Select Page

Beijing stories

I’m in Beijing with Laurence – a friend from work in the UK.

I spent the morning in the local Novell office – great views; mainly of construction:

Construction in Beijing

We were taken out to lunch by the project team from Novell – to a local tofu restuarant. Tofu served in ways I’d never seen it before. Even as a dessert.

This evening we took a taxi to Tiananmen Square – and walked around. It truly is immense. We were accosted by dozens of people selling kites, Mao watches, books of Mao Quotations – and people just wanting to talk and speak English.

Worker's statue at Mao's Mausoleum Worker's statue at Mao's Mausoleum Red Star

We then went wandering, found a restuarant, and using a combination of pointing and my month old mandarin skills – we ordered Peking Duck, rice and beer. I even managed to ask for a receipt and get the taxi driver back to our hotel.

Travelling to Beijing

I’ve just arrived in Beijing after a day of travelling. I left home before dawn for a 6am flight to San Francisco, then flew to Beijing.

The flight was uneventful; immigration stressfree.

Rainbow over San Francisco International Airport  Arctic Ice Flying a great circle 

First impressions of Beijing? It’s raining, foggy and construction is everywhere.

Tomorrow I will be in the local Novell office, more updates then.

Off to China

Tomorrow morning I’m heading off early for a week in Beijing, China. It’s the first time for me; and to be honest the first time I’ve travelled anywhere where I really don’t have any ability to speak some basic local language and read my way around.

I downloaded a Rapid Mandarin course by Earworms from Audible – and I at least know some phrases. (Well – it’s another language I can order beer and coffee in ..)

Hopefully internet won’t be too shoddy during the week – I’ll be there with Laurence so I’ll make sure we post some pics.

LinkedIn – another corporate barometer

I’ve blogged about LinkedIn many times in the past couple of years.

One thing that never fails is using LinkedIn to track the internal barometer of an organisation. It can even be used to track an individuals thoughts about a place.

A simple example.

Let’s say that you see a connection who has been somewhat dormant in the past few months suddenly start adding connections like crazy and writing and getting recommendations.

Maybe they got organised and started working on their LinkedIn profile; just as likely is they are fishing around for a new role and want to polish up the profile.

I’ve noticed about a 70-80% correlation on this in the last year; profile gets refreshed and updated; a few months later people move on.

Let me know your views.

Deja vu.. or the 48 hour Friday

Get up at 0400 Friday; final glance at email, get ready, check out and head to Changi Airport in Singapore.

Check in, security and a spot of shopping. Ready to board and depart ontime at 0655 local time.

Fly from Singapore to Hong Kong.

More security, more shopping, spend some time in the United Airlines Lounge. Board and depart ontime for 1240 departure local time.

Fly from Hong Hong to San Francisco. About four hours into the flight we cross the International Date Line.


Crossing the International Date Line

Arrive in a foggy San Francisco an hour early – at around 0730 – Friday morning. Miss the early flight to SLC.

More security. No shopping. Collapse in the United Lounge. Get on my flight for Salt Lake City ontime at 1100.

Arrive home at just after 1300. Still Friday.