Minh Chau2013-05-23T23:00:25-04:00Minh Chauhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/author/index.php?author=minh-chauCopyright 2008, HuffingtonPost.com, Inc.HuffingtonPost Blogger Feed for Minh ChauGood old fashioned elbow grease.4 Principles To Packing Smarttag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.31161802013-04-20T07:00:00-04:002013-04-20T06:54:58-04:00Minh Chauhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/minh-chau/
With this mindset, I started thinking about how to lighten the load I would have to carry during my circle around Latin America. After digging through the wisdom of other fellow backpackers and adventurers alike, I came to four key packing principles. Whenever the question "Should I bring X?" came up, I asked if X met at least two of the four principles. If yes, then it went into my backpack. If not, the idea got discarded immediately. The result? For a trip spanning 60 plus days, I'll be carrying around less than 20 pounds. My back sang "Hallelujah."
Here are the four PACE principles to save your back.
The PACE Principles - Packable, Adaptable, Critical, Element-Proofed
Packable. Luckily, you're not the first person to encounter the packing conundrum. As a result of other people's past discomfort and capitalism, it's likely that a travel-friendly version of whatever you need is already available at your local REI, Dick's, or other retail outlets. By travel-friendly I mean it'll be lighter, smaller, and TSA friendlier than its original counterpart.
Adaptable. Versatility and multi-functionality are most important if you'll be traveling through more than one climate. If it can be layered or have an alternative use, then it's a good candidate to be packed. The last thing you want to be doing on an extended trip is lugging around an oversized parka through the jungles of the Amazon. If it's odor / bacteria resistant and durable, then it jumps to the front of the line. The longer you can wear something before it becomes apparent you haven't showered for several days the better.
Critical. This is for anything that is an absolute must regardless of how badly it fails the other three principles. This applies to things like travel documents (e.g., your passport) and personal medications. Be careful to not use this as a catchall bucket for everything you'd like (vs. need) to bring.
Element-Proofed. On extended travels, it's likely that, at one point or another, you'll encounter a spectrum of what mother nature has to offer. From the hot, dry heat of the desert sun to the wet, humid air of the jungles to the freezing temperatures of the mountains, what you wear will be critical to achieving even the most basic level of comfort. Is it waterproofed? Is it moisture wicking and quick drying? While cotton is a common fabric we wear everyday at home, wearing anything cotton in areas with high humidity practically guarantees you'll be in for an unpleasant surprise. Is it sunproofed? Target a UPF, the apparel equivalent of SPF, of 50. Does it provide insect repellent protection? An alternative to this is pre-treating your apparel with permethrin.
Whether you're going on a weekend trip or an extended journey, keep these four basic principles in mind the next time you hit the road. That way, you can focus more time on enjoying your trip and less time on your back pain.]]>How to Plan Your Next Great Adventure - Part 2 of 2tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.29896562013-03-31T18:41:09-04:002013-04-02T14:01:42-04:00Minh Chauhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/minh-chau/
This is part two of "How to Plan for Your Next Great Adventure." Part one dealt with figuring out your itinerary and finding the right price. In this follow up, we'll take a look at other things to consider (travel insurance and unexpected costs) as you prepare for your trip of a lifetime.
First, don't forget your travel insurance. Depending on how you purchased your tickets, travel insurance may already be included. If not, buy it. Speaking from personal experience, I cannot emphasize enough the importance of having travel insurance. In the worst case scenario (death), travel insurance will save your family the financial burden related with bringing you back. Even in less serious cases (e.g., minor sickness, trip cancellation, etc.) travel insurance will provide you with the peace of mind to enjoy your well earned vacation. Get started at insuremytrip.com. Make sure to read your policy carefully and understand exactly what's covered and what's not, and what you have to do to make sure you get reimbursed.
Second, let's take a look at some of the unexpected costs you may encounter. One major source of unexpected wallet drainage is travel visas. Just because you have your flight tickets, that doesn't mean you're going anywhere. Check out the State Department's website to find out whether you'll need a visa for the countries on your itinerary, how to get those visas if needed and how much they cost. Depending on the country, this process can be lengthy and can be one source of large unexpected costs. For example, a Brazil tourist visa for an American citizen is $180. If you do not want to or cannot go to the embassy to obtain the visa, you'll have to fork over another $50 servicing fee. Even if you don't need a visa to visit a certain country, there may still be entry fees (which may only be applicable if you enter the country through certain modes of transportation).
On a similar note, just because you have a flight out of a country, it doesn't mean you're going anywhere. Some countries have exit fees that are levied at the airport. For example, there's a $28 departure tax for leaving Costa Rica. In Colombia, there's a $38 exit tax, but that's only if you've stayed in the country for at least 60 days. Some airlines add the entry and exit fees into the prices of their flights so it's something worth double checking.
Another big source of unexpected costs is travel related medicines and vaccines. For example, it's recommended you get the Yellow Fever vaccine ($165) if you're heading to the Amazon. Depending on your itinerary, you may also need vaccines for rabies ($840), hepatitis A ($120), polio booster ($95), typhoid ($120), among others. Most insurance will not cover travel vaccines (e.g., Yellow Fever). Even if you're lucky to have an insurance policy that covers travel vaccines, most travel clinics do not take insurance. You'll have to file a claim and potentially pay out your deductible first before getting a penny from your insurance. In addition to vaccines, you may need medicine for anti-malaria, altitude sickness (if you're heading to high elevations outside of a plane), motion sickness (if you'll be at sea) and diarrhea. Check out the CDC's travel website for specific information on the countries you'll be visiting.
What about packing tips, ground transportation and lodging? Check out the full version of this article on my blog for this and other information. As always, if I forgot to cover something, drop a note in the comments.]]>How to Plan Your Next Great Adventure - Part 1 of 2tag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.28892252013-03-28T12:08:52-04:002013-03-28T12:08:57-04:00Minh Chauhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/minh-chau/
Old man winter is slowly creeping back into his cave. If you're starting to get the itch for summer travel, you're probably not alone. However, depending on how adventurous your itinerary is, planning for a trip can be frustrating and a deal breaker for some folks. Having completed a round-the-world trip across 3 continents, 8 countries and 19 cities, and getting ready to hop around Latin America for a couple of months, I've learned a few "best practices" to make the planning phase smoother and less of a pull-your-hair-out experience.
Though geared towards travelers who are looking to do more than the traditional "fly to Europe and back" trips, this piece will be useful to anyone looking for ways to fine tune their planning skills. This is part one of a two-part article. Here, let's look at how to book a trip. Next time, I'll tackle the second planning phase - what to do after you have your tickets in hand.
The first step is figuring out where you want to go. For round-the-world (RTW) trips, great places to start are the airline alliances' RTW websites (oneworld, Star Alliance, SkyTeam) as they have great planning tools that will let you know which routes are feasible and which are not for a RTW ticket. One benefit of using the alliances is that they have a wide network, meaning it's very unlikely that all three will be unable to take you to your dream destinations. The other side of this equation is the cost - though still cheaper than booking individual full price tickets, the RTW fares offered by the alliances are not always the cheapest.
An alternative route is through third-party agents who have contractual agreements with individual airlines worldwide. AirTreks is a good place to start. I've found AirTreks to be cheaper than the alliances, while also including travel insurance on all its tickets. AirTreks also has an easy to use TripPlanner tool on its website - just tell it where you want to go from a pre-existing list of destinations and it'll give you a fairly accurate estimate of how much it'll dent your wallet. From my experience, the folks at AirTreks have done quite a bit of travel themselves, so they will have the experience and background to give you advice on where to go. Depending on your existing itinerary, they may suggest additional stops that would add little, if any, travel cost to your trip.
Of course, there's always the do-it-yourself approach, which is also the one I chose for my upcoming trip. If you want to maximize your flexibility, you can book each individual leg of your trip on your own. This will give you the choice to wait until you get to your destination, scope it out, figure out how long you want to stay, and then book the next leg of your trip at the airport. Of course, the risk is that you'll run into higher fares. Depending on where you'll be, this may not be a big issue. For example, at the time of this writing, the cost to fly from Cusco to Lima is $177 regardless whether I want to fly tomorrow or three months from now. I've found Kayak to have been a useful tool for not only comparing the prices from the airline alliances, but also for comparing the quotes I received from AirTreks.
Another useful website is Yapta, which will keep track of the price for your flights before and after you buy your tickets. If the price drops before you buy, it'll let you know so you won't miss a great deal. If the price drops after you buy, it'll help you get a refund. Once you finally booked your tickets, your inbox will likely be cluttered with multiple itineraries for each leg of your trip. Rather than painstakingly entering all this information into your calendar manually, just forward the email to TripIt. The key information (e.g., names, locations, times, etc.) will automatically be stripped from your email and entered into your calendar. Talk about having your cake and eating it too.
That's it for now - regardless of which option you choose, happy planning! This is by no means comprehensive, so please share any other tips or lessons learned in the comments below. You'll save other travelers from making the same mistakes!
Next time in part two - visas, vaccines, unexpected costs and much more!]]>How Your Desire for Control May Be Preventing You From Living in the Presenttag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.26587792013-02-11T17:12:36-05:002013-04-13T05:12:01-04:00Minh Chauhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/minh-chau/
When we find ourselves drowned in thoughts about a past event -- whether it was an unfaithful partner, a failed job interview, or spilled coffee on a white dress -- the questions that often come up are reflective of our attempts to reassure ourselves that we could have changed the outcome if we really wanted. If only I had spent more time preparing for the interview, I wouldn't have made a fool of myself. I would have done things differently in our relationship if only he had been more transparent about how he felt. I could have caught the flight if only I had gone to bed earlier and didn't sleep through my five alarms.
One common theme cuts across these hypotheticals. That is, we are either blaming ourselves for not having exercised our ability to control the situation, or blaming others for taking away that control. Similarly, when we bury ourselves with thoughts about the future -- whether it's planning for a move to a new city or daydreaming about how great a summer vacation will be -- we are telling ourselves that things will go well so long as we are in control of the situation. If I start looking for an apartment now, and call the movers tomorrow, everything will be fine. We'll have a great time this summer -- we'll go swimming at the beach, enjoy the sun, and relax by the pool. We try to control the future by setting expectations for what will be. But every second that we spend on an indelible past or an uncertain future is another second lost.
This does not mean that we should not learn from the past or that we should live day by day and let our future skate by. It simply means that we can't overthink the past or the future and forget to live in the present, because ultimately, the only thing we can control is ourselves. But to live in the moment requires letting go of the past, whether it is of hurtful actions or false hopes. It also requires letting go of expectations for the future -- expectations that things will go exactly as planned or that others will act in accordance to our wishes. We tend to like consistency, control, and knowing what the future holds, but that's not how the world works.
To live in the moment means learning to be secure with who we are and finding stability within ourselves so we don't feel the need to control the people and things in our past and those that may be in our future. This requires change within us. And change can be hard, especially when we are going through it in the moment, but it can also be remarkable. Without a doubt, we will go through moments of fear about what lies ahead, doubts about the world and the people around us, despair about our current situation, and confusion about what's right and what's wrong. But, we'll also find ourselves to be much freer as we begin to let go of the past and stop worrying about a future that is as uncertain as when nature will call again.]]>A Closer Look at Google's Transparency Reporttag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2013:/theblog//3.24210962013-01-09T20:14:29-05:002013-03-11T05:12:01-04:00Minh Chauhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/minh-chau/Transparency Report. The report provides information on two important disclosures Google makes to governments, copyright owners, and courts. The first disclosure consists of "removal requests," which are requests from copyright owners or governments to have content removed from certain Google products. The second consists of "user data requests" from governments and courts for data on users of Google products. Given the string of privacy related issues that popped up throughout 2012, let's take a closer look at the government removal requests that were specifically labelled in the report as "Privacy and Security." The focus on removal requests rather than user data requests is because the report offers more data granularity on the former. The potential to abuse this power is huge. What if "Privacy and Security" becomes another label for web censorship to hide behind (e.g., the blocking of cartoonist Aseem Trivedi's website to prevent social unrest)?
The Transparency Report categorizes each "Privacy and Security"-related government removal request ("GRR") as either "Court Orders" or "Executive, Police, etc.," and also quantifies the number of items that these requests sought to remove ("Items Requested to be Removed"). During the period between July 2010 through June 2012, of the 22 Google products that have ever been included in the report, YouTube, Web Search, and Blogger accounted for 87 percent of worldwide removal requests by "Court Orders," 93 percent of removal requests by "Executive, Police, etc.," and 99 percent of "Items Requested to be Removed" [Figure 1].
To simplify things, let's look at only "Privacy and Security" GRRs associated with these three products: YouTube, Web Search and Blogger. If the growth in number of GRRs ("Court Orders" and "Executive, Police, etc.") is plotted against the growth in number of "Items Requested to be Removed" between the six-month periods ending in December 2010 and June 2012 [Figure 2], a couple of things are striking.
First, and perhaps most surprisingly, a group of countries (Germany, Italy, South Korea, and nearly Japan) had witnessed a decline in both the total number of "Privacy and Security"-related government removal requests ("GRRs") as well as "Items Requested to be Removed." Meanwhile, the U.K. saw an increase in the number of GRRs, but the number of "Items Requested to be Removed" actually declined, while the opposite was true for Australia and Taiwan. As would be expected, most countries (Belgium, Brazil, France, India, Spain, Turkey, and the United States) fell in the upper right quadrant, exhibiting an increase in the number of GRRs with a corresponding increase in the number of "Items Requested to be Removed." Keep in mind that this represents a snapshot of two periods in time, so variations and one-time events in between that may affect the results are not explicitly captured here.
Over the past few years, particularly evident during the Arab spring, non-Web Search platforms (e.g., YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, blogs, etc.) have increasingly become a more dominant and effective vehicle for users to express themselves, promote their causes, and to share their stories. In turn, the data suggests that governments may have also evolved their tactics to match this shift. During the last half of 2010, nearly two-thirds of all "Privacy and Security"-related GRRs and 99 percent of all "Privacy and Security"-related "Items Requested to be Removed" were directed at content found on Google's Web Search product [Figure 3]. However, the first half of 2012 showed a dramatic shift. In this period, GRRs directed at Web Search made up only about one-third of all removal requests, with another third directed at YouTube. The number of "Items Requested to be Removed" also showed a similar shift, with Web Search declining to 85 percent and YouTube rising to 7 percent from 1 percent. Note: South Korea's number of "Items Requested to be Removed" directed at Web Search was extremely high in the last half of 2010, but even after removing South Korea from the analysis, the general shift in platform focus was still present.
Although there has been an increase in the number of government removal requests ("GRRs"), have these requests gone through the rule of law? Specifically, were the removal requests more likely to be ordered by the court or some government agency / official? A look at the data reveals that judicial oversight over GRRs varied across countries [Figure 4] -- with only Argentina, Brazil, Italy, and the United States having a majority of their requests coming through "Court Orders" as opposed to "Executive, Police, etc."
While the focus has been on government removal requests thus far, a review of governments' requests for user data of Google products is also important since user data are more likely to contain much more personal and sensitive information. The Transparency Report data suggests that the majority of governments have expanded their reach [Figure 5]. For the same set of countries analyzed above, only three showed a decline in the number of requests for user data per 1 million Internet user -- the remaining 11 countries experienced, on average, a 63 percent increase in user data requests.
As more of our lives move into the cloud, social media companies, email providers, and other technology and telecommunications firms will continue to become larger targets by governments seeking to remove certain pieces of information from the Internet or searching for information on their citizens. For example, although the majority of its removal requests come through "Court Orders" and it has experienced a decline in the number of government requests per 1 million Internet users, Brazil recently passed a money laundering law that permits police to obtain, without a court order, certain pieces of data from the Electoral Justice, Internet providers, phone companies, financial institutions, and credit card companies. Governments need to ensure that proper controls are in place to protect user data and content from illegitimate access and removal. The U.S. Congress took a first step by updating the 1986 Electronic Communications Privacy Act to limit the government's access to users' electronic communications. The White House, likewise, created the Consumer Privacy Bill of Rights to blueprint how businesses should handle users' data. But, it's just as essential that companies set up clear policies for governing if, and when, they remove data or hand over user data to governments. Google, Dropbox, LinkedIn, and Twitter have begun to shed light on government requests and how frequently they respond to those requests. One question left unanswered here is what happens when removal and user data requests originate not from governments, but from within the companies that hold the data?]]>Being Strategic With Social Mediatag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.22147482012-11-30T17:14:51-05:002013-01-30T05:12:01-05:00Minh Chauhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/minh-chau/McDonald's, Kenneth Cole, Volkswagen, amongst others, teach us anything, it's that strategy is key. Ad-hoc social media activity is the enemy.
Organizations -- from government agencies to non- and for-profits -- with a clearly defined strategy are in a better position to alert, engage, and activate their target audiences. Alert is to raise awareness for the organization's cause, mission, values, campaign, or whatever its goal. Engage is to loop community members into the conversation (and spreading the word) about its goals. Activate is to motivate members into active involvement through donations, attendance, purchases, or any other specific outcome.
How do organizations layout a social media strategy that's also a logical extension of their overall organizational strategy? From the ground up. Here are ten critical steps and key questions to answer in each:
Layout the strategic context. What are the goals of the organization with respect to its mission, vision, and growth? What are the strategic, financial, and operational objectives of the organization's social media strategy? What is the organization's case statement? How does the organization's social media strategy support the broader organizational vision?
Develop detailed profiles of target audience(s). What are the demographics (e.g., age, gender, marital status, geographic distribution) of the organization's target audience(s)? How can these and other analytical information be combined to segment each target audience group? What existing data is already available (e.g., Facebook comments) that can be mined and linked to individuals for future opportunities (e.g., if a high potential donor indicated a specific interest, this can be used to personalize future contacts)?
Develop detailed platform profiles. What are the key attributes (e.g., target demographics, ability to interact with users, specific limitations) of each social media platform? Once a strategy has been fully defined, steps two and three will enable organizations to fine-tune their tactics, targeting messages to their audiences through the most appropriate medium.
Identify best practices. What are the best practices for utilizing social media to achieve the organization's objectives? Learn from others' mistakes. There is no extra credit for learning it the hard way. This includes learning from peers, as well as organizations from different industries. For example, regardless of the industry, social media platforms are communities, not bulletin boards. Interaction must be two-way to keep members coming back.
Conduct an internal assessment. What are the agreed upon set of strategic, financial, and operational metrics for determining the effectiveness of the organization's presence on each social media platform? What is the organization's baseline performance for each of the platforms? What are the organization's existing processes and structures for identifying, selecting, managing, and assessing its social media platforms? What are the organization's key strengths and gaps?
Develop Strategic Options. Given steps 1-5, what are the set of high-potential strategic options for the organization? What are each strategic option's value propositions to each key stakeholder? What are the agreed upon screening criteria to shortlist the strategic options?
Identify knowledge, skills, and abilities requirements. Given the chosen strategic option, what are the infrastructure, process, and system requirements? How can the organization close existing gaps? What are the necessary investments? What are the associated trade-offs?
Define final strategy statement and business case. What are the resource requirements and expected ROI of the chosen strategic option? What is the action plan (e.g., timing, investments, and expected milestones)?
Identify potential interdependencies. What is the optimal portfolio of social media platforms to achieve the organization's strategic objectives? What are potential interdependencies with other initiatives across the organization? How will these interdependencies be addressed?
Identify and develop required initiatives. What strategic initiatives (e.g., development of governance structure, processes, and policies) will the organization implement to support its strategic direction? Which of these initiatives are foundational vs. differentiated? What are the high level implementation roadmap, next steps, and potential fast-track opportunities?
All of this sound like a lot of work -- and it is. The depth to which organizations dive into each step depends on their strategic objectives, size, and available resources. For example, smaller organizations with less bandwidth may decide early on to focus on only a small subset of opportunities.
Did I miss anything? What are some of the lessons your organization has learned? What best practices have been most valuable for you? Don't forget to share your thoughts in the comments below!]]>48-Hour Experimenttag:www.huffingtonpost.com,2012:/theblog//3.21189702012-11-12T16:39:10-05:002013-01-12T05:12:01-05:00Minh Chauhttp://www.huffingtonpost.com/minh-chau/
But the Internet has also become an endless source of distraction, a black hole, where unless you're careful, your time gets sucked in and you've become an addict to a new kind of drug. While you're checking your Google+, playing Words With Friends, looking up scores on ESPN, reading the news, etc., a part of you knows that all you're doing is procrastinating, but yet you have no desire to snap back to the reality of what's on your plate. Or, how many times during a conversation or dinner with a friend do you check your phone -- even when it doesn't vibrate or ring? I know I've done both of these many times before, and as a result, I was never in the moment, so to speak, always wondering what spam (what else?) was coming through my inbox, instead of truly appreciating the time I was spending with the person across the table or on the other end of the phone. So, long story short, for the next 48 hours, I will totally disconnect from the Internet -- e.g., no wi-fi, no cellular data, my iPhone will just become an overpriced telephone. What if I need directions? I'll do it the old fashion way and ask a local. What if I want to know if I'll need a coat? I'll step outside and find out. What if I'm looking for a good restaurant? I'll cross my fingers and hope for the best. What if my job manager emails me? Well, that one I haven't figured out yet, but I'll probably cross my fingers on that one too.
The 48 hours begins now.
48-Hour Recap
Last weekend I spent 52-plus hours (originally intended to only be for 48 hours) disconnected from the Internet. I did this for multiple reasons -- some including 1) I felt I had become an addict to the Internet, having my thoughts and actions constantly interrupted by a buzz or a ding 2) My attention span was slowly deteriorating and, worse of all, it was being dictated by a 5 x 2.5 object in my pocket (my phone) 3). Most importantly, I was losing the ability to truly appreciate the moment, the now, the present. I wasn't seeing, feeling, hearing, and smelling what was in front of me. Ultimately, I was giving more of my time to a server in Kansas than to the more important people and things in my life. This needed to change.
What did I learn? In no particular order...
• No Internet = less planning = more spontaneity. As soon as I closed my laptop and turned off the data on my phone last Friday, I realized I had no idea what I was going to do to fill my time. But the beauty of not having any plans is that it's easy to accommodate unexpected things. For example, we drove to Dallas Saturday afternoon, walking around downtown, basking in the Texas sun with the occasional drop of cool rain falling on us. As we wandered around mindlessly, we ended up on a bridge and saw a set of tents set up in a parking lot a couple hundred yards below us. Curiosity struck and suddenly we found ourselves in front of the entrance to Cirque du Soleil's Kooza. We got lucky and were able to snatch two tickets for their last performance of the night!
• Life can be more expensive without the Internet. I have taken a lot of things that are freely available on the Internet for granted. Case in point, after unplugging on Friday, I wanted to take a walk through the neighborhood. As I put in my headphones, I realized I only have about 10 songs on my phone (most of them I got from Starbucks' pick of the week, and so are not necessarily what I would choose to listen to). No Internet, no Pandora, no free music. Bummer. But this point is caveated by the next...
• The Internet is an escape from (life's) challenges. I put parentheses around "life's" because this can be replaced with another more specific or generic term -- from work, relationships, family, etc. In the past, I've frequently drifted over to my laptop or my phone and latched on to YouTube, Google News, Pandora (per caveat above), etc. to distract myself from my problems, specifically, to avoid confronting them. Now, I shut my laptop and take a long walk to clear my head so I can think clearly and face things head on.
• Constant connection drives down the value of a conversation. Imagine this scenario: You're in the middle of recounting what you think was an exciting day of your life, and suddenly, the person you're talking to pulls out his phone to check his email. I guess it wasn't so exciting after all. I've been in both positions -- in the former, I feel a little annoyed, and in the latter, I've recognized that I'm being rude and entirely missing out on a good conversation with a good friend.
• Unplugging prevents burnout. This is a no-brainer. I spend a large amount of my time in front of a screen for work, whether it's typing an email, making a slide, or reading an article. By the end of the day, my eyes are strained and, inevitably, all I want to do is walk away from any screen that glows. The 50-plus hour respite gave me just the opportunity I needed to recharge.
Being disconnected from the Internet, whether it's for 48 minutes or 48 hours, was a refreshing slap in the face that life doesn't happen online: it's present, it's now, and it's going on with or without you. While I was writing this post, I received an email with this article, discussing how technology -- at least in the workplace -- is pushing us towards a less and less balanced life.
