Le Grand Tour D'Asia: Day 36 of 58

Leaving with a smile on my face...

Friday, February 12

Learning Moment: Ubud, Bali

We fly back to Singapore this afternoon and then to Japan on Saturday.

There's still time for some adventure today - it's the start of Chinese New Year, after all - but the Southeast Asia portion of our tour is about to come to an end.

We'll be swapping shorts, sunscreen, and swimsuits for winter jackets, freezing temperatures, and cold winds. On the other hand, we'll get to see old friends and familiar places.

So, much like the Balinese statue pictured above; I'm leaving with a smile on my face.

Le Grand Tour D'Asia: Day 35 of 58

Thursday, February 11th

Learning Moment: Bali, Indonesia

Today was another busy day.

I visited the monkey forest and got some free grooming from a new little pal.

Angie and I walked about 5 miles - from Ubud, through Peliatan, and back.

And we bought a pile of paintings...

Two things that I was reminded of:

First, it's hard to get a better bargain for your art dollar than the one you'll find in Bali.

We got five paintings of Balinese dancers, including the one on the left, for about US$65.

Second, I would never try to make my living as an artist. Barriers to market entry are approximately zero. Branding is almost impossible. It's really difficult to articulate the 'value' of your product. And everyone (along with their sisters) believes they are either an artist or an art critic.

There's got to be an easier way to make a living...

Le Grand Tour D'Asia: Day 34 of 58

the Setting for our Kajane Romance Dinner

February 10, 2010

Learning Moment: Bali, Indonesia

Romance can be bought. Richard Gere did it, so can you.

In Bali, however, it will cost you a lot less.

Angie and I had a great day. I got a lot of work done on 'SMART as Hell'. We had a great breakfast by the pool. We witnessed a temple festival in downtown Ubud (music, dance, prayer, sarongs, incense, shadow puppets, and throngs of people - Asia in an hour). We had a great lunch at Ary's Warung. We watched dance, while listening to a Bamboo orchestra (jegog). And then we had the romance dinner served to us at our villa.

Above, you can see the 'make-over' the wonderful Kajane staff did to our patio. Flowers strewn about. Colorful cloths draped across our furniture. Candles turned our pool into a reflection pond. Music filled the air (and mosquitoes did not).

The food was excellent, the service perfect, the weather Balinese.

The price? US$45.

Of course, you need a villa - and someone beautiful to sit across the table - first...

Le Grand Tour D'Asia: Day 33 of 58

Tuesday, February 9th

Learning Moment: Ubud, Bali, Indonesia

As part of our package, our hotel - the Kajane - included an 'adventure' outing of our choice.

We decided to trek in the rice fields.

So, we woke up early, ate breakfast, and joined our guides for a personal tour. The weather was perfect; sunny and relatively dry. We got up close and personal with the rice paddies, and also saw a large variety of trees and plants.

During a snack break, a local farmer scurried up a palm tree for us and brought down two fresh coconuts. He then sliced them deftly with his machete and handed us one with a ready-to-pour spout. Coconut is one of my five favorite food/ingredients, so you know I loved it.

A we continued our hike, we spotted cows, water buffalo, lizards, herons, dogs, and cats. We passed through a jungle ravine and emerged at a small village.

As part of our package, we received one-hour massages and a traditional Indonesian lunch. Tonight, we'll head to the palace to watch dancers perform the Ramayana.

Just another day in paradise...

Le Grand Tour D'Asia: Day 32 of 58

An Offering

February 8th, 2010

Learning Moment: Bali, Indonesia

Almost the first thing one notices in Bali is the offerings that lie scattered everywhere.

Usually, the first notice is taken as one accidentally kicks the offering from a sidewalk into the nearby street.

I made this mistake many, many times during my first visit. Fortunately, the Balinese don't take it personally.

Balinese offerings are ubiquitous. They lie in front of stores, inside stores, in shrines, on rocks, and in tree branches. I would not be surprised to find one anywhere.

These offerings are democratic - they are presented for the benefit of many gods, both good and bad. Once offered, they are food for birds, dogs, monkeys, and insects.

I've tried to emulate the Balinese with my course offerings. My workshops are available to anyone. I'm ready to conduct them anywhere. And I don't mind repurposing the content for any situation or audience.

How about your products?

Do you treat them as 'goods for sale'? Or as offerings?

Le Grand Tour D'Asia: Day 31 of 58

Ary - a Balinese Dancer Unmasked

February 07, 2010

Learning Moment: Bali, Indonesia

We spent the morning relaxing in our villa. Private pools are, for me, one of the best reasons to come here. Bali is one of the few places on earth where a normal human can afford a villa with a private pool. And, with the humidity, you want to swim every day.

So, we ate a late breakfast, swam in the pool, and did some reading.

In the afternoon, we headed to ARMA - the Agung Rai Museum. There we viewed the art collection, ate dinner (nasi goreng, with a glass of arak), and had an almost private viewing of a legong dance.

There were six audience members in a small hall for a full gamelan and dance troupe. It was like hosting a show in your living room. Before the show, I happened to meet Ary, the dancer pictured above. It was the first time I have seen a Balinese dancer out of costume. We talked a bit and she let me take her photo.

Le Grand Tour D'Asia: Day 30 of 58

Balinese Dance at Puri Saren Agung, Ubud

February 06, 2010

Learning Moment: Ubud, Bali, Indonesia

You know how they say "You can't go back"?

And, you know how it is mostly true?

Well, doesn't it make it that much sweeter when you can go back?

That's what I'm finding on this trip.

We had a great time revisiting Chennai. And we had a great time revisiting Singapore.

Today, we landed in Bali. It's roughly our 10th visit to Bali. We always worry that it's changed while we were gone.

Bali is one of those places that just feels different. It's a combination of incense, humidity, ocean breeze, grace, humor, and authenticity.

Well, as soon as we landed, I knew that we were back.

And I mean back, as in, back in the arms of a friend.

It just felt right.

Tonight we went to Puri Saren Agung to watch the Legong Dance.

It was stunning, as usual. The gamelan was invigorating, the dancers were spectacular, the audience was appreciative, the night air was sultry.

It was, in a word, Bali.

We had an excellent dinner at Cinta and returned to our room.

The plan for the rest of the week? Lather, rinse, repeat...

Le Grand Tour D'Asia: Day 29 of 58

A Toast to the Halfway Point (Long Island Ice Tea at Clarke Quay)

February 05, 2010

Learning Moment: Singapore

Today, we reached the halfway point of our two-month journey through Asia. As great as the past four weeks have been (and they have been...), some of the best is yet to come.

• We'll be vacationing in Bali for the next seven days
• We'll get to see the first of on Hong Bao (the riverside Chinese New Year festival) in Singapore
• We'll eat a kaiseki dinner for Valentine's Day in Japan
• I'll hook up with Garr Reynolds for a presentation workshop in Yokohama - slide:ology + Presentation Zen
• And then, two weeks in Seoul, Korea

Today, I led another slide:ology session. There are two 'best known methods' that we've developed over the past 6 months of teaching slide:ology. They are not 'rules', but I practice them religiously. I'll share them with you, but - as always - your mileage may vary.

1. Never (ever) share slides with someone who isn't going to present them.
   If you're asked to share your slide deck, email it, or store it on a server - say no. What you should do is convert it to a pdf file and then send it.
   This method has three advantages. First, it shrinks the file size dramatically. Second, viewers cannot 'click' into your embedded files and read the data behind the data. Third, they cannot easily present your deck. Finally, they cannot cannibalize your slides to create a 'Frankendeck'.
2. Never (ever) use sub-bullets.
   A single layer of bullets is fine for creating a list. The next level of bullets, however, indicates one of two things. One - you're typing in words that you're going to say anyway. These can be pushed into notes view and you can just say them. Two - if you really have important text in the sub-bullets, I would argue that the bullet and sub-bullets have enough meaning for one new slide. The bullet becomes the title and the sub-bullets become the text (or are changed to an image).

The use of sub-bullets is mostly laziness. Since I imposed this rule on myself, I have not found a case where I needed to keep them. There is almost always a better way.

Give it a try!

Asia Tour 2010 - On the road again...

For the next eight weeks, I'll be leading KLA-Tencor workshops in Asia.

My buddy Martin once called me the "Indiana Jones of Training", so you know that this is the stuff I love - 5 countries, 29 workshops, more than 500 attendees.

Here's the plan:

• Jan 11 - 15 Singapore:
  Situational Leadership II, Maximizing Customer Relationships, slide:ology
• Jan 18 - 29 Chennai, India:
  5 Dysfunctions of a Team, Presentation Skills, Managing at KT, Working Globally
• Feb 1 - 5 Singapore:
  Situational Leadership II, slide:ology
• Feb 8 - 12 Bali, Indonesia
  cultural anthropology (ie: vacation)
• Feb 15 - 19 Yokohama, Japan:
  Managing at KT, Hire at KT, slide:ology
• Feb 22 - Mar 5 Seoul, South Korea
  (Presentation Skills, Managing at KT, slideology)

I'll be sharing highlights in the form of stories, photos, and maybe even videos.

Range of Vision - The World Through My Lens

This is a continuing series of slideshows from my travels. Enjoy!


Range of Vision 2.o - Wildlife

Here are some of my favorite wildlife photos that I've taken.

Range of Vision 1.o - Images of Asia I meet a lot of people as I travel throughout Asia and the world, and I take a lot of photos of them. Here are 125 of my favorite people photos .





Technical/design note:
I've been struggling for years with how best to present my photos.
I don't like just hanging them up on the web where anyone can download and use them.
On the other hand, I want friends, family and colleagues to be able to see the images.

My compromises has been:

• to post small photos, like I did at rangeofvision (too small)
• to watermark the images, like I do at hues.smugmug.com and deviantart.com (too distracting)
• to use a password-protected gallery and send out invite (too restrictive)

None of these were satisfactory, so I'm trying a different option - photos presented as video, assembled using Picasa software..

Let me know what you think!

The Bali of Dreams...

This is a picture of Balinese women preparing for a an odalan, which is the anniversary of a Balinese Hindu temple.

Today I added more than 60 of my favorite Bali images to my photo site at hues.smugmug.com.

This is a young monkey at the Ubud Monkey Forest.
Bali is one of my favorite places on earth. It's a target-rich environment for a photographer, filled with 'eye-candy'.

The heat forces you to slow down. The sheer volume of stimuli begs you to be present at all times. It's the antidote to civilization.

Dance of the Legong

As I mentioned, I've been scanning some of my favorite images from the past.
A disproportionate amount of these images are from Bali.
No surprise there... It's one of my favorite places on earth.

If I haven't mentioned the Dance of the Legong, it's only because my vocabulary isn't equiped enough to do the dance justice.
I hope the photo above will suffice, even though I know it won't.
At best it could whet your appetite to buy a ticket on the next plan to Denpasar, where you'd grab a taxi to Ubud and sit in on the evening dance at the Puri Saren Agung.

If you're anything like me, just the sound of those words will set you on a path that will drop you at the feet of the gods and goddesses of Bali.

If words aren't enough, you can find my images of Bali here.

If not.... well...

Bali Dreaming

We head to Korea (and then Israel) tomorrow, but tonight my thoughts are of Bali.

I've been going through a bunch of my slides and moving them to my photo website - hues. Tonight, I added some more shots of Japan and Thailand.
I also created new galleries for Vietnam and Bali.

I love both countries, but Bali ranks a little higher for me.
Probably because of the music.
I'm a sucker for the rhythms of the gamelan.

Of course, you can't complain about the views, either!