A positive aspect of working for a Finnish company is the respect for personal and vacation time – in July and August many of my colleagues take up to a month out of the office and head to their summer cottages. My personal equivalent to this as of last year and continuing this, is taking off most of December and some of January and exploring new parts of the world. With a hectic year’s travel and research behind me there are a lot of ideas to formulate, a lot to write.

So as of next week I’ll be heading to first to China and then to India with time at altitude in both Tibet and the Himalayas. I’m still not quite sure what I come back to (if you guess right you can win a Shibuya blinged iPod Nano), such is the game of corporate musical chairs. Oh, the scramble to find a seat before the music stops. One thing is for certain, next year the best is yet to come.

In a way my month off has already started – prompted by visiting family, time off in the Japanese Alps and coastal ryokan. There’s nothing like the clarity that comes from watching the sun rise over the Pacific (in Izu above) or waking up above the clouds to put life, the universe and (more humbly) my research into perspective. That these mornings yield a disproportionate share of big ideas is merely a bonus.

Next to me on my desk there’s a freshly brewed coffee that needs drinking (a rather tasty organic blend from Ugandan since you ask) which is probably the weakest way of leading into saying that In the next few days I’ll share some research on, um, Shared Phone Use a study that co-incidentally also covers Uganda. For now I’ll leave you with the following two questions: Of everything that you own what would you not share with others? And why not?