Throw a few things into the duffel, packing lenses and assorted field study gear. Tomorrow Shanghai to Addis Ababa for a week on the ground with the frog+ crew in, the beginning of a month and a half on the road/skies/mountain trails that will take in Ethiopia, the Oahu’s North Shore, the TED conference in Long Beach, Old Delhi and surrounds, plus no-doubt one or two more journeys and destinations.

See you on the other side.

Photo: Salloum on the Egyptian-Libyan border.

Day trip to Beijing – picking up a visa for travel later this month. The traffic here is predictably bad to the extent you can plan around the pockets of time spent en route.

Every city has a certain level of friction – a tax on the time and energy on the team and what is is able to accomplish. In China on this study the friction includes the fall-out from a contract that is not worth the paper it is written on. This is a city where you need to assume that if a situation can give more money, power to one side or another it will, regardless of formal or informal agreement.

Roll with it.
Eat or be eaten.

And, on occasion, be pleasantly surprised.

In Tokyo for the week, days on the streets, bedrooms and boardrooms.

The business class lounge of Kangding Airport includes, naturally an oxygen bar. At 4,280 meters above sea leve (14,000 ft) it is the second highest passenger airport in the world after Qamdo 4,334 meters and whilst flying in from Chengdu shaves five hours twenty off the equivalent six hour car journey it also makes it tougher on the body to acclimatise to the altitude.

Confiscated items selection at airport security includes wonderful curios such as oxygen canisters (for those without business class lounge access who plan to step out of the airport), cooking gas, and knives that could skin a particularly hairy Yak.

Today’s rides: 2 x motorbike.

’bout 6am, 20 second exposure.

Sometimes its not enough to be out of office.

Nothing shakes jetlag and the residues of consultancy life than time at altitude and off the grid – hire a mountain guide and a pack horse, gear up for extreme conditions.

6 hours from Chengdu to Kangding to the village of Laoyunlin from where the trek, and the Tibetan Plateau begins – this map gives a sense of what’s (not) there – 20 peaks over 6,000 meters (~20,000 ft), including the magnificent Minya Konka at ~7,500 meters.

The first night is spent at 4,300 meters after a long ascent and with a combination of jetlag and exhaustion I slept 14 hours straight – after which the effects of altitude kick in and doze time is reduced to 2 – 4 hours per night. If you like to push the pace the guide Gong Que is happy to accommodate.

A fresh layer of snow changes the colour palette and draws 10 – 30% more energy from every step. Further down the valley the melting snows sucks 10 – 50% in conditions that were veritably Somme-like.

As with much of China – the investment in infrastructure in this part of the world is considerable – Kangding in particular is ~tripling in size and will be the gateway to a large hinterland – what is today only accessible through mud tracks and dirt roads will in due course be asphalted, cell-connected. A newly built cell tower, cough towers above one of the valleys – waiting to be switched on – and serves as a decent enough wedding photo vista (pic to follow). The physical extremes (thin air at altitude) will mean the region will avoid becoming just another Lijiang theme park (a World Heritage site that celebrates the notion of World Heritage sites – in China as elsewhere the experience is fucked by numbers). But the sheer volume of people wanting to carve out their own frontier experience will still change the ecosystem forever.

In the past week I’ve come across more than 2 dozen Chinese outdoor clothing brands that you’ve never heard of – worn by locals drawn here from across China, folks who are experiencing and defining their own very modern Chinese adventure. With the explosion of a robust middle class that is looking to invest in something beyond the crassness of the housing bubble, cheap air travel and a vast untapped hinterland – the outdoor/adventure market in China is set to grow and grow and grow and grow. Expect some of your favourite international outdoor gear brands to be headquartered out of China in the years to come – picked off by the companies that they used to outsource to, whose expertise is now serving their rapidly growing home market. A few international brands will continue to make headway (saw a slither of North Face and Black Diamond) but most don’t have the distribution network and more importantly, don’t understand the Chinese outdoor dream.

But I’m getting ahead of myself, on with the mountains.

Everyone has a reset, this is mine.

Flight to Chengdu, heading up to the Garzê Tibetan Autonomous Prefecture. 6 hours on the road enough to make a small dent in the trans-Pacific jetlag. Woken by the acoustics of the tunnel and Tibetan tunes.

The crew slips into the local grain market in Ibadan – a sprawling throng of stallholders and hawkers selling grains, vegetables, heavy-earthy yams, to conduct a series of interviews. They hustle, we hustle back, they hustle some more, we give out best and it appears everyone is happy (at least until they decide to hustle again). Mostly its them feeling out how daft the foreigner is. Our imported team of 5 is supplemented by a very capable local crew of 4 – we go beyond holding our own. It takes a while to feel out a new environment, people’s openness to conversation with strangers, documentation – Ibadan is very different to Lagos, and with the bombing of the UN building in Abuja people are little nervous. Never forget that it’s all fine, until it’s not.

Ibadan was flooded by torrential rains on Friday – newspapers put the dead at between 20 and 100 (precision is, well, variable) including one corpse lying crumpled in a puddle in the middle of the road as we edged into the city – cars working around to the left and right of it. Visited one of the communities badly hit by the floods – the camera mostly stayed sheathed – documentation felt to much like disaster tourism. Took a wet-shave in the local barbers to slow down the conversation, feel out where things are at. There’s a strange mixture of getting on with making the shell of a home livable, and there being not much to get on with – with some homes totally devastated. Desperation and abject normality side by side.

At least the corpses were already taken away, presumably buried.

A couple more days here, then a decompression of sorts in Dar es Salaam, Tanzania to unwind before the next double-long-haul. Another month on the road, give or take – a journey that will take in Shanghai, Beijing, Dalian, Johannesburg, New York and Austin, plus whatever last-minute meetings throw up. Early October is national holiday in China – looking forward to a few days rest from work-travel to climb/trek around Mount Gongga.

See you on the other side.

Been enjoying some late night/early morning walks through the urban landscape that is distinctly Lagos – dark streets puntuated up by small groups huddled around paraffin lamps taking in some late night street food, the very occasional passing vehicle and gated communities – the gates here are often sliced off of massive deconstructed shipping containers.

Middle class neighbourhoods here have a wonderful multilayered levels of security: the ‘gate keepers’ (younger boys) who keep an eye on who comes in and out; the private security guys paid for by the community – armed in this case with Nigerian-made rifles; and the police armed with AK 47s, working the 6pm to 6am shift. Familiar faces = social security.

Photo? Shot in near-darkness at 6400 ISO.

In Sabo Market 100 Naira (50 euro cents) buys you a fresh razor, the subtlest fingers south of the equator and 20 minutes of head-down, clean shave. The post-shave ‘tonic’ will delight those who live life on the edge.

Tribally marked gent? Friendly local police.

That moment post-interview, when the thing that stands between the team and sleep is the need to review the session’s data, a debrief with the rest of the team, and a little matter of navigating the city and Lagos’s legendary traffic. Negotiate with two okada riders to take three passengers – if caught by the numerous police the driver will be hassled and fined if caught with two passengers – the risk that is negotiated into the fare.

Like a team entering a knock-out tournament – we need to hit the ground running and improve from there.

Today – a city sliced and diced.

Day 1 in Lagos – setting up our pop-up design studio. 2 weeks on the ground with a strong local crew, so much to learn, to much to do. Highlight? Taking an okada across town to pick up supplies and outrunning the union guys trying to collect their daily levy – somehow managing it despite their optimal vantage point at the edge of a gridlocked round-about. These are the days.

Today’s office involves jumping between the design studio and an operating theatre for a little slice and dice. There’s nothing like first-hand experience of an environment to bring the hopes and fears home.

Friendly surgical crew, comfortable with the camera.

If you want to understand China you need to travel to the suburbs, the communities where tower blocks and half empty shopping malls nudge up agains greenfield sites that will rapidly be overtaken by the urban sprawl. Spent Sunday conducting home visits in the ‘burbs, peeling back layers of assumptions for our latest study on [redacted].

It’s in the suburbs of a first tier city you can find 2nd and sometimes 3rd tier China: an inquisitiveness about foreigners that leads to an invitation to sit; a bowl of noodles for 4 RMB; nary an international brand in sight. Walking out a home interview the team drops into a half-built mall – and an opportunity to converse-without-conversing with the local muscle crew. I could spend a day here, drinking tea, chewing the fat, arm-wrestling and decoding the local hierarchies but the next interview starts in an hour.

You can’t pick just any taxi back to the city – its gotta be one that has a license to operate inside the city limits. A tout offers us a ride, but without a permit to be in Shanghai he would only be able to take the backroads – a 40 minute motorway drive could stretch to double that.

Shanghai today, Bangkok friday, Tokyo the following week.

For once today’s office is… an office of sorts – the frog studio in Shanghai. Its been threatening to rain all day, quite possible all his work will be for nothing.

Enjoy the view – for tomorrow it may be gone – Shanghai moves fast, blink and you’ll miss it.

As border crossings go its slow but hustle-lite. An hour to figure out the dynamics of the visa process and stand with exit stamp in hand before hitching a ride on a pick-up across the no-mans land between the two countries. Somewhat surprised that there’s entry or exit stamp going into Libya – not exactly a porous border – the threat of mine-fields tends to keep people on the path, but more flour through a sieve than water out of a jug.

Today’s office is a 650km stretch of coastal highway from Cairo to Musa’id in Libya and an opportunity to experience the periphery of current events first hand.

With a intense and rewarding working week in the pocket, and with a little bit of organisational risk-management thrown in the weekend beckons. Kind logistical help from @ayouti and the strangely accurate spacial awareness of our driver, Yasser.

When you’re itching to answer these questions, there’s nothing to do but scratch.

An interesting tech angle in the Libyan civil war is how local network Libyana has been subverted to carry communications traffic (mostly voice calls as far as I can tell) from the rebels – on the so-called Free Libyana network – these two articles are well worth a read over in the WSJ and an The Register.

Photos: from today’s stroll into the Libyan border town of Musa’id.

Two days of intensive workshops with our Egyptian clients – its great to see a team come together so well, and for a client to engage so wholeheartedly – a wonderful mix of personality, Egyptian culture and corporate culture. Boy does it take it out on you.

Photo: micro-break between sessions to adjust the afternoon’s schedule – the team is visible at the bottom of the pic. No plan survives first contact with the client – gotta adjust on the move.

Heading back from a day of keynotes and workshops with the client and hitting a hyper version of Cairo traffic jams – caught up in pro-Mubarak demonstration. Solution? Team steps out and walks the rest of the way back to team central.

In Cairo for a week of client research, workshops and keynotes – its good to be back in this great country – my fourth visit here. Working out of a downtown hotel, with a team of 6, plus three local guides – who we’ll sync with over breakfast, before hitting the streets. It’s good to have time to calibrate to the city – especially one that has gone through so much disruptive change – there’s freedom in the air, and most people that I’ve spoken to recognise that the hard work in building what-next is yet to come. Tahrir Square is alive with the sounds of debate, face painted kids, and the detritus of protest.

A critical aspect of any project is the ability to set and manage expectations – and often this is framed in terms of clients wants and needs. This week in Cairo comes with another set of expectation setting – helping colleagues and family understand what the team is up to, and appreciate that the news headlines represents a tiny slither of what is going on the ground. I’m not surprised at the number of emails expressing concern, and I know how easily events in a far away land can spiral into a cycle of rumours that elevate danger and risk.

Along time ago I realized that you should never ask the question to someone in the organisation if you’re not willing to listen to and act on the answer. The consequences of questions about security in any organisation is that someone’s job is (perceivably) on the line if things turn south – and organisations are inherently risk averse. This is a problem if the decision makers don’t understand the risks on the ground – hence the need to be proactive about setting the tone of the conversation.

The issues are more nuanced working for a nimble innovation consultancy like frog than for an 115,000 employee organisation like Nokia – frog thrives on pushing the boundaries – an understanding of opportunities and risk is inherent in our work and how we approach problems, and the advise we give clients.

So how to handle this on a business trip/field study?

Constant dialog in the team, providing the space to talk through any concerns – before arriving, on arrival, and through structured and more informal sessions

Having a strong local team on staff, and leveraging their insights of where to go when. (We can also pull on the client’s advise, but ultimately you need a local team who are responsible to you and the nuances of your needs)

Common sense in reading the situation on the ground. This takes time to calibrate, and on an individual level team members are erring on the side of caution.

Understanding that there’s always a bigger picture that goes well beyond personal and team’s ability to read the the situation. e.g. just because you’re with local doesn’t mean they know what is going on. It’s complicated. That’s what makes it interesting.

Appreciating the motivations of the media and security organisations in selling to their own agenda. I remember a quote for a security detail to take a team from Rio airport to our guesthouse came to over 4,000 Euros with translator, armed guards, decoy vehicle etc. An equivalent taxi costs 20 Euro. Elevating the perceived risk puts food on someone’s table. How to separate genuine advice from revenue generating bullshit?

Encouraging, appreciating and accommodating the need for family communication

Proactively keeping the execs and other key stakeholders abreast of our plans, and shifting the conversation from risk management to the purpose of our visit here – to deliver exceptional value to our client. Set expectations for communication turn-around times – the net can be kinda flakey here, whereas SMS responses times are good.

Provide visibility across the team to the organisation – the team is taking it in turns to send out a daily email-summary of what we’ve been up, signed by us all.

~

Frankly by far the biggest risk in a city like Cairo, Calcutta or Chongqing is being involved in a traffic accident, and this is an issue that is omnipresent every time you travel to an interview, cross the street. Cairo is still far safer for violent crime than Chicago, NYC or LA, comparable with many sleepy European cities.

The whole team recognises that its a privilege being in Egypt at this time.

Nine day traffic jams around urban centers aside – China is one big network of mostly empty motorways connecting the coast with inland cities. Negotiate a driver, hit up some tunes and control the cruise. Today’s short sprint – 300 km from Dandong to Shenyang to catch a flight back to Shanghai. Research (and a not a little partying) done.