia. . . .

We still have the wherewithal to lead. But we’re deluding ourselves if we believe we won’t have to adapt to the new reality.

Americans work more hours and take fewer vacation days than pretty much anyone else in the industrialized world. Now, though, comes evidence that vacations are more than a fun perk - they may actually help you stay healthy and live longer.

Here are the vacation stats:

A global study by Expedia.com found that about a third of employed Americans usually do not take all the vacation days that they are entitled to, leaving an average of three days on the table. This is not so unusual. About a quarter of the workers in Britain do not take all their vacation time, and in France a little less. The only difference is that the British get an average of 26 days of vacation and the French about 37 — compared with our 14 days, Expedia.com said.

According to John de Graaf, executive director of Take Back Your Time, a nonprofit organization that studies issues related to overwork, 137 countries mandate paid vacation time. The United States is the only industrialized country that doesn’t…

And the Conference Board, a private research group, said the number of Americans who said in April that they were going to take a vacation in the next six months is at a 30-year low.

That’s all well and good, you might be saying, but I can’t leave work for very long or I’ll be swamped when I return. Besides, how can I use all my vacation time if my boss or co-workers don’t use all of theirs? Well, now there are studies supporting the short and long-term health benefits of regular vacations.

(In one study) women who took a vacation once every six years or less were almost eight times more likely to develop coronary heart disease or have a heart attack than those who took at least two vacations a year…

The study, published in 1992, was controlled for other factors like obesity, diabetes, smoking and income, Ms. Eaker said, and the findings have been substantiated in follow-up research.

“It shows how the body reacts to a lifestyle of stress,” she said. “This is real evidence that vacations are important to your physical health.”

Another study, published in 2000, looked at 12,000 men over nine years who were at high risk for coronary heart disease. Those who failed to take annual vacations had a 21 percent higher risk of death from all causes and were 32 percent more likely to die of a heart attack.

Want more evidence? Here it is - but remember, the real health benefits go to those who take a real vacation, and not those who stay hooked up to work from the beach.

After a few days on vacation — and it usually took two to three — people were averaging an hour more of good quality sleep. And there was an 80 percent improvement in their reaction times.

“When they got home, they were still sleeping close to an hour more, and their reaction time was 30 to 40 percent higher than it had been before the trip,” Mr. Rosekind said.

The trick, these days when going on vacation, is not only to physically remove yourself from your normal routine, but mentally as well. Checking your BlackBerry every few hours or rushing to the nearest Internet cafe doesn’t cut it.

For 10 years, the Faculty of Management at Tel Aviv University has conducted a study looking at what is called “respite effects,” which measure relief from job stress before, during and after vacations.

Professor Dov Eden, an organizational psychologist who has conducted the study, found that those who are electronically hooked up to their office, even if they are lying on the Riviera, are less likely to receive the real benefits of a vacation and more likely to burn out.

On the wonders of travel…

“I recall my younger self as a dazed longhair gazing slack-jawed day after day at monuments, ruins, beguiling countrysides, and strange new cultures. From the bazaars of Marrakesh to the mosques of Istanbul and into the Hindu Kush, I could feel history and geography transforming me, and I fell stupidly in love with travel.

“I met other globe-roamers, and with them shared meals, beaches, and bus seats, and climbed peaks to celebrate sunsets. At night we huddled in cafes or around campfires, swapping tales and swearing that travel was the best thing that had ever happened to us, the best thing that could happen to anyone.”

                                                                                   - Brad Newsham, Take Me With You

The website New West has an interview online with Heather Hansen, co-author of the new book, Disappearing Destinations, which looks at the environmental challenges that are plaguing popular tourist destinations worldwide. An excerpt from the interview:

How did you come up with the idea for Disappearing Destinations?

Kim and I were at a conference in Denver, talking about the book 1,000 Places to See Before You Die, which had just come out. We tossed around the idea of “1,000 Places to See Before THEY Die.” Once we started looking at our favorite places in that context, we became obsessed with writing a book that could help travelers see their dream destinations as whole places with real issues that affect the lives of the people who live there and, ultimately, the viability of the locations themselves.

Global warming seems to be the cause of many of the problems you describe … Do you think it’s more difficult for local people to respond to the situation when the cause is so widespread?

In the case of climate change in this region, there’s plenty that people can do on a daily basis to mitigate its effects…It may be difficult to see immediate results but that doesn’t mean we aren’t making a marked difference at a critical time. As Gerald Meehl, a climate modeler at the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder says in the book: “The longer we wait, the worse the problem gets. Every day we’re committing ourselves to climate change in the future. When you view it that way, it’s not something that you should just give up on…

Since our expertise is in how to travel more mindfully our message is also that all us have control over the way we move around the world. We have the power to affect change–for worse, or we hope better–in these places with the choices we make. For example, if you go to the Galápagos, you have the choice whether or not to support an outfitter with a proven record of environmental stewardship and investment in the local community.

What do you suggest that people who are concerned about the issues you raise in your book do?

What needs to be done really varies from one location to the next. In some places, responsible tourism is the “great green hope” as I talk about in the Appalachia chapter. Just going there and contributing to the diversification of the economy makes a difference (this is also the case in the Congo Basin and the Amazon where tourism revenue can sustain a population in the long term, while logging cannot).

Do you enjoy living someplace that is walkable? It’s important if you like to walk to restaurants and shops, if you harbor a desire to walk to work, or even if you just enjoy walking for fitness.

The act of walking may also be helpful in much bigger ways. Paul Krugman has a column in today’s New York Times about the environmental and economic benefits of walking and of taking public transit, given fast-rising gas prices. He reported on the topic from Berlin, and had this to say:

Any serious reduction in American driving will require … changing how and where many of us live.  To see what I’m talking about, consider where I am at the moment: in a pleasant, middle-class neighborhood consisting mainly of four- or five-story apartment buildings, with easy access to public transit and plenty of local shopping.

It’s the kind of neighborhood in which people don’t have to drive a lot, but it’s also a kind of neighborhood that barely exists in America, even in big metropolitan areas. Greater Atlanta has roughly the same population as Greater Berlin — but Berlin is a city of trains, buses and bikes, while Atlanta is a city of cars, cars and cars.

And in the face of rising oil prices, which have left many Americans stranded in suburbia — utterly dependent on their cars, yet having a hard time affording gas — it’s starting to look as if Berlin had the better idea.

Now, of course, some U.S. cities are actually friendly to pedestrians. But which ones? Lucky for us, Prevention magazine has already done a study on this and ranked the best cities in the country (and in each state) based on which were the most walkable. 

In all, Prevention ranked 500 cities. Of these, the top five were Cambridge, Massachusetts; New York City, Ann Arbor, Chicago, and Washington, D.C. These just edged out San Francisco, Boston, Honolulu and a few other urban areas for the top spots. Other major cities that scored well include Philadelphia (15), Seattle (23), Denver (24), Portland, Oregon (27) and Austin, Texas (29).

I’ve promised more coverage on the topic of sabbaticals (or career breaks), so to that end I’ve developed a page on this site devoted to the topic of life sabbaticals. An excerpt:

Who is taking sabbaticals?

Sure, college professors have always been able to take a sabbatical, but what about the rest of us? You’d be surprised at the number and types of people who are taking extended time off from work these days. Such as:

*          Workers who can take a leave of absence from their job. One out of every four or five companies offer some sort of sabbatical policy for their employees, according to the Society for Human Resource Management, a statistic that has remained remarkably steady since the mid-1990’s. About two-thirds of these policies are for unpaid absences and one-third provide for a paid leave. Even if you’re not lucky enough to work for one of these companies, individuals who have been at the same job for several years can often negotiate individually for time off.

*          People who are between jobs. If you are leaving one job and have another one lined up for some weeks or months down the road, or if you don’t mind the uncertainty of being between jobs, this is a good opportunity to take some time to relax and recharge before beginning the next chapter in your life. Some individuals, in fact, plan a series of “mini-retirements” throughout life.

*          Students who are on a “gap year.” This has always been popular with Europeans and Australians and is becoming more common among U.S. university students. This year off may take place prior to starting a college career, after graduating, or sometime in between. The point is to take some time away from studies in order to have a more diverse educational or life maturing experience.

What are the personal benefits?

- We all get tired and stressed from the challenges of work and life. This time away gives us a chance to rest and recharge for the next chapter in our lives.

- Everyone can benefit from having extended time to reflect and, if desired, to redefine who we are or what we want to do.

- Many people dream of traveling, but these adventures usually require a period of time that is longer than an average vacation. A sabbatical, however, provides the time necessary for an extended trip.

- Our families often lose out to the urgency of daily life and to-do lists. Time away from a job can give us an opportunity to reconnect with children, spouses and parents, whether we take this time at home or on a joint adventure together.

- Often, we’d like to focus on a new skill or hobby, but the thought of fitting this into our already crowded lives usually means that we just never get around to it. A sabbatical gives us the freedom to grow and develop in new ways.

There is more information on the sabbatical page, including the benefits to companies that offer sabbaticals, a list of ideas to inspire you, and links to books and websites about the topic.

I’ve been seeing more press these days being devoted to the concept of taking a sabbatical from work. It’s an idea that particularly interests me, since my wife and I have taken two sabbaticals since getting married in 2001 - experiences that I chronicled in my book, Two Laps Around the World. So I thought I’d catch up on some of these press clippings and cover the topic a bit more frequently in this blog.

First, an article from the New York Times (”Sabbaticals Aren’t just for Academics Anymore”), which was published a while ago but provides a nice overview of the subject.

In an age of job hopping, a perk to reward loyalty — sabbaticals for those with five years or more on the job — is taking on increased importance.

Though the academic world initiated sabbatical programs, they have been embraced by the government and the private sector, including companies as varied as McDonald’s, Nike, Boston Consulting, Goldman Sachs and Silicon Graphics as well as law and accounting firms. Some companies restrict time off to educational forays and charitable projects, while others encourage everything from beachcombing, family time and travel. Leaves can be paid or unpaid and can last weeks or months…

Measuring return on investment is almost impossible, but companies with such plans seem as enthusiastic as any sabbatical taker. They discount fears that those taking leave will use the time to find other employment.

“A lot of times, people think it’s just for the employee, but it is a tremendous advantage that we get as a company,” said Richard Floersch, chief people officer and executive vice president for worldwide human resources at McDonald’s. “It’s re-energizing that lasts more than a day. Depending on what they do while they are gone, they come back even more skilled and talented than when they left.”

And, from a more recent Wall Street Journal story.

With constant travel and 60-hour weeks pushing him close to burnout, the veteran partner at Mercer, a major human-resource consultant, decided he needed a sabbatical.

Mr. Marcus pursued an elaborate self-improvement scheme and sharpened his professional focus during an eight-month break, which ended in November 2006. “I’m a better consultant today because I bring a more balanced perspective to my work,” he says…

A sabbatical can enhance your career, especially if you acquire valuable skills, experience and insights. Extended breaks allow for personal goals, such as travel, study or research…

Sabbaticals are attracting greater attention these days from the nation’s frazzled and disengaged workforce, according to Dan Clements, who co-wrote “Escape 101: Sabbaticals Made Simple.” He took five in 15 years. About 16% of U.S. employers offered unpaid sabbaticals and 4% gave paid ones in 2007, the Society for Human Resource Management reports.

Hmm, stories in the New York Times AND the Wall Street Journal. There can’t be much more of a sign that this trend is getting noticed.

The world of work has evolved considerably in the past decade, and perhaps nowhere is this change more evident than in the mobility of workers, who keep finding new ways to move beyond the traditional office environment. It began when high speed internet access and teleconferencing technology enabled more people to work from home, at least for part of the time. But the ubiquity of laptops and the wireless internet has now irrevocably altered the concept of the office.

Most obviously, it has given workers the freedom to work not only from home, but also from coffee shops and other public locations. This topic was explored in a recent NY Times article that focused on the technology workers and entrepreneurs who gather regularly at Ritual Coffee Roasters in San Francisco.

As latte sippers pore over the latest draft of a business plan, bang out a little code or post to a blog, it is not hard to overhear snippets of dialogue with a decidedly capitalist bent: “We could make money off that,” and “Have you talked to them about a deal?”

For the Web 2.0 crowd creating businesses, as well as the post-Web 2.0 crowd looking for businesses to build, Ritual is the place to be. While it has not yet risen to the mythic proportions of Buck’s, the hangout in Woodside, Calif., for entrepreneurs and venture capitalists, it is becoming the place to generate ideas, find staff members and troll for companies to finance.

” … when you go into Ritual, it seems they’re either writing code or writing a blog or creating something with a widget that will make money for them this week, and that’s really different from a lot of the other places.” …

Indeed, San Francisco cafes have emerged as the new office of choice for many small start-ups. Atlas Cafe, also in the eclectic Mission District, is one, and Coffee to the People in the Haight is another. But Ritual, located between a heating repair shop and a video store, is perhaps the most popular. … Flickr, the popular photo sharing site, held weekly meetings there before it was bought by Yahoo. And Rubyred Labs, a Web design shop, had its debut party there.

Even more intriguing, though, are some of the ways in which the office has morphed into new forms. One example of this is the movement toward coworking, in which various individuals rent out desks in an office so they can have the camaraderie of coworkers while retaining their independence. This trend was explored recently in a different story.

Contemplating his career path a couple of years ago, a young computer programmer named Brad Neuberg faced a modern predicament. “It seemed I could either have a job, which would give me structure and community,” he said, “or I could be freelance and have freedom and independence. Why couldn’t I have both?”

As someone used to hacking out solutions, Mr. Neuberg took action. He created a word — coworking, eliminating the hyphen — and rented space in a building, starting a movement.

While coworking has evolved since Mr. Neuberg’s epiphany in 2005, dozens of places around the country and increasingly around the world now offer such arrangements, where someone sets up an office and rents out desks, creating a community of people who have different jobs but who want to share ideas…

Coworking sites are up and running from Argentina to Australia and many places in between, although a wiki site on coworking shows that most are in the United States…The coworkers, armed with Wi-Fi laptops and cellphones, are in some ways offering a techie twist on the age-old practice of artists or writers teaming up to rent studio space…

Coworking comes in many flavors. The Hat Factory in San Francisco is a live-work loft that’s home to three technology workers who open up during the day to other people. Some companies, like Citizen Agency, a San Francisco Internet consulting firm that has done the most to evangelize coworking, have an open-door policy, in which people rent desks but others are free to drop in and use the Wi-Fi or the conference room.

Some companies rent out desks to the nomadic workers, hoping some of their Internet mojo will rub off. Yet others have started coworking spaces as businesses unto themselves, like a community version of the corporate business centers operated by the Regus Group.

Tara Hunt, a co-owner of Citizen Agency, which calls its office Citizen Space, has listed (in a blog, of course) some principles of coworking. They include collaboration, openness, community, sustainability and accessibility. Many of the ideas come from the open-source software movement, in which people share their work freely with little regard for financial gain. Taking a nod from that movement, the people involved in coworking share their experiences and ideas on a Web site, coworking.pbwiki.com.

Now that corporations recognize not only the benefits of international experience but also a real need for managers to have a broad global perspective, a wide array of programs are popping into existence in order to meet these training needs. One of the more interesting programs that I’ve heard about was just profiled in the NY Times. IBM is actually sending budding managers abroad to work as volunteers in various business-related projects.

In July, a team of 8 to 10 I.B.M. employees will travel to Ghana to help tiny businesses make their operations more professional. Another team will help entrepreneurs seek microloans in Turkey, while yet another will create training programs on information technology in Vietnam.

The projects, which were devised by I.B.M.’s citizenship group and are being coordinated through nonprofit organizations, have all the trappings of corporate philanthropy. But that is not why they were created, or how they are being used.

“This is a management development exercise for high-potential people at I.B.M.,” said Randy MacDonald, senior vice president for human resources.

What does I.B.M. hope to gain from sending these employees on volunteer missions abroad? Quite a lot, actually.

“As a development tool, this is a four-for-one,” said Allan R. Cohen, dean of the Olin Graduate School at Babson College, near Boston. “It’s stretching to work in another culture, to work in a nonprofit where the measurement of accomplishment isn’t clear, to take a sabbatical from your everyday routine and to learn to accomplish things when you can’t just bark orders.”

Indeed, Paul Ingram, a management professor at the Columbia Business School, is planning a similar program for this fall, in which executives attending the school’s Senior Executive Program will work with nonprofit groups in New York. Because 80 percent of the students are not from the United States, the New York location is outside their comfort zone.

“The fact that you are an excellent programmer or salesman, or can lead a project in your own area and culture, doesn’t mean you can be a great leader outside of your technical or cultural expertise,” he said.

That is I.B.M.’s logic as well. The company views the Service Corps as a way to learn how well employees work with strangers, in strange lands, on unfamiliar projects.

Thoughts on time…

“Eskimos working for a fish cannery in Alaska thought factory whistles were ridiculous. The idea that men would work or not work because of a whistle seemed to them sheer lunacy. For the Eskimo, tides determined what men did, how long they did it, and when they did it…

The Europeans who invaded the North American continent imposed their time system on everything. We have concrete notions concerning books, houses, dams, office buildings, etc., all of which have scheduled times for completion, just as children are supposed to walk and talk and go to school at certain ages. For the Hopi, every living thing has its own inherent time…

Time started as a natural series of rhythms associated with daily, monthly and annual cycles. It is now imposed as an outside constraint that sends its tentacles into every nook and crevice.”

                                                                                                - Edward Hall, Beyond Culture

On travel… 

“A curious human linkage is forged amongst travelers, making it possible to understand one another almost immediately because we recognize something of ourselves in each other. We’re the sort that doesn’t need a home. The desire to see the world is what matters. Traveling is like being in love; it has that kind of strength. The love some people give to another person, to a home, to a career, we give to the road, to the mountains and villages, to children running in the streets, to the women at the well, to the trees, the moon.

We throw ourselves into the world and become creatures of chance, of the stars. Traveling alone can be hell, in its utter solitude and in its panic, panic not from rain or cold or sickness but from the sense of displacement, and the question ‘Why am I here?’ But something compels us and it’s this: when we travel we absorb fresh life around every corner. For years the urge to travel might refuse to identify itself, as if it’s a dormant seed inside us. But one day we find it somewhere else, furrowed in the body of another person we may meet on a train or at a bus stop, and suddenly this yearning is happily, instantly recognizable. We understand each other’s need to travel. We understand this without question.”

                                                           - Lauri Gough, Kite Strings of the Southern Cross

Here is another type of post that you will begin to see regularly on this site - Thoughts to ponder. A series of ideas and quotations to think about and discuss:

“Work begins when you  don’t like what you’re doing. There’s a wise saying: make your hobby your source of income. Then there’