Traveling Geeks

Fun New Travel Apps Tout Their Horns at Web Summit

At the fourth annual Web Summit event in Dublin from November 4-6, 2014, 22,000 people from around the world came to see new gadgets, get cool demos and hear the latest scoop on where technology is heading. Since we love travel, we decided to spend a little time learning about what some of the new travel start-ups were up to on the show floor.
While we mostly cover news and destinations for the luxury traveler, we threw in several apps into the mix that would be useful for hotels, airlines, property and guest house owners and even boat owners.

What I found fascinating was just how diverse the nationalities were across the board — there are some creative apps coming out of Portugal, Israel, Germany, Finland, Greece, the states, France, England, Ireland, Italy, Finland, Russia, Brazil, Austria, Holland, Belgium, Australia and even Monaco and Malta, among countless others. I put together a curation of some of the apps I came across during my scouting exercise across three days at this massive technology event.
Yonderbound is another B2B solution. Based in of all places Monaco, the female founder team (uncanny fact but they’re both named Barbara), is trying to help travelers get a kick back for sharing their knowledge and travel experiences. Millions of people share their travel knowledge on popular sites for free and Yonderbound thinks you should be rewarded for it — up to 70% of the net revenue you produce.

TripFlr is a new travel app from London-based co-founder Jerome Lapaire and team. The pitch? What else but “travel with flair.” Remembering the name of a bar or a shop is often a pain. City by city, you can now store your favorite spots and all the places you have yet to discover in your private Triplogs!

Georama is a real-time vicarious travel platform. They help people experience the world anytime, anywhere. Georama’s technology allows viewers to explore a destination in real-time by interacting with a guide who is live streaming their perspective.
They’re targeting tourism organizations, hotels, airlines and more to help them inspire and engage with prospective travelers around the world.
The Find Out App helps restaurants, nightclubs and bars interact with users on their key information to improve the experience they have on the ground. Based in Paris, they only started out about a month ago so are trying to add new venues as quickly as they can, and will expand to other cities as things progress. Guestvista is aimed at social travelers. Travelers can learn about useful hints and tips from others. The company is based in Ireland.

InLoco gives you an opportunity to travel with locals. This Brazilian-based company has been loading their content from Brazil and will be adding European users soon. The idea is to discover non-tourist sites, meet new people and find more interesting alternatives by traveling with a local resident.
Plan Chat lets you create a plan for anything with content from everywhere in a familiar centric manner. Hotel Booking say they are the best hotel search engine. It looks a bit like an Expedia but for hotel booking only.

Guest 2gether out of Austria, is a social network for hotels. They create a new vacation experience for each customer.
When you’re at your hotel, you can meet up with other people staying at the same hotel and meet up to do activities together or dine together based on common interests.
BookBedder say that they can make hotel booking even better. I chatted with Swiss-based co-founder Yannick Blondeau at the event. BookBedder is a collaborative hotel booking website where hotels and guests join forces to get reduced costs and better deals on hotels.
Quicket is a mobile travel service that combines existing flights, hotels, cars, fees and air services for independent travelers.
BookGreener gives travelers lists of authoritatively rated eco-friendly hotels from around the world. Based out of Indonesia, the ever so eco-conscious founder Alexandre Tsuk wants to change the way people think about hotels and make travelers more conscious about where they stay. What else is cool is that every time a traveler books a hotel, BookGreener plants a tree.

Social Airways has a great idea. The Cyprus-based founder and CEO Stylianos Lambrou wants to help flyers get more value from others on their flight, every time they fly.
It’s a social flights platform that connects people who are on the same flight, so they can share rides, information and anything else that might be useful. I love this and hope it sticks.

Conichi say that they plan to revolutionize the interaction between hotels & restaurants and their guests. Through the Conichi App, guests are automatically recognized and their visits are tracked in order to provide optimal customer service.

In addition to being able to greet guests personally, their preferences are stored so hotels and restaurants can grant them personalized recommendations and provide additional benefits that best suit their interests and preferences. 
Big-data, personalization and smart-analytics are combined to optimize the guest experience and explore new levels of guest loyalty.

Family Vacation is a cool app based in Bucharest and New York that helps families book travel. Think of it more like a marketplace where families can find, customize and book personalized vacations provided by locals from around the world.

Inn Style is a web based alternative to irksome spreadsheets and dusty diaries for all kinds of accommodations owners — they tout, that it will be the easiest way for you or your clients to start taking online bookings.
Hero & Creatives is run by a woman CEO based out of Portugal. I love this idea – essentially they match you up with guide photographers in your destination of choice. How cool to explore the world with a local photographer who can show you an entirely different perspective on a country or city.

Direct Hoteling is a database of hotels and other businesses providing accommodations so you can find the best offer out there.
Travel Myth is another hotel recommendation engine, but one which is based on your interests. Based in Greece, this company’s app could be really useful if it sticks – we need more granular ways to search, discover and book hotels based on our personal likes and dislikes, so I really like the idea.

Gloudio is a fun idea out of the UK. They are combining traditional pre-recorded geo-located audio guides for well visited sites like museums with crowd-based audio content for an enhanced user experience when they’re on the road.
Exploranza out of the Czech Republic hopes to help travelers discover hidden gems. There’s no doubt we need more sites who can curate experiences for travelers in a much more efficient and high quality way but I’m not sure they have quite nailed it yet.
That said, they don’t plan on charging tourists for this curated premium content and they hope the value will get better and better over time. Kymboo.com’s tagline is Tourism 4.0.
Based in Spain, they say they are the first professional booking system for hotels, resorts, cottages and property owners where they can share marketing of their products.
Boatsetter out of Florida, hopes to offer a safe and secure way for boat owners to charter out their vessels to selected clients. Each charter includes state-of-the-art insurance, on-water support provided by BoatUS and US Coast Guard licensed captains available to hire.
Nifty idea but probably pretty niche, at least initially. The idea is obviously that customers will see value-add immediately since they can subsidize the cost of ownership and have a better maintained boat over time.

Roaming Byme is based in France and their team hopes to solve the roaming cell phone issue. They tout themselves as the traveler’s mobile operator, where they hope to solve traveler’s roaming bill shock issues.
YapQ, based in Israel, has created a mobile app that tells you what’s around you. They curate destinations and activities you want to do frequently in a city or town, such as a well known museum. The other beautiful thing about their app for a traveler is that you can use it offline and get the same benefit.

Pimp Your Stay with a team out of Malta, has certainly found a memorable name that is suggestive but also fun. They provide hotels access to detailed guest data (with opt in permission from the guest of course), so the hotels can add extra value to their stay.
Now, with additional personalized information on a guest in advance, hotels can turn a standardized service into a truly personalized stay.

Naymit, out of Germany, makes places findable, allowing you to create a one word address so visitors can find your front door or any other location in an instant. Imagine in the future that you might be able to type your “Naymit” name into your car navigation system and it’ll just work.

Let’s Open Now is based in Holland and is trying to help travelers find what they’re looking for that is open when they need them. Outria out of Belgium, crowdsources events, information from members and social networks and they distribute that information to new members.

Green Hopping is all about green travel. Through their site greenhopping.eu, you can browse, discover and get inspired by green travel ideas and places.
Cyclister, you shouldn’t be surprised to hear, is based out of Copenhagen Denmark, a city of cyclists. You can list your bike on Cyclister, decide on the price you want to rent your bike for and make money off each rental, a bit like the services that allow people to rent out their cars when they’re not in use. This is certainly useful in cities where cycling is a preferred way to get around like Copenhagen for example and I could also see this working in Amsterdam and Montreal.

Next to Me, out of Italy, is creating an accurate submeter indoor navigation system that allows users to locate and access their services within their location.
Audio Trip, out of Poland, is a storytelling app that changes your smart phone into a personal local guide.
Cruise Me allows you to search, discover and connect, all within the cruise world. It’s still a bit hush hush as they haven’t officially launched yet, but apparently the app from this Florida-based startup is slated to go live sometime in January or February 2015.

Share My Taxi, based out of Munich Germany, is a blend of Uber and Lyft. They use professional drivers and there’s also a mobile app that makes traveling with taxis, Uber, Wundercar and others social and green by sharing a ride if its available. This is also more economical for travelers who want to get from A to B safely.

Cityist has started out with Paris-based content since that’s where they’re currently based. They tout themselves as the next Generation Of City Guides. They are a website, offline mobile app & marketplace that turns tourists into local experts.
Local Fixer’s Co-Founder Elliot Costello and team are based in Melbourne Australia. Finally, a fun travel app from the Aussies. It’s a bit like a LinkedIn for the travel sector, where you can include offers in your profile, ranging from offering your pad to rent for the week, or posts of other things you can offer travelers, such as bikes, your car to use, or things you’d like to sell which might be useful to them during their stay.

Deal Broker is a B2B solution that is targeting travel suppliers and help them find great tours and activities for travelers. They customize the content under the tour operators brand/logo that they can then send out to their travel prospects.

DealBroker can also send mobile notifications through social media, text or email. Deal Broker specializes in relevant offers around a specific destination, such as tours and activity offers. They are leveraging the trend that tour operators and activity suppliers want to cooperate and need easier ways to do so. It would be a great multi-touch solution for example, for rental car companies or airlines.

Tziip is based out of Finland and their pitch is a bit like like Lyft but more social. In other words – get a ride and/or share a ride.
Group Booked from Ireland, touts themselves as the AirBNB for groups, but for more than just accommodations. Another value-add they say is that while they book for groups, they’ll take individual payments, making it more flexible for groups of people to book.
Hudway is a mobile app that helps drivers follow directions in fog, snow, rain and at night via road windshield projections.

Tour Plus, based out of Malaysia helps you plan, enjoy and share your trip by creating an automatic itinerary for you. In other words, you put the places you want to see into their app and they’ll map out the best way to do it for you. You can also share that itinerary with others.
Travel Appeal from Italy, allows hotels to control, manage and improve their reputation.
BELOW SHOTS: On the Show Floor at Web Summit 2014 in Dublin  
 
Photos of apps from vendor websites, 1st Photo taken from Travelblat and photos from Web Summit Show Floor from Renee Blodgett.    

GlazedCon & Wearable World Expo Come to London This Fall

I’ve attended a few GlazedCon events now and find them to be incredibly useful from both a content and networking perspective. They are specifically focused on an area that is exploding and isn’t going to slow down anytime soon: Wearables.

We’re proud to be a media partner again and this time, GlazedCon is expanding to London on October 22, 2014, where they’ll gather together Wearable and IoT executives, along with other top tech thought-leaders to debate the real business opportunities for the hottest emerging tech ecosystem. 
The event is instrumental for key executives, startups, media, mobile warriers and investors. In conjunction with GlazedCon London, they will be holding the first annual Wearable World Expo where over 50 of the hottest Wearable Tech companies will showcase products so cool you’ll actually want to leave with them….or at least let the world know about them!
We have a special 30% discount code for those interested in attending below:
Discount Code: 30% off tickets glazed_weblogtheworld
Eventbrite: www.glazedlondon2014.eventbrite.com  

Next Generation Power Summit Kicks off on March 5

I recently agreed to participate in an online video series on social media in business called Next Generation Power Summit, produced and organized by Australian entrepreneur Rosemary Burnett.

The series will kick off March 5, 2014 and run through March 18 and the schedule of social media gurus and expert interviews are listed below.

The video interview series aims to help businesses with their online and digital strategy through advice and insights from a host of folks living it and breathing it every day. Objectives of the series are to:

Get clear about your core message and brand
Build a following on social media
Attract and connect with your ideal client in the places they are hanging out.
Turn those connections into relationships and sales
Learn the strategies the experts have adopted themselves, to achieve ‘big business’ success.

I’m told that this Tele-summit series is similar in approach to a Global Mentor Mastermind event. There will be the opportunity to watch the video interview replays for a limited time if you can’t make it on the launch date however you will need to register regardless to get access to the content.
 

Web Summit 2014 Exceeds 20,000 Attendees in the Heart of Dublin

Last year I missed Web Summit, what has become Europe’s number one technology event, amusingly labeled as the Davos For Geeks. I went the first two years and this year’s event is a far cry from my year one experience when they only had 500 attendees.
Now in its fourth year, 20,000 people flew into Dublin early this week for the premier 3 day event. Founder, Paddy Cosgrave opened the Summit in the morning, emphasizing the importance of the social element to the Summit where deals can – and have been – done. That said, there was still a lot of activity around the main stage, where they had a host of high level discussions and speakers on the hour all day.

The center stage had Brendan Iribe, the founder of Oculus Rift who spoke about the rise of virtual reality and its applications in everyday life. Skip Rizzo the Director for Medical Virtual Reality and early stage developer of Oculus Rift gave a demonstration of the technology’s uses for post-traumatic stress disorder for returning veterans.

From being shot at to street explosions, the virtual reality exposure therapy has assisted veterans in dealing with their PSD, explained Rizzo, outlining how in one recent study, of 23 completers of the therapy, 16 showed gains and benefits resulting from it. Next stage development will be treating civilians who have experienced stressful situations in their lives. Index Ventures partner Saul Klein talked about how entrepreneurialism is becoming mainstream.
From money and venture hype to an emotional topic around healthcare.  Jorge Soto described how from a personal family diagnosis of cancer, a way to decode disease and identify cancerous cells in their earliest stages may have been found.
Then, John Collins of Stripe spoke of the rise of his online payment company and how it has disrupted the existing online payments ecosystem.”
Gary Marcus, scientist, best-selling author and NYU professor took on the topic of artificial intelligence,  Amazon’s Werner Vogels chatted with Ben Rooney, Stewart Baker, Matthew Prince and James Ball took on privacy rights, and Dropbox CEO Drew Houston chatted with Laurie Segall from CNN on the main stage. Below Paddy talking to a speaker.

Evernote’s CEO Phil Libin spoke about his company being an ‘anti-social network’ and that ‘you should be able to say less and do more.’
From a geek app to acting,  actress, businesswoman and philantropist Eva Longoria spoke to Jemima Khan about the importance of women in business.  “Women start businesses at three times the average yet can’t get funding,” she said issuing a challenge to the women in the audience. ”
Later in the afternoon, former CEO of Apple John Sculley took questions after his main stage appearance with David Carr.

One thing about a conference growing to 20,000 attendees so quickly, is that rather than it feeling like a conference, it felt more like a university campus, or even a small town if you will. Within the web summit, there were micro-summits that addressed various topic sectors. 
For example, they had a Builders, Enterprise, Machine, and Marketing Summit, and at each of them, there were a host of start-ups demoing their latest.
Town Square and Village Green also had their own selection of start-ups and then there were “alpha company booths” in the main exhibit hall dedicated to early start-ups, which was about a 10-15 minute walk from the main stage. Here I was able to see demos from lifestyle vendors, specifically digital health — Kolibree, the connected electric toothbrush (disclosure, I’m an advisor), Gudpod, who hopes to revolutionize the way people take vitamins & supplements with a ‘Keurig like’ internet connected appliance & pod system and Bluetens, who is bringing medical grade mobile electro-stimulation device to the masses to help relax your muscles.

Food Summit was a great addition to the event this year. I wrote about their initial announcement back in November of 2013.
The Food Summit portion has also grown quickly and there were countless vendors touting their latest in fresh ingredients and farm-to-table practices. Gluten and GMO-free were buzz words throughout and I saw everything from a fresh apple stand surrounded by pumpkins (t’is the season) to homemade yoghurt, ice cream, jams, jellies, honey and olive oils.

I absolutely loved tasting the oh so many samples from Crossogue Preserves. Imagine these flavors on your toast in the morning: grapefruit, Irish whiskey, orange and ginger, lime and brandy, plum and port, gooseberry and elderberry, hedgerow, fig and apple and more. Yum!!

Other favorites were the Irish sea salt and Harnett’s Oils, such as hemp, grapeseed, orange and rosemary and basil oils.  I was in heaven. It was a great way to spend an hour or so away from the tech and the noise.

To get to the Food Summit, you had to pass by Herbert Park, which was on the grounds of the main event, which was held this year at the well known Royal Dublin Society on Merrion Road in Dublin. It was a perfect fall day with plenty of ducks on the pond and vibrant colors exploding from the trees.

Photo credits: Stage photos from the Web Summit sportsfile Flickr stream. Photo of Kolibree & Bluetens, Herbert Park and all Food Summit Photos: Renee Blodgett.    
 

GlazedCon & Wearable World Expo Come to London This Fall

I’ve attended a few GlazedCon events now and find them to be incredibly useful from both a content and networking perspective. They are specifically focused on an area that is exploding and isn’t going to slow down anytime soon: Wearables.

We’re proud to be a media partner again and this time, GlazedCon is expanding to London on October 22, 2014, where they’ll gather together Wearable and IoT executives, along with other top tech thought-leaders to debate the real business opportunities for the hottest emerging tech ecosystem. 
The event is instrumental for key executives, startups, media, mobile warriers and investors. In conjunction with GlazedCon London, they will be holding the first annual Wearable World Expo where over 50 of the hottest Wearable Tech companies will showcase products so cool you’ll actually want to leave with them….or at least let the world know about them!
We have a special 30% discount code for those interested in attending below:
Discount Code: 30% off tickets glazed_weblogtheworld
Eventbrite: www.glazedlondon2014.eventbrite.com  

Soaring Fees & Declining Airline Service Do More Than Disempower Customers

While I’m not a 100,000 mile gal, I spend a lot of time on planes throughout the course of a year.  When it comes to flying these days, I think we can all agree — it’s a far cry from fun. Barely tolerable is what comes to mind.

Photo credit: Outsidethebeltway.com.
The saddening reality is that airlines worldwide brought in $31.5 billion in non-ticket revenue in 2013 — including passenger fees — which is MORE than 11 times their non-ticket revenue six years prior, adjusted for inflation according to CNN Money. Unfortunately, there’s little that we can do about it. There’s no plea here and our voices go unnoticed….otherwise, the price increases wouldn’t continue to soar year after year, not to mention new fees being added for incredulous things.

Photo credit: Dave Granlund.com.
Customer feedback no longer matters since it’s become an industry that treats people more like helpless cattle in tow than worthful customers they care about “serving.” Truth be told, I haven’t had a memorable and rewarding experience flying coach in about 8 or 9 years and it’s getting worse.
The smile comes on the video screen welcoming you prior to take off and if a video isn’t enough to make the whole experience feel less personal, I saw a recent clip where an unnamed airline actually replaced people with avatars.
During that “happy” video, you’re reminded that if you didn’t bring your own headset, you can get one from them for a mere $5 and that’s before you have to pay for the in-flight entertainment, no longer free. I’m old enough to remember when all of the “now” perks were just part of your normal travel experience — the headsets, the meals, the movie, changing your flight date or time and hell, American used to give away pens and decks of cards.
Meals in coach used real napkins laid out on the side of your plate and silverware — I’m not sure how I’m going to take a pilot down with a butter knife and silver fork, but hey, clearly they’re still worried about it. If it’s domestic, I oscillate between my two favorite U.S. carriers – Delta and American and if it’s international, I try to use one of their partners for the mileage points although frankly, it’s becoming less compelling by the day since it’s a helluva lot of work to get “status” points and once you’ve killed yourself on god awful flights to get them, your perks and benefits get set back to zero before you have an opportunity to relish in boarding ten minutes early and that one bag free perk.
I avoid United as they remain as anti-customer as Comcast does on the corporate brand list….the two companies should do joint seminars on how to piss off a customer the most in a one hour period.

Photo credit: www.thefinancialbrand.com 
 

If I don’t have a choice to go with a preferred airline partner for international flights, I choose an airline that is known for its service and simplifies traveling for me at a minimum, or in the rare case, doesn’t penny pinch me for everything. Virgin of course is the best known in this category stateside and they just came out with a credit card deal that allows you to change your flights for no fee. Remember those days? How bliss: “Customer-driven” decisions like that make me not want to ever fly another airline. When you purchase a car, design, color and safety matter a whole lot, but at the end of the day, the emotional reason for the purpose is how great you feel when you’re driving it.
Does it add to your experience and do you enjoy getting to your destination? The same applies to an airline experience. Too many airlines think they’re in the transportation business when they’re in the hospitality, service and customer experience industry, even more than a 5 star resort is and frankly, I’d argue than any other business.
That might surprise you but in a 5 star resort, I’m not counting on service non-stop for anywhere from 3 to 24 hours like I am on a flight. From movies, wine, blankets, headsets, your bag, to a fee for the privilege of sitting in a middle seat towards the front of plane or boarding a few minutes early in a line that is now longer than the regular one. I’ve even heard rumors that American is going to charge extra if you want to sit next to someone else, even if there are plenty of empty seats available. WTF?
In 2012, airlines raked in around $6 billion according to USA Today, and airlines made over $20 BILLION with my least favorite airline leading the way – United ($5.4 Billion) according to CNN Money. Australia’s Qantas Airways made $56.21 per customer — the highest amount in that particular survey. Apparently the revenue came mostly through selling frequent flier points to partners such as hotel chains and car rental companies.
Airlines that made the most from baggage fees in order of milking you dry (from a 2014 Marketwatch article), include Delta, United, US Air, America and Spirit.  Airline fees have risen from $2.8 BILLION in 2007 to over $30 BILLION in 2013 according to CNN Money. Below is a chart pulled from the same piece – original link below the image.
Photo credit: From CNNMoney.
Years later, I still hear arguments that they have to continue to rake us through the coals because of 9/11 and they’ll also argue that gas prices have gone up so they need to compensate for that too.
While that may be true, gas has also oscillated and while it was extremely high a couple of years ago, we paid $1.77 a gallon in America’s Midwest this past January. And, let’s be honest, ticket prices have also gone up and flights are fuller than they’ve ever been before – it’s very rare that I have an empty seat next to me and usually I’m sharing my paid seat with someone else when they can’t fit that comfortably in their own. (this happens a lot btw)
It takes the fun and the pleasure out of traveling. Travelaholics or business travelers who hang their hat on airlines frequently will admit that if we could skip the airline process to get to their destination, they would. In other words, it’s the worse part of the travel process — getting from A to B is NOT about transportation, it’s about the experience you have on the way.
This is why people smile when you mention the word Virgin — it’s because Richard Branson gets it. I also had the opportunity to meet Richard’s CEO of Virgin Produced Jason Felts at Idea Festival last year and he is one of the most down-to-earth souls you’ll meet sitting that high at the helm — authentic and fun! His persona and energy gives you the feeling that he actually “cares” about their customers and I’ll take it a step further, their experience of the world — inside Virgin and out.
When I fly coach, it’s such an uncomfortable experience that it’s often difficult to imagine the joy I’ll have when I finally get Italy, South Africa, Japan or wherever my journey might be taking me. Who doesn’t want to feel great on the journey there?
The problem is that most of us haven’t felt “great” on a journey to their destination in….well, years. We’ve all become accustomed to airline mediocrity, being treated as cattle (harsh, but true) and nickeling and diming every object we want to use and every move we want to make. As one woman put it who was standing in the security line before me at JFK recently, “now, it’s cattle in, cattle out, and no extra brownie points for being nice to the agent even when they were rude to you.”
Photo Credit: ECommerceInsiders.com.
Most airlines have lost the essence of what matters to customers and forgotten what business they’re in. Virgin gets it right most of the time even though they were forced by competition to follow suit with with some of those ridiculous charges. That said, Richard Branson understands that he’s in the “travel experience” business — my tagline, not theirs. It makes more sense for entrepreneurs who have successfully run high end theme parks or “high touch” resorts to run an airline since their approach to service and delivering an extraordinary experience are both so far beyond the mentality of most airlines, that their airline would likely very quickly stand out as the “Purple Cow”.
Branson realized he had to build in “aha” moments into the Virgin flying experience, from check in to behind the doors of the Virgin lounge and ultimately the on-board service.
There are a few airlines who can get away with being in the transportation business like Ryan Air, where service and quality matters a whole lot less since you’re paying so little for such a short flight. In a short flight scenario where the best deal is the order of the day, that free cushioned blanket and not paying for that tasteless processed meal isn’t your top priority.
Travel is all about the emotions and memories you have during your journey, whether it’s the journey of getting to a destination or an activity at a destination itself.  Think about it. The Eiffel Tower is just a structure – a very large and beautiful structure, but a structure in the middle of a city nevertheless. People have come to associate romance with this structure and as a result, there have been hundreds of proposals in front of it. The emotion that is associated with this structure is significant for many. Paris exudes romance and restaurants and hotels embrace it – it’s part of the French culture.
Exceptional service and including standards like a checked bag and more than just peanuts and pretzels on longer flights MUST BE the airline industry’s romance. Service and over the top customer care is to airlines what that memorable romantic experience is to Paris and why so many people flock to this popular European city.
While 9/11 was used as the primary reason airlines started tacking on additional charges, let’s face it — that was a long time ago and business & finance sites have reported how just how well the industry is doing. The additional charges have gone from annoying to ridiculous in some cases, outlandishly absurd in others. Rather than look for ways to innovate around customer service, they have looked for more ways to nickel and dime without creating more value and “high touch” moments for the customer.
Airline service used to be amazing however frequent flyers can attest that the “lack of caring” started before 9/11. And, it’s not as if airlines have been at the forefront of innovation. The same inflight magazines and barf bags line the back of the seats together with the traditional safety cards we had so many moons ago. And let’s be honest, the tray tables are cheap and flimsy and really not suitable for drinks. I remember useful cup holders on the back of some airline seats but haven’t seen those in years. There’s no place to put that cuppa coffee while you’re working on your laptop or even reading a book.
Rather than provide a memorable experience, what I’m left with today is a series of inconveniences, thanks to a direction that some operations head at one of the airlines started and others followed. Let’s look at a series of pissy moments I didn’t have to endure two decades ago, most of which defy logic and are nothing short of infuriating for a customer. That said, they have become so common that outlandish fees have become the status quo and we now live in a world where each trip is more painful than the last.

 Photo credit: FareCompare.com.
Booking a ticket: booking through an airline rep or agent on the phone now cost a fee – not the case 20 years ago. Since when did charging for a phone call to SPEND money with a company become okay? Imagine Macy’s charging you extra to make a purchase with a live person.
Booking a ticket online: while in theory, booking online has made things easier since you can jump online at 2 in the morning and purchase a ticket which I’ve done often, you incur fees and all sorts of cancellation policies that now get applied to the booking site as well as the airline.
Case in point is a ticket I booked through Expedia with Delta last year. When an emergency came up, I needed to change the ticket date and time from a flight from JFK to San Francisco. Expedia informed me that I needed to pay a fee to them as well as a fee to Delta for the change fee, on top of whatever the difference in fare was. After a whole lotta digging, I learned that the very same flight at the very same time 5 days later had many more seats than the original flight I was on, however the change fee for my $318 flight was slated to be $298.
When I looked at booking a new flight for that same route, there was only $14 difference in fare, and yet what I would be faced with was cost of a brand new ticket.
Blankets: Seriously? I once had a stewardess on United slip me a blanket saying she couldn’t bear to charge me because she found it so insidious. While I’m not a United fan, be assured that I have never forgotten that magic moment. Even though I still won’t choose to fly United because of so many previous bad experiences, she was a standout and her “out-of-the-box” attitude should be applauded, a rarity in the airline business today. Imagine a hotel charging for blanket and pillow use?
Headphone Charges: See above. Are you kidding? It is any wonder that there’s hundreds of articles out there begging the question, “what’s next on the nickel and dime me menu? Toilet paper or the privilege to use the bathroom?” Oh yeah, lest not forget I can keep them, like I need 25 flimsy plastic headsets at home. At the very least, they don’t charge you for using your own though it’s probably on someone’s list.
Change Fees: In the “we still care about customer service” days, we never had to pay for standby for same day flights if a seat was available in your class. Today, regardless of availability or the situation (see bullet 2 for an example of defying logic), you pay a change fee plus the difference in fare – same day, different day or anything in between. Bravo to Virgin for nuking that rule if you sign up for their latest credit card – oh so very smart! Doesn’t it just warm your heart to hear that?
Additional Leg Room Charges: Remember the days when you could move to a better seat if space was available on the plane? Even if something is open in the emergency row or a preferred section (which it never is anymore), you can no longer sit there without incurring an additional $50 fee. Shouldn’t seat leg room (and chair room) be ample to sit comfortably for a long haul?
Seats Are Getting Smaller And Yet: See above. It’s so politically incorrect to ask, but have the seats gotten smaller or are too many of us getting larger and larger? When I’ve raised this issue to other travelers and travel writers, they all agree that I shouldn’t publicly bring this up because of the sensitivity around it.
Even if that’s the case, if we don’t discuss it openly, how can we come to a politically correct resolution? If someone is so large that I have to share part of my space with them in a way that is uncomfortable, then I no longer have a full seat even if I paid extra for that seat in Economy Plus. If I should be forced to pay more for a seat that is simply closer to the front of the plane, shouldn’t I pay less for less than a full seat? It may sound insensitive, but we need to figure out politically correct ways to handle this moving forward, sensitive or not.
More $$$ To Sit Closer to the Front: See above. Beyond absurd, they have created a “class” that applies to sitting closer to the front of the plane even if it’s a middle seat – yes a middle seat with no additional leg room.
Paying More for a So Called Better Seat — What About Paying Less For A Lousy One? If the airline thinks that sitting in a middle seat closer to the front should cost more, what about charging less for the aisle seat right next to the toilet or galley?
Let’s be honest – these are lousy seats, from dealing with the foul smell from the bathroom to the noise and chaos around the bathroom from the door constantly opening and closing.  If they’re so hell bent on charging more for a middle seat closer to the front with no added leg space, why not charge less for a crappy seat where you can’t sleep or get any work done or if you get stuck in the back?
Wifi: Seriously, $30 for a flight? For those of you have used the various services know, wifi is rarely reliable for the entire flight. I have had so many touch and go issues with GoGo that I’ve been too frustrated to write about it yet. The codes either don’t work or when they do work, I’m connected but then thrown off 15 minutes or an hour later.
Meals: The worse thing about meals on airlines today isn’t even the extra charges even though we never paid for food 20 years ago either. Most of the food is processed or junk food (chips, nuts, processed meat and cheese and candy bars) and they charge a lot of money for the privilege of eating packaged food infused with sucralose, high fructose corn syrup, sugar and too many other unmentionables not worth naming.
For those who eat healthy and eating healthy is an important and integral part of your life, eating on airplanes today is a non-starter unless you’re in First Class or bring your own meal on board. Europe still “gets it” and hasn’t dropped to American airline food “flight” standards, at least not yet….
Drinks: Most airlines now charge more for a beer or glass of wine than at a pub or bar, even from an expensive city. And, the prices for the cheap labels they serve keep going up.
Baggage Fees: Fees, fees and more fees. Now of course, you can often get your first bag for free if you gladly hand $100 or more a year for the privilege of spending money on their credit card.
Photo credit: infinitelegroom.com.
Inflight Entertainment: Now, not only do we have to pay to see movies, but we often have to pay for each movie. The same applies to television. I was on a recent flight whose airline name I’ll omit, and on the TV menu, I had to pay $4-6 per episode.
TV used to be free for unlimited viewing and you never had to pay for a movie or the fee for a cheap plastic headset. In some cases, you can buy a bundle deal for a longer flight, but it’s not cheap, especially if you have fidgety children at your side.
Arguing with Airline Staff About Why X is Wrong or Some Hidden Fee: while we may have add to endure a frustrating moment when our flight was cancelled, delayed or we were re-routed, airlines used to sort it out and even apologize profusely for the inconvenience.
Even when it wasn’t a technical issue, you were sent to a nearby hotel and given a meal voucher – in other words, you felt understood and cared for, and that they felt sorry for the situation, which can sometimes result in missing a family reunion, an important birthday gathering, wedding, business meeting or worse. I chatted with about a dozen people on a recent flight who were over 35 but under 60 (it was a long delay) and I was disheartened by their countless horror airline stories.  
Perhaps there should be an “Airline Stress Tax” that gets reimbursed to the flyer? The toxic stress you often endure from flying is significant and has a price and yet airlines don’t seem to put a value on it. Trust me, frequent flyers do and, they are, but sadly there are few options today if any that make flyers feel empowered as a customer.
As extreme as you might think my bullets are, I’m simply trying to prove a point. These insidious add-ons have become so commonplace that we forget how emotional taxing each and every one is and how the combination of all of them has moved us out of an era of great service, something America was once notorious for, and into an era which focuses solely on increasing corporate profits over customer joy. A couple of exceptions are worth noting, something that would have been a normal airline customer experience in the past.
Sometime in the last six months, I ended a business meeting early in New York and wanted to get back to the west coast early. The thought of enduring the “fee” process or even calling to find out how ridiculous the additional charge would be, I decided not to make the call because of the stress involved in doing so, so simply headed to the airport instead. An odd thing happened. I was interjected in the queue by an overly friendly Delta representative who asked what flight I was waiting to check in for and when I explained that I had hoped to get on an earlier flight but wasn’t optimistic for all the reasons outlined above, he opened up a closed gate which led me immediately to a private area.
When I reached the service agent, I was checked into the earlier flight (4 hours before my original one) without getting out my wallet. A new boarding pass printed out with an aisle seat (my preferred choice) very close to the front on the 1 pm.  No fee or some saga story about “it’s our policy, I don’t make the rules.” What happened? I pinched myself not believing it was real and that I had somehow been transported back in time to a more formidable time.
Getting home earlier that day transformed my week given the grueling schedule I had gone through the previous ten days. I remember a time when it was simply a standard protocol for how an airline took care of their customers, an era where we weren’t nickeled and dimed for every transaction and every move, an era where we felt as if we mattered and our repeat business mattered.
A similar situation happened with American Airlines a week later when my baggage was 5 pounds overweight and the gleeful service agent let it slide. I was stressed about it for two days before my flight knowing that my bag for that trip would be heavier than most since I was heading to Vermont to review a ski resort and the temperatures were slated to be in the teens.
Most of the time, my bag weighs in at between 35 and 42 pounds, so why shouldn’t that one trip with a slightly heavier bag slide? In the above two cases, both service reps decided to let “policy” slide which resulted in memorable airline moments and a more loyal customer.  
Maybe the Delta rep saw how exhausted I was and maybe the American Airline ticket counter agent liked my smile or saw that I had just taken an American flight three days prior, OR maybe they are just rare individuals who don’t think of their roles as airline employees but as vehicles for customer happiness. (Note my current frequent flyer status on Delta is significantly higher than American)
There is a huge value to be placed on a happy customer, a loyal one who will not just come back again and again but sing their praises when they’re not flying. Most airlines have lost sight of who and what they represent as a business. When brands have been around for awhile, they can become complacent. Look at how god awful United’s brand was for years and while avid travelers still complain about them, their image has somewhat improved, but only marginally so.
Most people know the story of Canadian musician David Carroll whose guitar was broken by United — on YouTube as of writing this, his protest song has received nearly 15 million views.
As for soaring fees and service going down the drain, it appears that customers are powerless at changing the current status quo. The first shot in the war over bag fees came in May of 2008, when American Airlines announced it would be the first legacy carrier to impose a “first checked-bag” fee (Spirit and Allegiant had such a fee at least as early as 2007 from the research I’ve dug up).
According to a useful article on airline fees from Christopher Elliott (link below under useful resources), the North American airline industry collected an estimated $8.2 billion last year for just fees for items such as checked baggage, premium seat assignments and early boarding privileges — a $700 million increase from 2013.
 Isn’t it time that these rules got reversed?
A question to the airlines heads making these “fee” decisions at home base: do you want to be seen as a transportation company that gets a customer painfully from A to B or would you like to be in the “ultimate experience” business, creating memorable moments for your customers in the way that Zappos has done so successfully over the years? The airline who truly figures this out will transform the travel experience forever.
Useful Articles on Airline Fees

How Refundable Are Airline Fees from Elliot.org: http://elliott.org/the-navigator/refundable-airline-fees-not-much/#more-35966
Airline Fees Are Out of Control But Who Can Stop Them: http://elliott.org/blog/airline-fees-are-out-of-control-but-who-can-stop-them/
Are Airline Fees Being Properly Disclosed? http://elliott.org/blog/are-airline-fees-being-fairly-disclosed/
Are Airline Fees Anti-Family? http://elliott.org/blog/are-new-airline-fees-anti-family/
Maybe we should stop calling them Airline Tickets: http://elliott.org/is-this-a-scam/maybe-we-should-stop-calling-them-airline-tickets/
2010: Spirit Airlines breaks a new bag barrier by imposing a carry on bag fee (something Rick Seaney predicted one of the airlines might do, nearly a year before it happened)
2008: In August, JetBlue announces it will charge $7 for a pillow and blanket (but you can keep them, like I really want 25 of these at home after a year’s tally of flights)
2008: US Airways begins a highly criticized practice: charging for all drinks (including water, coffee, and soda)
2009: US Airways stops charging for all drinks (mainly because no other airline dared join them)
2009: Airlines began adding surcharges to tickets for “peak travel days” in September of ’09; originally this surcharge was imposed on the Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Year’s holiday periods.
A great article on airline fees across most airlines from AirFareWatchDog: http://www.airfarewatchdog.com/blog/3801087/airline-fee-chart.html
Airline Fees Ultimate Guide (another great resource from SMARTER TRAVEL — you can even download as a PDF): http://www.smartertravel.com/blogs/today-in-travel/airline-fees-the-ultimate-guide.html?id=2623262

Melding of Minds on the Future of Humanity Over an Arc Fusion Jeffersonian Dinner

Ever heard of a Jeffersonian dinner? I’ve been invited to one or two over the last few years, one of which was being held in Washington DC, where it was birthed in the 1800’s by none other than Thomas Jefferson himself. Because of those invitations, I had some vague idea of what they were, but never actually participated in one until the Arc Fusion folks hosted one recently in San Francisco.

Photo credit: www.smithsonianmag.com  
Rewind the clock to 1819 and visualize yourself at a long and decadently adorned table with Thomas Jefferson at Monticello, his elegant Virginia home. Around the table, you’re seated with a group of people steeped deep in culture, philosophy, education, history, politics, art, literature, science and theology.
The idea behind a Jeffersonian Dinner is to bring people together from different disciplines, creating a new cause-centered community around a topic of importance or significance you might want to discuss for whatever reason. This can be done to tap into new resources, raise funds for a non profit or important issue, or simply to expand the group’s thinking about a variety of topics.
It’s important that it be somewhat intimate so 12-15 people at a table is a good size and I’d argue that while someone’s home isn’t a requirement, it makes it more personal — a private dining room could also work.
The purpose of the Jeffersonian Dinner is to build a sense of community and partnership around a shared interest or theme. One of the rules is that everyone participates in a single conversation and are not encouraged to engage in one-on-one dialogues with their partners on either side.     

Photo credit: blog.asana.com. 
How fitting that the San Francisco Arc Dinner be held at the 1880’s Payne Mansion on Sutter Street and also how intriguing that the topic at hand was not about the past, but about our fears and concerns for the future, say in 100 years.
David Ewing Duncan kicked off the event. A historian, author, journalist and also CEO of Arc Fusion, which celebrates the conversion of IT, healthcare and biotech, David decided to take us down memory lane before dinner.
 
Photo credit: Arc Fusion Website.

We went back to 1915 and recalled some of the provocative insights, inventions and historical moments of the time. Franz Kafka’s Metamorphosis Complete Idiot’s Guide to Beating Stress was out at the time (surprising I know), the first EKG was used in 1913 and OMG was first used in 1917 (yes really). 
The industries David and his team at Arc are most interested in exploring are at the intersection of what is happening in health, IT and biotech. It’s not hard to see why, with nearly $800 billion being spent on health and wellness and $1.1 trillion on IT services with $50 billion on Health IT alone. 
He asked attendees before they came to the dinner whether they felt they’d be alive 100 years from now. 18% said yes whereas 82% voted no. In case you think that even 18% is insanely overly optimistic, remember that the audience is highly vested in technology and some are actually working on the most important research in the fields on longevity/aging, science, technology and medicine.
The same audience voted on what will be most important to humanity’s fate in 100 years — 40% voted for politics whereas it was no surprise to see technology lead that vote at 60%. As far as the impact on humans in the next 100 years, 36% felt it would be in gene editing and a whopping 70% went for stem cells. Pharma only came in at 11% which tied with health and wellness and bionics took last place at 9%. 
Other things on people’s minds included mood manipulation, synthetic biology, longevity tech, next generation deep learning and renewable energy. 
James Canton asked the audience to imagine a future where embedded devices and technology automate the work, resolving issues that need to be addressed in our bodies. The truth is that nano and quantum technologies are expanding so rapidly that we are now in a game changing time for our health. Innovative ecosystems will start to do disease detection for us, hopefully before it turns into disease.
Drew Endy asserted that learning “how to” solve problems is the secret to sustaining life over the long haul. His deepest wishes include a future where biology will have distributed manufacturing and distributed systems and that humans will start to think of a world outside of themselves. Hear hear.
Casey Lynett addressed where we are going with Alzheimer’s pointing to some important finds for this disheartening disease that seems to be soaring not reversing. 
Artist and molecular biologist Una Ryan showed us her work, reminding us of the beauty inside our bodies through our cells, our protein and our blood. She refers to the image below as the Tree of Life since it contains everything that makes our bodies operate. 

 
The food they served at the dinner was not surprisingly farm-to-table and organic. It was also very purposely selected based on a fascinating premise — each ingredient was chosen to serve every vital organ of the body. Dishes ranged from salads and nori rolls to fresh fish and wine for the heart — two thumbs up for the Trefethen Cabernet Sauvignon that showed up on our table.

The most riveting part of the evening, at least for me since it touched on some of the most controversial conversations happening around healthcare today, was the fireside chat between venture capitalist and serial entrepreneur Vinod Khosla and renowned doctor Dean Ornish.
Both visionaries took the stage to share their take on the future of healthcare. Vinod formed Khosla Ventures to focus on both for-profit and social impact investments and as a big believer in the importance raw data can have the future of health, he invests in both healthcare and biotechnology.
Says Vinod, “almost nothing that is relevant in medicine today will be relevant in 20-30 years. Even though some of it may still be true, it will be too imprecise to be that useful so no one will use it.” He asserts that medicine will be mostly science and data driven over the next 10-15 years.  
He added, “we will have more research opportunities but we won’t use them because we won’t have the causality which is most important.”
He also went on to say that we won’t use doctors that much in the future to get a diagnosis and what we may pay more credence to is the doctor or (non-MD) who has the highest EQ not the highest IQ. Hear hear Vinod! I couldn’t agree more. Bedside manner, using common sense and logic and listening between the lines to a patient is something that so many traditional doctors so sadly “don’t get.”
 
Dean takes a slightly different approach although they agreed more than disagreed. While he agrees that data gives us a lot of useful information we may not have had access to twenty years ago, if all we are is a set of algorithms, then humans can simply be replaced by an app. The reality says Dean is that we are so much more.
What I love about Dean’s approach and always have ever since I first met him now over a decade ago, is that while he’s far from a luddite, he tries to get people (and the industry) to look at the underlying cause of an issue. He believes that lifestyle and diet shifts are fundamental game changers, pivotal to reversing symptoms and in many cases, the disease itself.
He’s interested in lifestyle medicine which is very low tech, but the power of low-tech interventions is very very real and something that techies sadly discount all too readily, focusing most of their time on connected devices, data and the Internet of Things.
Personally I lose sleep at night thinking about how so many brilliant scientific and medical minds can be so misguided, overlooking the raw fundamentals of what can keep us healthy and happy, holistically so.
Bottom line, we need to treat the underlying cause and also look at the mind, body and spirit, NOT just the body alone.
This integrated approach is what the techies and scientists keep missing and a sad reason why insurance companies put holistic care like acupuncture and body work, organic food, diet modifications and supplements last on the priority list.
It’s the same broken record when it comes to addressing the disgusting impact that processed foods are having on Americans today. (Note: processed food ingestion is increasing globally of course, but the yanks still sadly take the cake when it comes to fast food and boxed processed ingredients as their go-to- diet). I digress but the whole thing sickens me so much that I can’t help but vent at times like this.
Truth be told, as Dean took the provocative and controversial low-tech stance amidst so many tech-centered entrepreneurs in the room that night, I wanted to stand on my chair and boldly blurt out – “GO DEAN and oh btw, don’t stop here!”
He is a big advocate of lifestyle and diet changes and given recent research findings, they’re finding that the same lifestyle interventions that deter heart disease are the same ones that can keep prostrate and breast cancer at bay and even in some cases, Alzheimer’s.
You can apparently see a positive and reversing effects to 500 genes over the course of 3 months through lifestyle changes.  For most chronic diseases, which account for 86% of issues, we can reverse their onslaught through shifts in our lifestyle and diet. 
Dean thinks that we’ll see a future where the placebo effect will be more important not less. Why? Because, it works.
Vinod doesn’t disagree with Dean although he wants to see data behind it, proving that it’s real. In his view, the math is the math of networks, but agrees with Dean that diet is important and that symptoms are the wrong way to look at a disease. 
Given that we live in an information age and are drowning in so much data we don’t know what to do with it, I agree with Dean that while data may be important and there’s no doubt having access to what our bodies are doing and why is useful, its only part of the equation. Plenty of people have data but even if you know that smoking cigarettes can kill you, if you’re suffering from deep anxiety and depression, you’re not going to quit smoking anytime soon.
Anxiety and depression are very real, particularly in the states. The stats are going up and pharma companies are making millions on drugs, some of which cover up the real issues that lay behind what is making them depressed in the first place.  
Dean asserts that what is even more vital is the mantra I keep beating people over the head with every day: the more so called connected we are, the more disconnected we are….I mean physically and emotionally disconnected, not the fact that we can now communicate with people instantaneously on Facebook or Skype from our cell phones in real time.
What’s really missing is the deeper sense of meaning you get from being physically and emotionally connected to others. There’s no doubt that people need to rediscover inner peace, joy and purpose in their lives.
Bottom line, it’s all about changing the raw materials we give to people and place as a priority. I’ll end with this note and thought to reflect on: if we can take this “ground level” low-tech approach seriously by beginning with the things that provide deeper purpose and meaning, then we can really begin to accelerate healing. While data can continue to feed the bigger picture, if we don’t get back to the fundamental basics of what feeds the soul, we’ll remain a far cry from a truly sustainable solution to holistic health, happiness and well-being. A big high five to Dean Ornish!  
For more information on Arc Fusion, check out their site at http://arcprograms.net/ where you’ll also learn about their upcoming Arc Fusion Summit being held in southern California September 1-2, 2015. What David has created is a truly innovative, future thinking and leading-edge organization and he has managed to bring together some of the smartest minds to address what both plagues and interests us most today.

Reflections on the East Coast West Coast Thing…

Preparing oneself mentally for leaving America’s East Coast and its way of viewing the world is something I’ve done six times now, the first transition was to America’s south, followed by Arizona and southern California and then, a few overseas stints where I lived in a variety of luxury, shacks and working class suburbs. In between, I hung my hat in villages, on a kibbutz, along the coast and amidst urban decay and sprawl…..I did it all.

Above, rural Virginia in all its glory, on a cold and brisk winter day.
Then, after many years doing what I was told in the Boston corporate world, I stored a three bedroom house in some warehouse in New Jersey and drove west in a silver Honda Accord named Hamilton with a kayak rack on its top. That was a decade ago. He’s still with me btw and purring along.

Above, Boston’s Charles River at dusk in the days when I lived there, not long before I moved west.
When you’re born and bred in New England, East Coast roots are what you understand, what you know and connect to and the soil you want to touch when the tides are down, at least that’s how it is for most people. I cried as I drove north on Route 128, for what I thought would be the last time, in a very long time. The car was packed, oozing with stuff I later would never need but couldn’t part with at the time, and I looked like a young and modern version of a Beverly Hillbilly daughter, except with more miles under her belt.
I was bound for Canada since I was always one for choosing the path less taken and certainly zigzagging north and south over borders was one such way to do just that.
I could have taken Route 66 of course but I figured I had decades to tackle that one. Perhaps when I was old and gray and could whiz across in a slick purple aerodynamic RV just because I could?
En route, I was open to landing somewhere else other than San Francisco if another place spoke to me with more clarity, Portland and Seattle being on the top of my list, mainly for its access to some of the most beautiful mountains and scenery on America’s west coast. My alternative route brought me into Canada, where I lost my radar detector during a police stop (who knew they were no no’s in the Maple Leaf country?), before I then ventured south again through Wisconsin and Minnesota, both of which I loved.
It was summer, so fishing and camping were the order of the day, all of which I resonated with growing up in the Adirondack Mountains. (below a shot taken from this past fall of a trip through the Adirondacks – sunset at Caroga Lake).

I headed north again before making a central b-line through parts of Kansas, both Dakotas, Idaho and Montana. There I spent time in the land of the free where I discovered the solitude of America’s western lands — the nothingness of the plains where you could hear a pin drop and the air was quiet one minute and menacing the next. Ahhh yes, a decade ago.
I was younger then. I had visions of wearing a cowboy hat and boots with faded torn jean shorts and a stylish checked shirt that fit tightly but appropriately across my chest. Silver cuffs hung from my right wrist and a funky leather watch with an antiquated plate hung from my left. My visions included sitting at the counter of some $1 a coffee midwest diner with a girlfriend who was similarly dressed so we didn’t look too out of place in a town we knew nothing about.

Later, we’d tackle some dive bar where Harley Davidson addicts would play pool around us while we drank $3 tequila shots and listened to Rock from our time on some worn out juke box. All of this, in a place where no one knew our names. Pure bliss.
I was alone for part of this trip and with random friends on other parts – they’d fly into a designated city and I’d pick them up until I dropped them off at an airport in a different state and continue on my journey. I learned oddball things about the country all the way across this big vast land.
I drank wine in Idaho by night and hiked by day, chowed down on hamburgers in small towns, tried local brew beer, picked blueberries, and wrote poetry with Craters of the Moon as my backdrop. I sat on haystacks in Wisconsin and laid my head among tall grass while one hung between my teeth as I looked up to a clear blue sky. I had a solo picnic behind a church steeple in a deserted ghost town that has barely changed a wink since it was first built in 1880.

I dreamed of a movie script I’d write one day as I laid my eyes on the magical never-ending Badlands for the first time.

I pissed on South Dakota soil, listened to youthful rock bands play in pubs till 2, tried karaoke against my better judgment, sampled whiskey during a bowling match in a place I can’t remember the name of, and went bareback horseback riding in Washington State. I discovered Blodgett Oregon and sat in its library doing family research before landing in Portland where my first stop was the city’s finest chocolate shop. Clearly, I had my priorities in tow on that trip.

This trip would surely be different. Not only was it winter this time around, but my perspective on life had changed after spending so many years on the untamed risk-taking west coast. That trip so many moons ago, felt more youthful somehow, but the fact that I was ten years younger was only part of the equation. The goal was to move states and to one about as far as I could go to from Massachusetts. As a crow flies, it was roughly 2,700 miles although I took so many detours, I probably added another 1,000 to the trip in the end.
Portland or Seattle didn’t call loud enough and San Francisco was where I ultimately landed. Ahhh yes, a decade ago.
Over the past year and a half, I spent more time on the East Coast than not and my heritage and all of the memories that go with it, wrapped its way around me like a little girl’s arms do to an adult leg during the shyest of moments. It wasn’t a bad thing. It’s not as if it called me back for good, but in all the most beautiful ways, my time there reminded me of the things I love about the Atlantic side of this Yankee land and just how different its people are from those I’ve been working and playing with for so many years of late.
Truth be told, I love the East Coast. I love the way people talk, their philosophical canter, their humor and wit, their directness, the way they look into your eyes rather than past them when they talk to you and their authentic honesty when you need it most. Some of you will disagree with the last one since New Englanders are known for being more discreet and conservative than West Coasters.
But, somehow I always managed to draw the truth out of my East Coast friends and when I needed raw honesty and perspective, I asked for it – hard and direct, the way we do in New York. And so, on a very cold but clear day in mid-January of this year, I set off on another drive across country to help another “life” move. We had a small apartment to clear out and despite its size, it still involved packing dozens of boxes and stacking a car full of more, not to mention loading up a large Yakima cargo box that sat on the top of a five year old gray Chevy Pontiac we named Vinny that was set to make the long journey.

Oddly enough, I felt somewhat melancholy about the departure, not unlike I did a decade ago even though my place was still on the west coast. There was something nostaglic about it and familiar – I had gone through this before and while last time, it was leaving a home behind, this time, it was leaving months of a different life behind, a life filled with diners who proudly served homemade chicken noodle and matzo ball soup, bagel and pizza shops on every corner and crisp cool evenings where we’d take late afternoon walks past the Long Island Sound.

The sunsets at times were even glorious. The below shot was taken in the Bronx, crossing the bridge to City Island at sunset this past fall.

Yet, it’s a much harder life in New York, something I had forgotten since living in San Francisco for a myriad of reasons those who have left it behind, well know.
People tend to harder. There’s always an edge. Traffic is busier. Prices are higher. The pace is faster. Houses are smaller. Jobs are more hectic. The demand is more intense. Schools are more crowded. Climate is harsher. Getting things done takes longer. And so on. But…it was a way of life I knew so well because it was part of my DNA – after all, I first learned how to walk on New York soil.
Nostalgic as it was, we were eager to drive towards warmer pastures, calmer waters, gentler voices….and skies where serenity is the order of the day. To a place where priorities are not about doing but about being. With that frame of mind, we made our way out of the Bronx after one final stop that had to be made — Dunkin Donuts on Bruckner Boulevard. Sipping our piping hot coffees quietly, we made our way across the George Washington Bridge for the last time in our as unpretentious as they get Pontiac.

It was a bitter cold, but clear day. Snow, sleet or rain didn’t get in our way and we missed a New York City blizzard by less than a week. 104.3 played on the radio in the background and we stirred gently as we made our way across the New Jersey border – moving in the car was a bit of a challenge given how packed it was and it wasn’t until we hit Virginia that we were able to shuffle things around to make for more comfortable living quarters, for that is precisely what Vinny would become for the next month on the road.
We passed smokestacks in Newark, and made our way south to Pennsylvania taking in its like-winter skies along the way.

Covington Virginia too had smokestacks, a not-so-common sight in the industrial East Coast where manufacturing plants still thrive.

When we reached Maryland, we were greeted with yellow and soft peach skies set against bare winter trees.

West Virginia skies at dusk were similar, as were its trees and hills. Misty. Dreamy. Cold. Clear. Soft.

Through the car window en route.

The skies would get even more dramatic before night’s end.

Our first stop was the Omni Homestead in Hot Springs Virginia and yes, it was rural and yes, it was surrounded by thermal hot springs, a perfect healing remedy after a long tiring drive from an urban sprawl. Read my extensive write-up on We Blog the World on the oh so traditional Omni property, the stunning wildlife and acreage surrounding it and the infamous Warm Springs Baths and Pools where Thomas Jefferson himself soaked to heal his aching body.

While still brisk in the evening, arriving in Virginia was a lovely reality check that the Bronx was no longer in our rear view mirror and the bitter cold New York winter was behind us. Alas, we hadn’t seen a Dunkin Donuts since morning. Our drive from Virginia would mostly be rural. It was the first of many rural drives to come on our long journey through middle America.

The eastern part of the country with its wide open spaces and hills, would soon open up to glorious trees and peaks when we hit the edge of the renowned Shenandoah mountain range.

For those of you who haven’t had the pleasure of greeting Virginia’s stunning Shenandoah mountains, it spans 73 miles long across Virginia and West Virginia. The steep, narrow, sandstone-capped ridge extends from northern Bath County in Virginia to southern Hardy County in West Virginia.

The stretch serves as a haven for both family vacations and romantic getaways alike. There’s plenty of hiking as you’d expect, but what you may not expect to find are vineyards, breweries and of course the nearby hot springs. The Blue Ridge Whiskey-Wine Loop is a self-guided tour of some of the loveliest vineyards in several counties in Virginia’s central Valley.  And, of course, the drive is breathtaking with plenty of views along Route 40 as well as numerous side roads you can take for a variation to the main road.

Reflections aside, we were well on our way to a month long journey that would forever transform our lives, as all trips of this nature tend to do. And, most importantly, we were ready. It was time and we couldn’t wait to embrace the wide open road ahead of us.

This is the first post of many that covers our cross country trip — while we crossed 15 states, our coverage can be found on the following We Blog the World state pages where we spent time: Virginia, Tennessee (Nashville, Memphis), Mississippi, Arkansas, Oklahoma, Texas, New Mexico (Santa Fe) Arizona and California. The coverage will span from late March through June 2015. Also be sure to read our extensive write-up on Massachusetts from last summer which includes the North Coast, Boston and Cape Cod. Don’t ask us for our favorite state because they were all truly magical and each place has its own known — and unknown — gems.
Photos: Renee Blodgett

CES 2015 Wrap Up: From 3D Printing & Connected Devices to 4K TVs & Infrared Cameras

SAND 2014, The Nonduality Event That Bridges Science & Spirituality

SAND is such a great name for a conference and no, it doesn’t hold that acronym because it’s a travel conference that focuses on adventure in the sand. SAND stands for and is about all things that encompass Science and Nonduality.
The mission of SAND is to forge a new paradigm in spirituality, one that is not dictated by religious dogma, but based on timeless wisdom traditions of the world, informed by cutting-edge science, and grounded in direct experience.

I first attended the event two years ago (see my blog post from 2012), when it was held in Marin, just north of San Francisco. While they have an annual event in Europe as well, the U.S.-based event is always held in California.
This year, they headed south and set up shop for their nearly week long event at the Hayes Mansion on Edenvale Avenue in San Jose California, a resort which was once a lavish private estate.
People across continents and from all walks of life started flowing in on October 22 for this annual gem of an event. It was an entirely different vibe this year and I’m not sure if it was due to its extravagant venue choice, the fact that the quality of the content was even better or that I’m a little further along on my spiritual journey. My guess is that it’s a combination of all three.
Surrounded by lush, emerald green lawns, accented with gardens of vibrant, colorful flowers and guarded by towering palm trees, the 100-year old mansion was transformed into a spiritual wonderland inside and out. Outside was an experiential oasis, which included a sound therapy tent run by Danny Goldberg (below).

Here, you could lie down and go into a deep hypnotic relaxation through a series of vibrational sounds. The sounds and vibrations of singing bowls, gongs and chimes guide us into a deep meditation, passing through our body and opening blockages while allowing our minds to quiet.
A wide range of ancient world traditions from Confucianism to the Pythagoreans’ claimed that sound could not only “tune the soul” but affect our cosmological & social worlds as well. I couldn’t agree more – the experience was transformational.

Also outside was another relaxing technique in the form of a bed, a floating bed that is. The Floating Bed, a company started by John Huff, is mishmash of creativity, comfort and paradise. Says John, “not only is it great for a more relaxing and deeper sleep, but also useful for people with disabilities such as Autism, Autism Spectrum Disorder, PDD-NOS, Aspergers, Fragile X, ADD, ADHD and others.
Allowing the swinging bed to gently swing you back and forth while watching the world walk by, was a lovely way to spend a relaxing hour at the conference. I imagined where I could put such a contraption in my home and then remembered that I lived in a city. One can dream however, one can dream…
While the first time around, I tried to take in as many sessions as possible, this time I honored a more non-intentional flow. In other words, I didn’t map out my agenda in advance nor did I make sure I had to attend every important talk by every renowned academic or yogi. I went with the flow and what my own bio-rhythm told me to do.
Using this approach, I met exactly who I was supposed to meet at the right time. By being as present as I could at every given moment despite the intellectual and spiritual eye and audio candy being thrown my way, the individuals I met, the experiences I had and the conversations that transpired along the way, were that much more powerful.
Being in your body as much as possible at an event like this is as important as digesting the data if not moreso, for it is through your body and spirit that you transform, not through your mind. From TransDance, yoga and meditation to art expression, RUMI poetry readings and Qigong with master Mingtong Gu, there were a number of ways you could experience mind/body immersion.
The community itself is what allows you to better process what you process during your SAND experience. Most of the people who attend could also be speakers, which is how profoundly interesting the attendees happen to be, alongside warm, authentic and soulful.
This is a community that spans religions or simply has none, however their core is central to the nonduality vision, which is to embrace a new integrative paradigm in which science and spirituality reenter into meaningful dialogue.
The idea is to authentically bridge an empirically responsible and non-dogmatic spirituality with a humanistic science willing to consider questions of context, perception, meaning and purpose. AND, that is precisely what happens at SAND….the melding of ideas across cultures and disciplines is discussed in hallways, in the bar, the experiential rooms, at the sessions, and over dinner.
In between the formal and structured content is quite frankly, is where the real magic happens at SAND. Below, co-founder Maurizio Benazzo talks about his own insights and inspiration for starting the event.

Imagine a conversation on healing the schism between science and spirituality while forging a new understanding of what it means to be human, with a professor of science, an emergency room doctor, a holistic healer, a film producer, a musician, a martial artist and a technology entrepreneur all within an hour.
Mind boggling is an understatement and within that boggling comes a little bit of chaos and confusion, all of which is designed to open you up to new possibilities and definitions of humanity as we currently  understand it.
The result is a profound mashing of ideas through both heart and mind, allowing you to leave not just refreshed and re-centered but able to tackle the world around you in a much more compassionate way while leaving ego behind at the door.
The more you tap into the world of consciousness and interconnectedness, the more you are able to celebrate the mystery of life and the love that emanates from it, a far cry from seeing the world and the players on its stage as cynical, which is easy to do given how unconnected people around us seem to be on a daily basis.
Those who are some of the best in the world in helping you tap into your highest levels of consciousness showed up at SAND for the week, including the likes of Rupert Spira who led some of the morning meditation sessions — I loved his calmness and powerful presence.
Other session leaders, speakers and topics included Yasmin Bar-Dor on finding harmony in this moment, John Hagelin on entanglement, space-time wormholes and the brain, David Barash on biology and self as functions, Meriel Gold on the ground of being, John Prendergast on secrets of the heart, Richard Lang on seeing who you really are, Sally Kempton on Shakti and self awareness, Ellen Emmet on the awakening body and Gabor Mate on mind/body unity and the stress/disease connection — this was a powerful talk btw.
There was also Adam Hall on the polarity paradox, Stanly Klein on quantum mechanics and the entanglement of life (this went deep, so artists and right brain thinkers beware), Scott Kiloby on addiction, Paul Smit on enlightenment for lazy people, Edward Frenkel on mathematics as hidden reality, Swami Beyondananda on inter-spiritual nature and conscious agents, Donald Hoffman on entangling conscious agents, Nick Day on how movies and storytelling can connect us across time and space and Lothar Schafer on quantum reality and the spiritual mind.
And this my friends, is nowhere near an exhaustive list of the talent and pure energy I discovered at SAND this year.
Some of my Top Highlights:

Judith Orloff who suggested that vulnerability is our deepest strength. She says, “being in fear makes you present.” Check out radicalchoices.org.
Coleman Barks and his beautiful RUMI poetry readings (below and my slightly cut off video of him speaking here).

Attendees who asked and challenged questions like:

When you’re practicing the passion of your life, you’re not seeking, you’re cultivating.
What if we were free enough to be whatever we happen to be at any moment?
What’s key is being intimately honest and present with where you’re and being okay with all of it regardless of what is going on.

The wonderfully inspiring graphics and art by designer Rico Martin – check out www.richimage.com.
 

Susanne Marie who suggests that Embodiment is never ending.  (in the peach sweater below) She says, “the wholeness realizes there’s a process going on. Know that nothing can be lost in that process. Step back from the experience and realize you are the space that everything is arising from.
The space itself is the whole and within that wholeness, that’s all there is.” On fear, she says, “one of the ways to deal with fear is to break it down into sensation.
Everything you’re feeling is part of your own wisdom — your own wisdom, which is the purest kind. If we can get close to that fear, we’ll suddenly notice an awareness of a piece of it that we define as fear and something else that we inherently already know.
That knowiness of what is allows us to step back from the fear while at the same time walking towards it. Once you walk towards it and rest with it, there’s a reflective piece of it all that you just know. All experience is good. One piece of what I’m feeling is not any worse than another because it’s all part of a greater force at work.
Fear is all of these aspects of emotion and none of it is separate from God. When you are truly there with that, fear is just a sensation, nothing more….and then you’ll find that the fear dissipates.” I loved her energy!!
 
Gary Weber, who talked about the necessity to upgrade our mental operating system. He says, “if we can change our thinking just how we did from flat earth to round earth, we stand a chance.”
He described the challenges with our current problematic operating system and how to decrease your self-referential internal narrative, fears, and desires and function more clearly and effectively, operating in “now, now, now” from a place of peace, presence and stillness.  
See his video on this topic, which has much of the same content as his SAND presentation. I love his style and his ability to nail the most fundamental obstacles that get in our way through humor and direct candor. More info at www.happiness-beyond-thought.com.

The Importance of Breath. So often, we are running around and don’t think about how we’re breathing, how shallow it is and how often we actually hold our breath without even realizing it. I discovered SPIRE, which is currently in beta. Below, founder Neema Moraveji gives me a demo.

Spire monitors and analyzes your breathing patterns in real time to show when you are focused, tense, or frazzled. Stress triggers the brain’s ‘fight or flight’ response, causing elevated heart rate, muscle tension, and shallow breathing. Your breath connects to your brain through the longest cranial nerve, the vagus, to influence your body, brain, and state of mind.
 Improving the way you breathe eases pressure on the heart and cultivates a ‘rest and digest’ response in the brain. Spire helps monitor this and gives you feedback in real time and over time so you can improve your breathing and therefore, your overall quality of your health and your life. Below is an interview I did with Neema. Have a listen.

Film – All About Nothing from directors Paul Smit and Robert van der Broek. I had an opportunity to speak to Robert briefly afterwards who came over from Holland for the event – I loved his energy, so be sure to watch out for the film in the U.S. More info on Robert’s site at www.allesoverniets.nl.
Qigong with Master Mingtong Gu: in this very educational and yet completely in your body session, Mingtong Gu took us through the various meridian points of our bodies and as we went there, we focused, chanted and released, relaxing into our breath and into the presence moment.
Wisdom healing Qigong was credited as the most effective method of Qigong healing by the Chinese government in 1997. Its success lies in these six treasures, or golden keys as it is commonly referred to: Haola (“I AM”), Inner Smile (“I am LOVE”), Service (“I am Connected”), Trust (“I am Enough”), Chi Field (“I am a co-creator”) and Practice (“I am NOW”).
His teachings involve showing people how to get energy to flow more freely through movement, sound and mind visualization and meditation.

I also discovered another product, which isn’t quite there yet for consumers given its $13K upward price tag, however could be a godsend for health practitioners and holistic healers. The brain child of Harry Massey and Peter Fraser, miHealth is a practical system for detecting the body’s fields and correcting areas in the most need.
I tried this nifty device on site and sat with Todd Zimmerman from NES Health (the parent company) who walked me through the process, how it works and where it can be beneficial in both clinical and non-clinical worlds.
After placing my right hand on their non-invasive, clinically researched, handheld device, the miHealth system did the rest.
The combination of the connected device and powerful software produced a print-out of areas where I had blockages. This biofeedback allows practitioners to locate, unblock and release energy blockage in areas of the body. The idea is to see beyond symptoms and provide a more effective and targeted way to rejuvenate the body’s energy by releasing energy blockages throughout.

From scientists, philosphers, physicists, spiritual healers, sufi and zen teachers, yogis, and anthropologists, to musicians, artists, film producers, academics and psychotherapists, the nondual conversation is a rich and rewarding one, for through all of it, there’s a desire for oneness, something that if we were all to allow ourselves to go there, would be the most peaceful serene sensation we’ve ever known.
Through that level of personal transformation, we can transform people around us, including the planet. And, while on this path to a so called golden age for humanity, you’ll found beauty, purpose and deeper understanding in the simplest of things.
Truly, the….simplest of things, the opposite of complexity, which is what we’re getting hit with on a daily basis, one of the most dangerous ones being, digital information overload.

 
 
The nonduality conversation is beyond what we think of as science today and beyond what we think of as spirituality today – it’s where Eastern Mysticism meets Quantum Mechanics in a compassionate and very present way. 
It’s about getting fear out of the way and incorporating more now into your life. It’s about getting rid of the “what if’s” and the suffering we create by worrying about the past and the future, rather than focusing on the preciousness of the moment.  
 
And, of course, while you’re in that precious “now” moment, we need to be reminded to take things a little less seriously and add some humor to this thing we call life. On that note, it seems appropriate to introduce you to Master Puppetji who I wrote before.
 
His message is simple: “you take life too seriously. Enlighten up.” (see video)
 

 
Once again, Maurizio and Zaya Benazzo did an outstanding job pulling off a stellar line up of speakers, films, sessions, experiences and attendees.
 
Remember that we are all on our own journey. It’s important to recognize this and move the needle forward one step at a time until we are free from the thought (and thoughts) that bind us from living a remarkable life every minute of the day.
More info can be found at http://www.scienceandnonduality.com.
Photo credits: All photo credits Renee Blodgett except for the SAND sign, which is from the SAND website/graphics by Rico Martin and Rich Image, top image unknown.
 
The blue science/head image also Unknown. Photo of Master Mingtong Gu from www.chicenter.com. Read We Blog the World’s sections on spirituality and mind/body.
Also connect with me on Twitter and follow my latest tweets @weblogtheworld and @magicsaucemedia and photography on We Blog the World @Instagram and Pinterest.