The Best Christmas Gift - From a Driver in Sri Lanka

On Christmas Eve of 2004, Sachi and I made a decision.  We decided that, in one year, we would depart on a year long trip.  We reserved a web site address that night: www.theworldisnotflat.com (TwinF).  In January of 2006 we departed, dedicated to blogging the whole trip.

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China Week: Pretty Pictures for 08-08-08

To finish up China week, I'd like to share some of our favorite photos from China. Enjoy the Olympics!

Shanghai from the Pearl City Tower

 

A squished pig from a Nanjing market.

 

Summer Palace

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China Week: Lessons in Line Breaking (A Story)

Below is a short story that was posted to our travel blog from Shanghai.  Almost any visitor to China is likely to experience a higher-than-expected level of competiion while standing in line for something like a subway ticket. In the case below, I had made up my mind to be a competitor.  Unfortunately things didn't work out as planned.

From the post: Lessons in Line Breaking

 

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China Week: Strange Translations

If making signs in Chinese characters was my job, I would be very, very bad at it.  However, I might hire someone who knows the language well before erecting a permanent sign at a major tourist destination.  For a long time, this didn't happen in China and we snapped the photos below before they invested in changing the signs for the Olympics. 

 

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Home for the Holidays (and an off-topic interview)

First, we want to wish you and yours good cheer and positive vibes for the Holidays.  It's been an exciting year for us at Common Craft and it couldn't have happened without you.  Your links, your blog entries, your emails to friends all put a spotlight on our work that wouldn't have happened otherwise.  Maybe there is something to this social media thing after all. J

Between now and the New Year, we'll be with families on separate coasts and generally unavailable. 

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China's Three Gorges Dam Project - Our First/Only Documentary

Exactly one year ago, we published the video below - one of our first. We had just finished a six day river trip from Chong Qing to Shanghai, China on the Yangtze River, which goes through the Three Gorges.

China is damming the Yangtze River with the Three Gorges Dam Project, the worlds largest dam. It has displaced over a million people and caused a huge and well-deserved global controversy.

At this time last year, we had just purchased the camera we use today. I decided I'd try to do a short doucmentary about the things we learned about the project and it's impact.

I admit it's a bit cheesy, but I thought you might enjoy seeing something besides a whiteboard

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The Big UNsubscribe

How long has it been since you really thought about all the things you subscribe to in email? The newsletters, the notifications, the email lists. It's so easy to delete the old stuff when it comes in that you might be used to doing just that - deleting instead of unsubscribing.

I've spent the last couple of weeks unsubscribing from everything and I was amazed at the sheer number of things that came in, but always went unread. My guess is there were 25-30 different newsletters and updates. I had no idea.

My advice is to be aware and remove the things you're not reading if you have a choice. It's quite liberating. Now, if I can just figure out how to unsubscribe from spam, I'll be all set.

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Mobile Blogging via Treo 650

I've been geeking out a lot on all the things we can do with gadgetry on the trip. You might remember that I first posted about a device (the i-Mate PDA2K) back in June that I thought would be good for mobile blogging.

I've been using a PalmOne Treo 650 for the last couple of months and I think it's going to be the close-to-perfect gadget for our needs on the trip.

Over at TwinF I posted a bit about all the capabilties I've been testing.

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Building and Spending Buzz Capital

As I’ve been hinting, I’m getting really close to revealing something new that I’m very excited about. Quite honestly, I’m hoping to build some buzz, as I’ll be looking for people to participate (it's free). In planning for buzz, I like to look at it in terms of something I call “Buzz Capital”.

Like most types of capital, buzz capital is something you build up and then spend. The goal is to spend it at the most opportune moment, thus increasing the returns on the buzz. I'd say that Apple is a perfect example of good buzz capital management.

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The Times They Are A'Changin

I've been planning something since January of this year and I'm really excited that it's about to come to fruition. In fact, I can barely contain myself. I'm going to be evasive for now, but it's something that represents the biggest adventure of my life so far, personally and professionally.

In a week or two, I'll start talking specifics and my goal in writing this is to fire off a warning shot to say that things are changing here at Common Craft headquarters. In fact, I think it's safe to say that this blog has a little over 2 months before it goes into hibernation.

The key point for now is that I want you to stay tuned because I'm about to have a whole lot of new things to talk about. It'll be fun, I promise. :)

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