Hooray!
Thank you!

(Rick Semler, management guru and Semco [Brazil] founder, once offered a revision of MBWA/Managing By Walking Around. His MBWA was Managing By Walking Away. He almost religiously took a 6-week vacation in a place where he couldn't be reached (ever more difficult). His logic: Only by being truly out of touch could he truly delegate. I like that. And that's what seems to have occurred here. My colleagues, in the absence of Old Motormouth, outdid themselves!!! Well, New Zealand is on the planning boards already for January 2008.)

(A little more New Zealand below.)

I can already feel the withdrawal symptoms making their way toward my consciousness. In two hours I pack off my computers ... speak to the Inc. 500 25th anniversary gathering here in San Francisco at the Fairmont ... and then head to New Zealand. And 3 weeks later (12 February) I surface again.

No computer.
No computer.
No %^&#$)@ computer!

Hooray!
Ye gads!

I've been wondering when I was last computer-free for this long. Surely in an earlier millennium. As I mentioned before, Susan will conduct an inspection that will put the TSA to shame. Only my camera—and her iPod—is/are allowed under the category labeled "electronics." Even the ratio of non-fiction to fiction books will be assessed. No sport coat. No ties. ("But what if we go to dinner in a nice place?" "Tough.") I am considering an audio Blogpost or two—assuming I don't get caught—maybe while Sergeant Sargent (as in Susan Sargent, spouse) is in the shower.

Well, I will truly miss our communal gathering—hold the fort until I return. And a heartfelt thanks for making this a useful and exciting community!

(I had planned some pithy observation about business & management & life as we know it as sendoff Post. In the end ... I had too damn much packing to do.)

Cheers ...

(The photo is of the fabled San Francisco Ferry Building, once home base for the Port of San Francisco—it's at the foot of Market Street.)

* MarketingProfs:DailyFix takes blog entries from around the Web, mixes them with original content, and puts everything people are saying about marketing in one place. The result is an excellent resource. They've re-blogged a few of Tom's posts.
* Trump University is also re-publishing Tom's stuff. What better avenue could there be for us to get a wide audience for his writing. We'd recommend you take a look. Donald Trump's blog.
* Rethink Pink. The website promoting this annual Marketing-to-Women symposium has a blog. The subject is so important to Tom, how could we not?
* Strategic Name Development is the website of a naming consultancy. The factors that go into choosing a name for a business are complex, worthy of a blog, and a cool addition to the topics on our blogroll.
* Expreference. An American business owner in China blogs about his work, the culture, and his day-to-day life experience. Fascinating. Lots of photos and videos. A valuable, intimate look at China.
* Steve Farber, Cool Friend, speaker, writer, inspirationalist. His latest book is The Radical Edge.
* Bob Sutton, Cool Friend, author of Weird Ideas That Work.
* Richard Cauley is a contributor to our comments. He's inspired a PowerPoint slide by Tom, and he has a blog called patent warrior. Take a look.

I'm sorry if I missed anybody. As I said, there've been quite a few additions recently. With RSS, the blogroll becomes less important than it was, even in the short (tho' not short in Internet time) two years since we started this blog. But our blogroll represents our recommendations for you to sample, and if you see anything you like you can subscribe to their RSS feeds. It's long and messy. We like it like that! Maybe one day it will extend all the way down the front page.

(Yes, I can imagine a hundred reasons why updates might not include my Word dictionary—but, still ...)

While most blogs are written by "citizen journalists," I have become addicted to the Yahoo News Sponsored blog by Kevin Sites titled "Hot Zone." I have been reading it ever since he posted on a clinic my organization helps fund on the Thai-Myanmar border. Kevin has been on a mission to report from every war zone in the world in one year, and he's currently posting from Lebanon.

His mission is to put a human face on global conflict by telling the personal stories of citizens/families caught in the crossfire ... powerful stuff ... and well written with photographs and video.

He has been posting from Lebanon for two days, and while most of the blog comments (around 600 total so far for his first post from the region) take sides in the conflict and place blame, my thoughts are with the children ...

Tired of waiting, Geoff and his co-conspirator have set up AboveCLevel.net, and he's anxious to get feedback on the site. If people vote thumbs up, he'll take the info to his leadership team. If it's thumbs down, well, hardly any money spent and no one the wiser. Except you folks who visit. Jim Coudal of Coudal Partners (design firm that took tompeters.com from static website to blog-powered site) is responsible for the clever AboveCLevel name.

Here's my choice: Barnabe Peak. Great photos, and a very effective use of strike-through, which you can see in his Dead Laptop entry, also.

Welcome to the blogroll, Ed.

Trevor came to the London event the week before last—finally, a face to go with the name of one of our most frequent contributors to the Blog. (Other London pics at "Tom's Photos"/Flickr.)

I wrote those posts at O'Hare Airport Friday evening, just before boarding an overnight flight. After a stop in Frankfurt with friends, I arrived in Jerusalem before dawn yesterday (Sunday) and spent the day relaxing away from the online world. I just flipped open my computer at my favorite Jerusalem coffee shop, Tmol Shilshom, which is in an old, funky building in the center of town. Central Jerusalem has free wireless access, so I was able to check in for the first time in a few days.

What a pleasure to come back from a few days of "head clearing" and read those comments. I love it when people think and engage in good debate and conversation. Let's keep doing it!