nerd’s eye view

Re[Think] Hawaii & TEDx Honolulu

I’d been invited to travel to Oahu by the Oahu Visitor’s Bureau in exchange for blogging about my adventures there. At the same time, Christine Lu was planning re[Think] Hawaii, a small conference about start-ups, sustainability, and social media and the dates lined up perfectly. Christine generously waived the attendance fee in exchange for… well, let’s say I owe her a favor or three. Neenz, a Hawaii social, um, universe, she’s a social universe, invited the attendees of reThink Hawaii to TEDx, a morning of interesting ideas and speakers. Now for some long winded contextual stuff…

I’ve attended what feels like a pile of conferences this year — SxSW, TBEX, BlogHer, BlogWorld Expo, reThink Hawaii was the last in a long run. Unfortunately, it solidified something for me that I’ve been slowly concluding with each event that I attend — I don’t thrive in these environments. I’m not particularly shy, but I don’t like to do things in large groups. I’d really prefer to have dinner with two or three smartypants types, being in a room with 100 of them just isn’t that rewarding for me.

I can’t work a room. That’s not to say that I don’t want to meet you, it’s rather that I don’t have the skills to compete for your attention, a cheerier extrovert will do a much better job than I will and because of that, we probably won’t talk unless I sit next to you at breakfast or in those funny between times when everyone is elsewhere. I’m happiest in quiet conversation in a room where I can hear you. Though ironically, I have loved the speaker opportunities I’ve had this year, so I guess I like the spotlight when I don’t have to compete for it. How lazy is that?

All of this is just so you can place my experience in context. Bookish type, kind of a nerd, socially not that great, especially  in a room full of  extroverted success stories. Yeah, not so much my scene. I’m going to sit over there and observe, quietly, and process, thank you, and I probably won’t show up to shout at you in a noisy bar later, I’ll be in my room, reading and eating take out bento.

This doesn’t mean I’m not absorbing information or learning or making some good connections.  I was able to connect with some great people in the pantheon of Internet stars that attended and plan to follow up with a few — they’re doing work directly related to things that I’m doing. I loved the local presence — reThink and TEDx gave me the chance to spend quality time with people who live and work in Hawaii and I adore those folks, they’re wonderful. I’ve never felt so at home while living out of a suitcase. All that fuzzy stuff, the stuff around the edges, that was great.

But I was struck, repeatedly, but what was NOT talked about at both reThink Hawaii and TEDx. My short list:

• Tourism: A lot of time was devoted to discussing sustainability, a critical issue with Hawaii’s limited resources. But we didn’t talk about tourism until I asked. This wasn’t a tourism or travel event, but with 800,000 people passing through the islands every year, including many of the people in that room, not talking about tourism seemed to willfully deny one of the biggest impacts to Hawaii’s economy and environment.
• Education:  I attended more than one talk that mentioned how Hawaii could be the “Silicon Valley of energy” and how it’s got great potential as a business environment. While I sat in that room, restless teenagers sloped about the streets of Waikiki because of Hawaii’s embarrassing furlough Fridays — the state doesn’t have the funds to keep the kids in school full time. Skilled jobs in Hawaii are badly needed, but who’s going to do those jobs if Hawaii residents aren’t getting a quality education?  For personal reasons, I’d love to see a Hawaii tech corridor, but that’s because I want to live there. Is Hawaii creating the skilled workforce needed to fill those jobs once they’re created or are they going to go to lucky imported mainlanders?
• Censorship: I really enjoyed Kaiser Kuo’s talk about our difficult relationship with China via the Internet, but I have a hard time removing the shadow of censorship from the conversation. I don’t understand the first thing about China. But I know that my friend B, when traveling there, couldn’t share his stories with me via his blog, he was blocked by what is amusingly called the Great Firewall of China. There’s a lot of excitement about China’s opening markets, but when it comes to open communication, what’s available to us as citizens? How much of the tone of the conversation with the outside world is controlled by the government? China certainly has the manpower to apply a heavy hand when it comes to censorship — are they? I don’t know.
• Consumerism: I’m not really anti-consumer, I like my stuff just fine, but I sure wish we’d dial it back some as a society. I was frustrated by Henk Rogers talk about the new virtual world. It’s just one tiny thing, but he mentioned how virtual worlds make it easier for us to get virtual stuff. He’s also got the Blue Planet Foundation, an organizaiton that wants to end the use of carbon based fuels. That’s great, but isn’t the drive for stuff what causes us to burn all that carbon based fuel? Is the ability for us to get virtual stuff really going to diminish our desire for real stuff, or is it going to frustrate us, making us wonder why we can’t have that stuff in real life? Again, I don’t know.
  [Related side note: I REALLY appreciated that reThink and TEDx were swag free. Swag is fun, but when an event becomes more about swag than substance... TBEX did a nice job of making sure everyone got the same stuff and that it wasn't just stuff.]
• Success: Wow, there were a lot of very successful people there. And that’s really great for them, but for me, a person of a modest (but really very amazing life) I felt like the lessons of failure were eclipsed by the glamor of success. The most valuable stories are in lessons learned from failure, but I felt like I was hearing a lot of glowing reports on how awesome things were.  A lot of success models aren’t replicable — they’re a magical cocktail of inspiration and work and luck and connections. But failure is a unifying experience and it’s a good thing to learn how to fail without giving up. I realize that’s vague, but I loved beatboxboy Jason Tom’s remark about successful people failing more often. Sharing the failure factor? I would have like to see more of that.

The networking aspects aside, I suppose if Neenz and Christine Lu intended to send attendees out into the world thinking differently about, well, a few things, then I’m probably a fair argument for their success. I’m still rolling these issues around in my head. I dont have any real conclusions at this point, but I’m thinking, thinking and rethinking, a lot, about the last ten days in Hawaii.

Posted in Aloha Oy, Op/Ed, Werk | 12 Comments »

Ethics, Schmethics: On Press Trips and Writing a Good Story

Is anyone else tired of the press trip debate? It returned last week — on the tails of increasing paranoia about the new FCC rulings — in a story posted by Gawker about NY Times writer Mike Albo taking a “free, all expenses paid trip to Jamaica.” The NY Times explicitly prohibits their writers from participating in these kinds of events. Also on Gawker, an excerpt of the Times policy.

The following additional rules apply to travel writers, whether working for Travel, Escapes, T: Travel or any other section:

No travel writer, whether on assignment or not, may accept free or discounted services of any sort from any element of the travel industry. This includes hotels, resorts, restaurants, tour operators, airlines, railways, cruise lines, rental car companies and tourist attractions…

It is our policy not to give Travel assignments to freelance writers who have previously accepted free services. Depending on circumstances, the Travel editor may make rare exceptions, for example, for a writer who ceased the practice years ago or who has reimbursed his or her host for services previously accepted…

When the story broke, travelers on Twitter manned their keyboards and there was a lively debate — here’s the #twethics (travel writer’s ethics) archive, if you’re interested.

Yes, it’s not unusual for travel writers — for well known writers of any stripe — to be invited on a trip with the implied agreement that they’ll write about it. Yes, there’s some question about how truly objective a writer can be when they’ve taken a trip that was fully funded by a tourism or travel organization. Yes, pay for travel writing these days is rarely enough to cover the expenses of travel, it’s rarely enough to turn a profit.

Are you getting 100 dollars a post — enough to cover dinner and one night in a hotel you scored on Priceline? Are you getting 1200 dollars for a feature story about a far away place — enough for a round trip ticket from the West Coast to Europe and a cup of coffee in the airport? Let’s widen the circle a little bit — are you buying every single one of those gadgets you review? Did you pay for that makeup/clothing/shoes/kitchen appliance/gaming device with your own cold hard cash and did your writing income cover the costs?

I think this entire debate is beside the point. Albo seems to have broken the terms of his contract by taking the trip. That’s a business/contractual issue. But for me, the heart of this debate is the story that results from participating in a comped adventure. What’s the story about? Is the writer offering critical insight into the destination? Is the writer giving you useful, actionable tips for a better trip? Are you reading a story that transports you to a place? Are any reviews practical, complete, and thoughtful? Or are you reading the same information you can get from the brochure stand in the airport? Is the resulting story nothing more than the PR company’s copy, a first person rewriting of what’s on the hotel or attraction web site? Regardless of who’s paying, what am I reading as a result?

It’s increasingly easy to be taken seriously by the entities that finance these trips. PR companies are interested in the high traffic numbers of group blogs, advertisers are looking to replace the fading print market with blog advertorials. They make their choices, send out some invites, and wait, hopefully, for the resulting wave of click throughs and conversions. The issue that came up again and again at the blogging plus travel events I attended this year was “How do I get one of those trips?”

I’d like to see more people asking “How do I write a good travel story?” My inbox is littered with PR pitches for travel related events. Odds are fairly high that I can tell if your post is sourced in one of those; odds are equally high that I can tell if you’re on a comp, even if you haven’t disclosed that fact. Ultimately, I don’t actually care who paid for your trip. I care that the result is a well written story, critical and insightful.

In a perfect world, a travel writer could travel anonymously on an expense account and make a decent income from their stories — but we all know that’s just not true for so many writers these days. Press junkets and PR funded travel is part of the game now. We need to get used to that. And while I do think disclosure is a good policy for bloggers, it’s ultimately up to the publication or the individual to decide. But I don’t think participation in press trips immediately dings a writer’s cred.

I’m not going to go after anyone because they’ve taken a free trip. Write poorly as a result of that opportunity, now that’s when the gloves come off.

Related, sort of:

• NYT Nitpicker: Why not give Mike Albo a break?
• Gadling: Free press travel necessary… and certainly not an evil.
• Miss Adventures: Of freelance writers and junkets
• Matador: Do Travel and Leisure-style ‘No Freebies’ Policies Undermine Honesty in Travel Writing?

Posted in Op/Ed | 12 Comments »

PR Chat: New Media Strategies

It’s my public shame and embarrassment that a few months back, I missed a red-eye flight to Cozumel. I’d been invited on a press trip with a handful of other bloggers. I was packed and ready to go, I just had the date wrong in my head. I’m still taking heat for this — seasoned traveler blows flight! — but the one guy who’s never given me a hard time about it? The guy who invited me, Sean Carroll from New Media Strategies. For that, I’m really thankful, it was, after all, a mistake.

Not only did Sean not give me a hard time, but he helped connect the dots to set us — three bloggers on a road trip to Chicago for TBEX — up with a Routan minivan for our adventure. Talk about a good sport. Sean took time to answer a bunch of questions about PR and bloggers and how that relationship works. I did a series of these as part of our road trip, you’ll find the rest here. If you’re a blogger struggling with the hows and whys of PR relationships, they are an interesting read.

Below the jump — Sean’s answers to my questions. (more…)

Posted in Op/Ed, Werk | 6 Comments »

Fallen Towers, Broken Hearts

It is easy, with a handful of years behind us, to say that on September 11, 2001, everything changed. It is easy to look back and see ourselves shifted into shadow and grief as though in that one horrible moment, something black crossed in front of the sun. And for some it is true, it was an instant between fine and not fine, between blissfully complacent and angry with fear, between the world being a boundless universe of wonder and the world collapsing into the space between our bodies and our television sets. It is easy to focus to that long awful moment when the planes reappeared, hit the towers or the ground, and everything fell.

But though my phone rang with concerns for my safety and well being — I was clear the other side of the country! — though my neighbor and I sat, stunned, and watched over and over as the smoke rose, as the text across the bottom of my TV stated that two other planes were “missing”, though I could not believe my eyes, it was not right then that I felt the change. It was not until I headed to the airport eight, or maybe twelve weeks later that the feeling of something lost crept up the back of my neck and settled on me, right there in the departures terminal. I have never enjoyed flying, but I have also never been afraid. And in December, 2001, for the first time in life, I was afraid to fly.

I do not wish to belittle the tremendous loss felt by the families who lost those they loved on September 11th. I can not express my sympathy, still, for their pain and my hope that some day, justice will be served. My loss, this minor shift in feeling, is insignificant, it’s nothing in the face of the gaping holes where fathers and mothers and sisters and brothers and lovers and friends used to stand. The change for me is a small one, a falling out of love, the disappointment of a broken heart, the tarnishing of something that once seemed valuable. But it’s my loss, it’s the one I know, the one I can speak about.

September 11 changed travel. Not just for me, but for everyone, everywhere in the world. I saw it in 2008 when I handed over an unopened bottle of water that I’d purchased on the wrong side of the gate in Bangkok. I saw it last month when my sister in law, visiting from Europe, described the complicated visitor registration process she had to go through. I saw when, in 2006, rushing to make a connecting flight in London, the airlines staff raced me to the gate only to call me to a full stop to remove my shoes. I saw it in May when I dropped my husband off and was bullied on the airport drive for sitting too long in one place. My friend with the generic name who’s on the no-fly list sees it. My Indian friend who’s always pulled aside for special screening sees it. My house guests who arrived last weekend — via a domestic flight — without toothpaste see it. It is everywhere, this blanket of security wrapped around travel, designed to make us believe that there are those out to get us and those who are working hard to keep us safe.

I never minded the steely faced interrogators at the departures gate in Amsterdam or Munich because everyone got the same treatment but I hated — I still hate — taking off my shoes and pouring out my soda. In Molokai’s tiny airport, I handed my unopened drink to some loitering taxi drivers rather than throw it away before being liberated of my sunscreen ten minutes later by a security guard. I’ve watched frustrated mothers in London hand over items that they’d been given on their previous flight because they weren’t allowed into the arrivals terminal. I’ve watched young guys in desert garb singled out for special screening and I’ve been pulled into that line myself.

After 9/11, Americans everywhere put their international holidays on hold. I flew anyway, holding my breath, eying the other passengers, thinking of the words of our former county executive, Ron Sims, who spoke at a rally I attended shortly after 9/11. “No man can cause me to fear my neighbor,” he said, and I hoped that was the case but I knew it wasn’t true any more because there I was, afraid for the first time since I’d walked solo in the Himalayas, since I woke up completely off the grid in Pakistan, since I wandered the streets of Alexandria, lost. I had never been afraid and there I was, in the departures terminal in Seattle’s airport, afraid.

All the details in air travel conspire to remind us that we are afraid. The theater of security, the zip-lock bags, the piles of half empty water bottles. The bins of discarded items, too sharp to take on the plane, the passengers in their socks repacking their electronics. You, hipster guy next to me in line for that flight to Austin, you are an object of fear. You, 70-something guy clearing security in Tucson, unraveling your complicated back brace, because it contains metal stays, you are an object of fear. Girl in skinny jeans and Converse high tops, Russian family with complicated luggage, nursing mother, all of you, everyone in line is a suspect until security tells us otherwise. You are an object of fear.

There are, I’m sure, sophisticated reports that tell us exactly how much money was lost in travel since 9/11. We can probably find data that lists the number of canceled trips, of vacant hotel rooms, of airline seats left empty. There are numbers that will tell us how many security officers have been hired and how many Swiss Army knives have been confiscated. But there’s no measure for this tiny loss, this cumulative fear. Yes, everything changed in that instant, of course it did, how could anyone think otherwise? It didn’t stop there, though, with this catastrophic lurch in American society. It continued, a gradual erosion of optimism, a cliched loss of innocence.

It feels so long ago, I am older now. I will not see Afghanistan in this life, I will not see Baghdad. I doubt I will make that magical drive across the deserts of Persia, the Silk Road doesn’t seem to be in my future anymore. I have to wait for my next life as an Arabic nomad, as a different wanderer than I am today. For now, when I travel, I face my fear. I am afraid. I go anyway; I take my fear with me. This is what has changed. It is nothing, I know, but it is my loss. A slow shift, a minor weight, a broken heart.

Posted in Op/Ed | 6 Comments »

Passports with Purpose: The Wrap

It probably sounds like Debbie, Michelle, Beth, and yours truly do little but sit around in each others kitchens eating excellent Seattle treats and washing them down with freshy brewed java or some nice green tea. I suppose there’s some truth in that, but the treats are fuel for big ideas and oh, we have them in spades. And right now, I am not going to share them with you except to say that we have exciting plans for Passports, V2.

I will tell you that this year was a bigger success than we ever could have imagined. When we closed the raffle page, we had raised 7420 USD for Heifer International. As of today, our winners are all notified – if you haven’t heard from one of us, I’m sorry to say that your name wasn’t pulled for a raffle prize. But your money did go to a good cause, I promise you that, and while you can’t make a short movie with it, wear it, or read it on the plane, I know four Seattleites who are overwhelemed with gratitude for your support and donations.

It was both very hard work and surprisingly easy to pull off Passports with Purpose. You may not know that we’d given ourselves a mere three weeks to set things up – to line up prizes, recruit sponsors, find bloggers to participate, to generally get the word out.

We had a handful of boring data problems. It was tricky to accept donations and make sure that they were matched with the right prizes – if you got email from one of us saying, “Hey, could I clarify what you wanted to win in the raffle?” well, that’s why and thanks for your patience.

Later, I became oddly addicted to Random‘s integer generator. I also learned that no matter what you read, the spreadsheet in Google docs and Excel for the Mac and the PC are not completely compatible.

While the technical problems were annoying, the human issues were nothing but happiness. For the duration of Passports with Purpose, my inbox was a happy place, full of offers to help and kudos and wow, you guys are amazing.

We’re done for 08. Again, if you haven’t heard from one of us, it’s because – really, I’m sorry, I wish we had something for all of you – you didn’t win. But we’re doing it again for 09. We’ll be setting up a survey that I’d love to have you fill out but if you’d like to leave some feedback for us about what we could do better next year, I welcome it – you can email me or just leave a comment.

7420 USD. I’ve said this before, but indulge me: That’s a WHOLE LOTTA LLAMAS! Thank you.

Posted in Op/Ed, Passport Travels | 5 Comments »

It Has Been An Awesome Year

• January: We arrived in Hanoi. Vietnam blew my mind. I’d go back tomorrow if I had the chance.
• February: We visited Angkor freaking Wat. I have wanted to go there for as long as I’ve known it exists. It was worth the wait.
• March: I got studio time to record a story for WGBH at our local NPR station. I was giddy, I tellya. And we marked our one year housiversary.
• April: We had an unseasonably summery weekend camping on Washington’s south coast with friends. We ate a lot of oysters. We also spent some time in the I5 corridor.
• May: I taught and then led about 60 people in an all ukulele rendition of I Will Survive on stage at Folklife. It RULED.
• June: We went to a lot of summer low tides at the beach. I love summer in West Seattle. And we rode a tandem in Portland.
• July: I played the uke and sang for my friend K. and his groom V. at their wedding on Vashon Island. And while celebrating our friends’ 10th anniversary, we made a side trip to Olympic National Park, one of my absolute favorite places on the planet.
• August: D and L made it possible for Julius to attend his very first baseball game. We said goodbye to the Austrians that helped us transform the NEV HQ into a hostel.
• September: I spoke on a panel about women’s travel at the Adventures in Travel Expo. And I was invited by Conde Nast Traveler to cover the World Saver’s Congress. But first, I had to get to New York City.
• October: I loved and hated Tampa.
• November: We had a lot of great local adventures including crashing a Seattle patriarch’s 80th birthday party. And oh, hey, the USA got a new president. Thank you, America!
• December: I helped raise over 5000 7000 dollars for Heifer International through Passports with Purpose. And we got snowed in for, like, a week.

And that’s just a few of the highlights. In all of this, I was really busy with work for a couple of great clients – I had to turn work away, I’ve been so booked. J picked up some odd job work here and there and tended to some pretty tedious “around the house” stuff that really needed to be done. The orange and yellow shag is gone from the basement, as is the nasty water trapping fiberglass from the weird little closet under the porch. The front steps are no longer covered in blue carpet (who’s idea was that?). And our garden is home to three (currently snow covered) raised beds that produced tomatoes, Swiss chard, snap peas, lettuce, and parsley in abundance. I did a little bit more travel writing, none of which went live this year, but look around the corner at next year, things are a-comin’.

I hope your year has been at least as great as mine and that 2009 is ten times better. Happy New Year and thanks so much for sticking around.

Posted in Op/Ed | 4 Comments »