Courtesy Vince Alongi @ Flickr

You just arrived to your destination. First walk out of your quarters to explore the neighbourhood and this traditional fruit shop is the first thing to get your attention. More than a convenient shop for your immediate cravings it is an icon of the type of neighbourhood to which you’ve arrived. Things are going to be interesting. Now, how do you say ‘apple’ in Spanish? ‘Manzana’.

Global Culture enables memorable experiences through the continuous exploration of regions that provide a culturally rich environment for the urbanite on a livability quest.

What started as a blog about Global Culture and its actors has evolved into a source of great travel experiences.

Sustainable

There is a new generation of discerning travelers that have already seen the world and are aware of the myriad of frivolous options that plague the industry. They are looking for meaning in every opportunity they have to interact with the world and want to make sure they leave the best of themselves at each destination.

Memorable

An experience will have a lasting impact if it proves to be unique and authentic. But its discovery starts way ahead of the trip and requires the traveler to get acquainted with the story of a destination, using for that purpose any means of interaction available.

Livable

In opposition to mass-tourism and its obsession with packaging chosen moments, a Global Culture experience should not feel like a temporary adventure but a continuation of your quest to find a better way to live, immersing yourself into foreign cultures with the sole ideal of figuring out which aspects of life their people have mastered.

Already in hackers & work culture I had discussed how the boundaries between professional and private live were blurred. First with a wave of mobile communication devices that made everyone accessible to attend business at any time of the day and now with ubiquitous wireless access points that are now converting everyone into a local nomad, pushing us away from our desks into third spaces, far more amenable and with a twist of social.

Connectivity seems to be an increasingly important factor when deciding where we are going to travel. After all, you wouldn’t want to be disconnected from twitter while travelling… or have to pass on a great project right in the middle of your trip. I’ll leave to other posts the discussion about entrepreneurial spirit, which may justify this obsession with being in the loop at all times.

In any case, knowing about what kind of connectivity you’ll get whether you are going to be away from the office for a few hours or a few days is now an essential factor in your decision process. While more and more destinations are offering wireless access (even for free), very few provide a good enough environment to support a productive work session. So that got me thinking on what are the “must-have” when it comes to connectivity?

We could talk about Wi-Fi, 3GS, EDGE, broadband, DSL, but there are far better forums for that kind of information if you are curious about the technology. Instead I propose the following test, a digital nomad test that expresses in simple human terms the quality of your connectivity:

• Price Voice: How much would it cost to make a 5 minute call to the top contact from your mobile phone? While most destinations would likely provide the means for your current mobile phone to roam, sometimes the fees involved are prohibitive.
• Price Data: Let’s assume you’re one of those modern workers who have achieved the goal of working only 4 hours a week. How much does it costs to be connected for those 4 hours on a given week?
• Delay to receive a message: in today’s hyper-connected world there is an implicit expectation that if you’re sent a message (email, instant messaging, Twitter, etc), you would respond within a reasonably short time frame. Of course, if you’re trying to save on your data plan because you’re roaming and you only connect once a day, you’re for all intents and purposes disconnected. So this attribute measures how long it will take before you’re able to get a message sent to you.
• Time to compose a 1000-words message: No, I’m not talking about how fast you type but to the misconception that you can be just as productive with your mobile than with a laptop or desktop computer. Let’s admit it, tiny keyboards are not built for typing long messages and when faced with the option we’ll likely postpone writing that long memo or document. So while we may fool ourselves into thinking that carrying a smart-phone is enough, sometimes we’ll have to wait until we’re in front of a computer to be productive.
• Time to download/watch a 15 minute video: This is the ultimate performance test in today’s world. With video demanding the most from your connectivity infrastructure, this will measure the overall quality of your network, end to end.

With this sort of standardized connectivity test, it would be easier for people to make decisions about how to remain connected when on the road. Is there any other dimension that needs to be measured?

But first here are some thoughts from a friend on why we don’t want to live in a ‘liveable’ city:

This hurts Vancouver so much…
1) Employers can say, it’s so livable ! so we can afford to pay less – people SO want to live here.
2) Real estate market keeps going up — people want to live here
3) Vancouverites who haven’t been elsewhere keep the same attitude that it is so perfect and there’s no room for improvement :
- Release city restrictions : Velib bikes ? Sidewalk cafes ?
- A little more culture : +art, +theatre.

It is great that you can ski and go to the (cold) beach on the same day, but that does not mean it would be bad if you could ski and go to see ‘Wicked’ or a Monet on the same day…..

Is it possible that a city can hypnotize its inhabitants into such a state of apathy that liveability is an attribute to be desired but never to be acquired? Just as Borges suggests that there is nothing remarkable about being immortal except to know oneself immortal; I wonder if our (my?) obsession with liveability would terribly affect our lifestyles should we realize we already ARE living in the absolute best place we can possibly find.

Perhaps the most important lesson in travel can be applied to this quest: what matters is not the destination, but the journey. To aspire to find better ways to live, learn from other people making a good and balanced living, connect with other people pursuing the same ideals; these are the reasons to continue our quest for liveability and never settle and assume that we’ve found it. The most interesting bit of this quest is every single new place that will teach us something new that we hadn’t learnt in our previous stops.

I should add that the quote from my friend is based on his own experience living abroad, finding the city of lights after many years of what anyone would’ve assumed was already a great lifestyle. It demonstrates the spirit of a true global citizen, never assuming that things are as well as they could be. Not for himself, not for his family and not for the people that live around him. There will always be a better way, and that’s the spirit of the invitation in give up your urban “devil”:

the key may be in experimentation: what if you could try alternate lifestyles for a short while? Maybe farming is not going to cut it, but helping a community in need develop advanced social programs tapping into your urban skills may be your call. If you could try not one but a few life-changing experiences, chances are not only you’ll change your life, but you’ll end up enhancing the life of many people around you.

P.S. If you haven’t read The Immortal, go buy The Aleph by Borges.

1. Vancouver, Canada
2. Vienna, Austria
3. Melbourne, Australia
4. Toronto, Canada
5. Perth, Australia
6. Calgary, Canada
7. Helsinki, Finland
8. Geneva, Switzerland
9. Sydney, Australia
10. Zurich, Switzerland

I’m finding the Mercer’s 2009 Quality of Living survey much more useful as it provides a special ranking for hubs with the best infrastructure. Note that Mercer’ survey is meant to be used as a comparison tool to determine compensation packages for companies with personnel abroad. Yet, as usual, it is fun to make a list of the cities where you would want to live next, right?

Here are the Top 5 cities in each region, according to the Mercer survey:

But before I repost an abstract of their model it is worth revisiting where this quest comes from: in give up your urban “devil” I suggest that some sort of experimentation is needed for the global citizen to learn of other life-styles… experimentation as in trying various ‘experiences’.

Here is a list of the elements of meaningful experiences and how I see them applied to the notion of exploring global cultures:

• Individuality: how unique and extraordinary a product is. One of the key drivers to explore a Global Culture is the realization that unless we are careful to orchestrate our life-styles according to the highest standards, it is too easy to fall into the common place that groups the majority of people living in large urban centres. The quest to learn about how other people (usually small, unique groups) are finding better ways to conduct their lives without giving up important advances in society/culture/technology is what motivates many global citizens to keep moving.
• Authenticity: reflects the existing lifestyle and culture of the region. In direct opposition to a staged experience, the discerning traveller is often frustrated by elements revealing the orchestration behind the scenes. A daring traveller will often prefer to struggle a little to figure things out and ‘get’ an authentic treatment from the locals than be given a show devoid of challenges, digested for the faint of heart.
• Story: A credible and authentic story gives the product a social significance and content. I’ve recently started to discuss the fact that the best way to engage potential travellers into an experience is by immersing them into the ongoing story, narrated with all the artifacts of modern technologies (blogs, videos, photos, locals tweeting, etc). The more a person is exposed to the real thing before travel time, the more likely the experience will render the personal transformation expected instead of becoming a collection of awkward, unforeseen circumstances that kill spontaneity.
• Multi-sensory perception: see my previous post on memorable experiences.
• Contrast: means how different the experience is from the customer’s everyday life. In the context of immersing yourself into another culture, the degree of contrast may play against you. After all, you’re trying to decide if you could live this life. If everything was too different to what you’re used to, chances are you won’t want it. However, it is safe to assume that the ideal life-style you’re looking for must be different to the one you have today, otherwise why would you had started the quest in the first place.
• Interaction: I’m convinced that an important element in creating these experiences is the possibility of maintaining your usual connections with your professional realm. This is important because we’re seeing how much we can change your context and maintain that thing that makes you valuable to society… then applying that to your new context.

The T4 blog is all about a technology that helps small, independent tour operators to embrace the same technologies that other larger entities have without incurring in the burden of implementing it. I believe many of the same concepts and much of the technology can be leveraged to create far more complex experiences that span several suppliers. Ultimately we are trying to give people access to many of the elements that would create an entire life-style for a specific period of time in order to give them a shot at
becoming global citizens.

HOME is a film by Yann Arthus-Bertrand, produced by Luc Beson

HOME is an ode to the planet’s beauty and its delicate harmony. Through the landscapes of 54 countries captured from above, Yann Arthus-Bertrand takes us on an unique journey all around the planet, to contemplate it and to understand it. But HOME is more than a documentary with a message, it is a magnificent movie in its own right. Every breathtaking shot shows the Earth – our Earth – as we have never seen it before. Every image shows the Earth’s treasures we are destroying and all the wonders we can still preserve. “From the sky, there’s less need for explanations”. Our vision becomes more immediate, intuitive and emotional. HOME has an impact on anyone who sees it. It awakens in us the awareness that is needed to change the way we see the world. (HOME embraces the major ecological issues that confront us and shows how everything on our planet is interconnected.)

A stunning film showing us our planet and its people from an angle that doesn’t need explanations, it is released today to commemorate World Environment Day and distributed through every possible channel (theatres, dvd’s, tv, internet) free of charge.

It is perhaps a sign that Monocle’s #24 romanticizes the idea of agro as a fundamental human activity that would restore the soul or our society by getting closer to the people that make a living from farming. While the same formula is often cited by advocates of organic produce, Monocle’s article seems to be more focused on the art of living a simple life and be productive at the same time. I say it must be a sign because just a few days ago I was using the concept of agro-tourism (as developed in Italy) as a prime example of how people seek to immerse themselves into a lifestyle that seems to be disappearing as urban centres advance.

I too, while trying to refine this idea, assumed that if we could send a few people over to the rural landscape, the environment would work its magic, their soul would be cleansed and they would have the experience of their life. But something seems to be missing from this assumption.

If you’ve spent a week at a villa/farm in Europe, sipping a cup of coffee while watching the men and women of the town work the fields and bring fresh produce to the table, only to spend three hours on a slow-food feast, proud of how in touch with humanity you are, you’ve got to realize you’re still an spectator and the whole experience is a bit foreign. Yes, maybe they invited you pick your own fruit from the tree, but would you consider trading your current lifestyle for this? Would you work the fields from dawn to dusk to have a quiet evening and a light dinner?

This tension between our urban self and our “gaia” consciousness is a complex one and has developed already many traumas on simple people trying to do the right thing. It may be tempting to give up our urban “devil” and enlist in some new form of commune. But for most of us that experience will not last.

As with many other problems, the key may be in experimentation: what if you could try alternate lifestyles for a short while? Maybe farming is not going to cut it, but helping a community in need develop advanced social programs tapping into your urban skills may be your call. If you could try not one but a few life-changing experiences, chances are not only you’ll change your life, but you’ll end up enhancing the life of many people around you.

You can only become a global citizen by living like other citizens around the globe.

Courtesy TECchris @ Twitter

Our species’ survival depends on how fast we embrace the moral shift from “patriot” to “global citizen”. Chris Anderson.

Reminded me of a key post in the evolution of this blog: cosmopolitanism (or the implosion of nationalism)