As the
Phillies won the
2008 World Series, the baseball tour this year was to
Philadelphia. It was a great tour. Four of us travelled out from Heathrow and met up with two more of the guys who'd spent the previous few days watching baseball in New York and travelled down and meet us. The ballpark was great and we saw the last four Phillies games of the season. Unfortunately, the Phillies had won the pennant the night before, so we missed those celebrations, but we were there for the last game of the season - which the Phillies won - complete with fireworks and plenty of give-aways.
Philadelphia is a great city. Older than you'd expect for the US, and we stayed in one of the oldest buildings in town - the
Alexander Inn - pretty central in downtown. The hotel was very comfortable, good sized rooms, a great price and with a very friendly staff. Should I ever return to Philadelphia it's where I'd stay.
As is tradition, I took an open-top bus tour of the city, and also did a fair amount of walking - not something you can do in many US cities. Naturally, I ran up the
'Rocky' steps in front of the Museum of Art, although it is a little disappointing that the 'Rocky' statue has been relegated to a spot at the bottom of the steps under some trees. The statue was donated to the city after the filming had ended and it took pride of place in front of the Museum for a few years until the city luminaries decided it wasn't really art and needed to be moved. So it was moved to elsewhere in Philadelphia. Unfortunately, there followed a big decline in visitors to the Museum and so eventually the City came to its senses and the statue was moved back.
Of course, we had
Philly Cheesesteak - at
Jim's Steaks on
South Street, which is probably the most famous 'restaurant' in Philadelphia. Huge queues, moving slowly through the restaurant, just like at a London Pie and Mash. In fact, it was just like a
Pie and Mash shop. Only instead of "pie, mash and liquor please" it was "Wizz, With, please".
The main evening hang out was
Dirty Frank's Bar just round the corner from the hotel. An old Prohibition era dive bar, which had no name outside it, was filthy dirty and is only called 'Frank's' because of the murals painted on the outside walls - all of which as famous Frank's (Sinatra, Frankenstein and so on). However, it was a bar full of character, full of characters.
So, with the New York Yankees winning the 2009 World Series, we need to decide where we go on tour. It won't be NY as we've already been there. But we will need to see the Yankees. That's a tour rule.
When will technologists stop arguing amongst themselves about which platform is best, and start to think about what is going to be best for users? When will technologists realise their platforms are a means to an end, not an end in themselves? 
I spent a fair amount of time thinking about digital futures. I have recently been looking at the take up of social media in the organisation where I work. In the early days of social media, people used to talk about 95% of people reading, 5% of people contributing and 0.1% of people originating. However, as social media have matured and found its place in many organisations, I think we need to re-think this. I witness a fair proportion of people who simply don't engage at all. Look at Facebook. How many people do you know who have "no friends", or who signed up once and never went back, or just can;t be bothered? And who never read a blog. Or don't really know what Twitter is. Or Wikipedia. It's not that they don't have the technology - the traditional Digital Divide - it's more that they don't see any need to engage. There's nothing in it for them. Translate that into the workplace and you can quickly see how the 'transformational effects' many commentators say will come from these services may take a little longer to deliver than we think.
As the Phillies won the 2008 World Series, the baseball tour this year was to Philadelphia. It was a great tour. Four of us travelled out from Heathrow and met up with two more of the guys who'd spent the previous few days watching baseball in New York and travelled down and meet us. The ballpark was great and we saw the last four Phillies games of the season. Unfortunately, the Phillies had won the pennant the night before, so we missed those celebrations, but we were there for the last game of the season - which the Phillies won - complete with fireworks and plenty of give-aways. 
I've had the new Thorn Audax bike for a few weeks now and have put about 500 miles on it. It's a beautiful ride. Smooth and comfortable, and you can really feel the quality in the components. The braking is impressive and the gear changes wonderfully smooth. And it's faster than I expected for a steel bike, with wider tyres than my normal road bike.
Now the weather has turned, it is time to put the Tiger away until the Spring. Before then however, a group of us drove the Kent countryside down to Deal for breakfast on the pier. Beautiful weather, some great driving and a pretty decent breakfast made for a fun morning. In fact, the breakfast was huge - as you can see in the photo.
Borough market has become one of my favourite places. Full of character, full of life, full of good food. Quality food. Food like it should be. Food like it used to be.
