Category: Travel

Where Am I?

Every time I glance at my phone, this view reminds me exactly of where my feet are right now.

I have a deliberate business ritual: whenever I am traveling for work or diving into a specific market, I need to be entirely present. No distractions about what my Hong Kong looks like, what hour it is back home – just absolute focus on the task at hand.

That’s why my lock screen always displays an image of my current local city instead of my hometown. I intentionally pull these photos from my own album – shots I’ve personally taken during my travels. It serves as a meaningful, visual trigger to instantly switch my context to the local market. Focus, focus, focus… on the real work.

But being “present” in 2026 means something entirely different than it did just a few years ago. As professionals, we are all navigating an era of ubiquitous AI. It saves us time, but it also forces us to ask a critical question about where we direct our daily attention:

What is your real work goal today?

➡️ Is it merely managing and polishing the outputs of an AI tool?

➡️ Or is it leveraging your deeply earned expert knowledge to guide, prompt, and orchestrate those tools to do the work?

For me, the value isn’t in letting AI take the wheel while we passively watch. True leverage comes from using our human intuition, strategic vision, and local context to steer it in the right direction. Just like my phone wallpaper, it all comes down to where you choose to place your focus.

Curious to hear from my network – what is your business travel ritual and how are you redefining your “real work” in the age of AI?

#FutureOfWork #AI #BusinessRituals

The Digital Print and Footprint

The Digital Photo Dilemma: What happens to all those pictures we take?

We snap countless photos every single day and on every trip we take. But once the moment passes, how do you treat or reuse your photos?

Instead of letting them gather digital dust on my hard drive, I decided to try something different. While I regularly use my own shots in my presentations, I’ve started hand-picking a few of my favorites for some years and hosting them on #Unsplash – completely free for anyone to download.

Then, the experiment began…

I am always curious about how other people perceive and appreciate my photography. I realized the best way to find out is to see exactly how they use my photos out in the wild on their own blogs, articles, or websites.

By making these photos freely available to other netizens, I can trace their journey across the web and see the unique, creative contexts they end up in.

I recently did another deep dive to see where my images have traveled, and it’s been incredibly rewarding. Here are the results of my latest Google Image search! 👇

Photography #CreativeCommunity #DigitalFootprint #PhotographyExperiment

Strategy vs Strategy Goals

Many companies shared their “strategies” to stakeholders as “We want to be the best performing company in the XXX industry”, or “We want to be the customer’s number one choice in YYY sector”.

Those are not “strategies”, those are “strategy goals”. Strategy is about the plans, the decisions and the how’s to reach the strategy goals …

5 Gadgets You Should Buy Now Instead Of Later

Everyday we have lots of news about the latest gadgets from Tech blogs and social networks, and everyday we tell ourselves to wait … wait until the reviews are out, wait until the better versions are out or the prices are dropped. Yes, it’s me; but of course, YMMV.

However, there are times that I cannot wait but go ahead to buy the overpriced, not-well-tested gadgets, then find out I should have bought those earlier because the gadgets are soooooo good. And here are 5 gadgets that I think you should buy now, instead of later.

I traveled a lot and really like to have a pair of headphone that can play good music as well as cancel all the background noises. I have other noise cancellation headphones before, but the Bose QuietComfort 20i Acoustic Noise Cancelling Headphone is really the best one. This in-ear headphone is lightweight, delivers excellent sound quality, and extremely comfortable. Many times I would turn on the noise cancellation mode in busy cafe or packed subway train such that I can have some quiet time to read. If you have lots of good songs in your mobile device and like to enjoy those even in a noisy environment, this is for you.

bose-headphone

So you have a good pair of headphone with noise cancellation feature, then it’s probably about time you shall get the Kindle Paperwhite (second generation) to restart your book reading project. The screen is simply stunning, and you can read it under bright sunlight or in the dark. Best of all, your eyes will thank you as the other non-ePaper digital readers really will hurt your eyes.

Kindle Paperwhite

Other than a pair of headphone and a good book reader, another essential travel companion for me is a good DSLR camera. I’m never a fan of Canon, Nikon and Sony, but became a big fan of Olympus about 10 years ago (I really love their E-1). So when they released their excellent OMD E-M1 last year, I bought it without skipping a heartbeat (note that I already got the E-M5, ooops). A solid, weather-proof, and responsive camera that will never disappoint you in terms of image quality.

OMD-E-M1

Another “gadget” that travel with me all the time is the Macbook Air. It’s my work computer, research tool, programming machine and social networking platform. That’s not much you can complain about the great machine, but for me I want one more USB port – to charge my iDevices and without syncing. Yes, I can get one of those power supply plug charger, but instead of getting extra bulk I bought the Twelve South PlugBug World. It’s an All-in-one MacBook global adapter with 2.1 amp iPhone/iPad charger – perfect. And the bonus is, this world edition comes with different plugs for different countries.

plugbug

The last gadget that I wish I had bought earlier is the MIO Alpha I. It is a watch and it is also a strapless heart rate monitor. Yes, you read it right, it is strapless (!!). In addition, it can synchronise the reading to the RunKeeper app with Bluetooth, such that the app can read out the heart rate to you during your exercise. If you like to track your heart rate while jogging or running. Get one, period.

mio alpha

So, those are my picks, what are your 5 buy-it-now gadgets ?

 

Sean Connery – In my life

In My Life is my most favorite Beatle’s song … and everytime in hotel when I see the following TV advertisement (of a real estate development company) on CNN channel, I will stop everything I am doing and watch it … In fact, many times, it’s the only “entertainment” I have during business trips.

The beautiful voice is from famous actor Sean Connery, what a loving and engaging voice … and here is the full version of his voice over advertisement with some pictures.

Touching …