Few will argue that there's nothing to do in London, but I've found it hard to discover things that won't leave me meandering around crowds of tourists and locals alike.  I've only been in London for a few months, but if you're looking for some slightly but not completely beaten path activities, here's what I've found.

Hyde Park Boot Camp and Midnight Runners - Start off your Saturday or Sunday at Hyde Park with an hour of butt whipping with Coach David Evans (RSVP for free | Facebook).  Alternatively, if you're a night owl, join the Midnight Runners on Tuesdays for a 10km run, interspersed with body weight exercises at London landmarks, around the Thames.  Did I mention they carry backpack speakers that blast music to inspire and jiggle? Oh, and it's all free too (Facebook).

Magnificent 7 Cemeteries of London - What better to complement the ever dark London weather than with a trip to London's cemeteries?  Originally created in the 1800s due to the limited space in London to accommodate all the extra bodies, the Magnificent 7 will take you through suburban London (for more history and details, check out Insider London's post).  Start off with Highgate Cemetery, the resting place of Karl Marx.  It's also located right next to Hampstead Heath, so take a stroll up to the top of Parliament Hill and get yourself a view of the London skyline.

Cable Car from Greenwich - For £3.50 on an Oyster card, you can find yourself on the Emirates Air Line crossing over the Thames.  It normally takes 10 minutes to do the crossing between Greenwich Peninsula and the Royal Docks, but if you go after 7PM the cars slow down so you have a few extra minutes to enjoy the night landscape.  It's not the easiest place to get to, but then it wouldn't be off the beaten path.

Maltby Market - I hesitated to put Maltby on the list as it's becoming just as crowded as Borough Market. However, since it's open air, if you toughen up and head there when the weather's ominous, the crowd will be minimal.  From German sausages to indulgent brownies to craft beers, Maltby will have whatever you need to get your weekend fix (Facebook).

Cross-posted: Huffington Post

With classes already ended and graduation looming, I wanted to reflect on the lessons that have impacted me the most in the past two years. I can write about all the things I've learned in the classroom, but that would be pedantic. Besides, I think this wonderful journey has taught me more through experience than through pedagogy.

Here are a few, and certainly not the only, takeaways from my cumulative experiences:

• I've learned to recognize my limitations so I know where, when, and how to push myself. Without this awareness, it becomes too easy to either let hubris take over or complacency settle in like an unwanted house guest. 

• I've learned to be honest with myself about why I'm doing what I'm doing. This doesn't mean what I'm doing is right. It doesn't mean it's ethical. It just means I recognize the motivations behind my actions - be it fear, pride, greed, or something else. I think this is important because it ensures the path I take is deliberate even if my destination is unclear. It means I won't wake up one day to find myself accidentally living life aimlessly.

• I've learned that being the hare or being the tortoise isn't enough. I have to be both. Life is a series of sprints, jogs, walks, and the occasional naps. Since high school I've been sprinting and by the end of my first year at HBS I was running out of breath. I took my second year to catch up - inhale, exhale. It gave me the opportunity to reflect - and I mean really reflect - the deep kind of reflection that you can't get just from taking a selfie. I took a stroll through memory lane all the way from elementary school through high school to college and now as I wrap up my remaining days at grad school. This self-discovery has opened up more questions - Am I becoming too productive at the wrong things? Do I project the right meaning to obstacles? What motivates me and is that sustainable? 

• I've learned to be selfish in the service of others. This isn't as oxymoronic as it sounds. Various research have shown that expressing gratitude and leaving kindness in your footsteps make us happier people. By being present and through gestures as simple as saying thank you, I've found myself more content, relaxed, and satisfied with every breath.

• I've learned to trust my intuition and to act even when I'm unsure of my ability. Prior to launching and shutting down a little venture called Zest and before jumping headfirst into a start-up in Zambia there wasn't anything in particular that pushed me in those directions other than the feeling that "this is what I want to do even though I have no idea what to do." As Jobs once said, let the vision pull you. Hey, things worked out.  Even if they didn't I'm sure Earth would have kept spinning and the sun would have risen once again.

• I've learned that the glass is half full, half empty, and completely overfilling. What's been instilled in me is that framing is everything - in business and in life. Importantly, I've learned to take over the driver's seat in terms of deciding which frame to take - turning obstacles into "I'm gonna kick your ***" challenges and failures into "oops, that's what that button does, let's push the other one" situations.  I have no permanent regrets - just short term regrets where I've taken time to reflect, figured out what went wrong or right, and moved on to creating a better version of myself. Taking the "silver lining" perspective doesn't make me an optimist, it just allows me to move forward rather than linger on in the past.

Cross-posted: Huffington Post

(This post is a summary of an independent project completed at Harvard Business School. Click here for the complete paper. The Burberry example is purely hypothetical.)

Apple’s iBeacon, a location positioning system based on Bluetooth low energy technology, made the use of consumers’ location in companies’ marketing activities more prevalent. However, most documented uses of iBeacon and other similar systems have been focused on pushing marketing and sales promotions to consumers. Besides this, retailers have otherwise played a passive role, waiting for consumers to act on the promotional offers.

But imagine the scenario where consumers' location data is used to notify sales staff instead of pushing potentially annoying and irrelevant promotions to consumers:  

You are on your way to your favorite luxury clothing retailer, Burberry, to buy a gift for your significant other’s birthday. As you enter the Burberry store, your smartphone informs the Burberry sales staff (via their iPads) that you are in the store.  

Upon notification, the sales staff can see your past Burberry purchases online and in-store and your interests based on your activity on Burberry.com (e.g. Burberry items you viewed, items in your online Burberry shopping cart, etc.).  From this information, the sales staff noticed that you were viewing products under “Gifts for Him/Her.”  

The sales staff member greets you by name, introduces him/herself, and says that based on the information in your Burberry profile, you’re searching for a gift for someone and asks if s/he can help you with recommendations. 

After selecting the gift for your significant other, the sales staff tells you that the newest version of the scarf you purchased last year just arrived and asks if you want to view it. In addition, the sales staff invites you to an invitational-only Burberry event next Friday.

In a generalized version of the above scenario, luxury retailers’ sales staff can use the knowledge that a high value customer is in the store, in combination with data on the customer’s historical shopping behavior, to provide an enhanced in-store experience. In turn, this could lead to opportunities to cross-sell, up-sell, or simply increase the size of the customer’s purchase basket. However, can concerns over privacy be a showstopper? Past research have shown that consumers are willing to give up information in return for personalized online services, but few have looked at this topic from an in-store perspective.  

Preliminary data from a survey of ~200 consumers showed that while there are similarities in the results between consumers’ sensitivity towards on- and off-line privacy, there are also differences as well. Like their online counterparts, respondents’ answers showed that past negative experiences led to lower willingness to share and higher concerns about sharing their information. Furthermore, respondents’ frequency of mobile shopping, retailers’ use of trust-building mechanisms (i.e. transparent data collection policies and third party privacy safeguards), and the perceived value of the personalized services all led to increased comfort with sharing information.   

However, unlike in the online realm, traditional trust-building mechanisms were not sufficient to mitigate respondents’ concerns in sharing their personally identifiable information. It appears that only personal experience with the retailer (e.g. having made a previous purchase) decreased respondents’ concerns, and increased their willingness, in sharing their personal information. Male respondents also tended towards having lower concerns and higher willingness to share in return for personalized experiences. Regardless of gender, these results suggest that retailers that require personally identifiable information need to begin by focusing on generating consumers’ trust through first time purchases or other types of trust-building interactions prior to offering any personalization based on other data sources.

As retailers move towards refreshing their POS systems and unifying their commerce platforms they need to consider the data architecture required to support in-store personalized services and the IT infrastructure needed to ameliorate consumers’ privacy concerns. Not all their customers will share the same level of sensitivity towards their information, and even within an individual that sensitivity will vary across different types of information. Responsive retailers that develop the flexibility to adapt to each customer’s privacy sensitivity will be better situated to capture and deliver value to customers who want the personalized service and avoid the negative PR backlash from those who don’t.  

Cross-posted: LinkedIn | Huffington Post

This past weekend was the 20^th Cyberposium, an annual conference bringing together CEOs, CTOs, founders, and entrepreneurs to drive forward the discussion on the intersection of technology and media with business and society. Few will deny that things move quickly in the world of startups and technology, and this year is no different. From Bitcoins to consumer hardware to the changing nature of venture capital, here’s a short synopsis of some of the things discussed this weekend.

Social Media is Lighting the Way for New Opportunities: Rent the Runway, a Netflix-based model for high end designer dresses, has in part become successful because of the rise in social media. Jennifer Fleiss, co-founder of RTR, recalled her younger sister’s experience in choosing a dress for a wedding – she had a wardrobe full of dresses, but nothing to wear because she’s already been seen in all of them, and the proof was on Facebook! Similarly, Jeremey Allaire, Founder and CEO of Circle, sees a premonition for the future of Bitcoin in the recent history of social media. Just as Facebook has leveled the communications playing field in many countries, Bitcoin will “reduce the cost of transferring value to zero” and make currency control an irrelevant form of state oppression.

MBA Degrees Aren’t Yet Useless: In reference to Bitcoin-related startups, Adam Ludin, Founder and CEO of Chain, says “the first movers were hobbyists” and are not necessarily equipped to turn their startups into sustainable businesses and are in dire need of leadership.  Ludin notes that with Bitcoin, there are plenty of opportunities to dive in given Bitcoin’s interdisciplinary nature, spanning across technology, finance, economics, consumer marketing, enterprise thinking, and startup thinking. In the same vein, Sam Altman, President of Y Combinator, notes that MBAs have the opportunity to add most value when startups are hitting the “upward sloping part of a hyper growth curve” (i.e., they’ve already achieved product-market fit). It’s here where most startups struggle and can benefit from the business development, finance, marketing, and organizational building skills that MBAs bring.

Stay Focus and Be Passionate: Matt Wallach, Co-Founder and President of Veeva Systems, highlights some of the benefits staying focused from the industry cloud perspective – by focusing on an industry vertical, Veeva has been able to create valuable products its enterprise customers are willing to pay top dollars for. Wallach says, the “things you don’t do can be just as important as the things you do.” Similarly, Altman notes that one of the biggest predictor of startup failure is when startups don’t focus on product-market fit, creating products that don’t appeal to its customers. Likewise, passion is equally critical. In short, if your response to the question “Do you plan on working on this full time?” is “I will work on this full time if [XYZ] funds me,” then don’t be surprised if failure is on the horizon.

Cross-posted: VentureFizz | Huffington Post | LinkedIn

With 10 days on the ground in southern Africa, we began our trip with a safari not in Chobe or Kruger, but in Zambia's South Luangwa. It's not the first place most people think of when they picture an African safari. Yet, it's home to a rich set of flora and fauna, and also the origin of the walking safari.

After a nine-hour bus ride from Lusaka to Chipata and another two hours from Chipata to Mfue, we arrived at Jackalberry Safaris on Sunday mid-morning, just barely escaping the oncoming heat of the afternoon. Our accommodations for the next three nights consisted of a tent, a communal bathroom area, and a poolside bar nestled alongside the winter Mfue River.

Continue reading...

Overdue haircut. Overdue shower. Overdue shave. Overdue laundered clothes. Backpackers don't always leave the best impression. Yet, they almost always leave people with a little bit of envy - traveling around the world, meeting new people, learning new cultures, trying new foods, living new experiences. Yes, traveling is about all of these things. But, for me, traveling has also taught me - or reminded me - of lessons that are just as applicable in my daily life as they are when I am on the road. Here are just a few.

Attitude matters.

You can't expect a happy ending or a pleasant journey if you start out behaving like a grumpy old (wo)man. Treat everything as an end in itself. Find love in whatever you are doing. If, instead, you find yourself grumbling about it and notice that your friends don't want to talk to you anymore, then it's time to switch to something new. When I started my Latin America trip, I was sitting on a bench in NYC waiting for the bus to JFK Airport. A subway train passed by overhead, shaking loose idle water and landing it on top of me and my backpack. As I was taking off my backpack to observe the damage, I cut my hand on the edge of one of the backpack straps. Sure it was not the best way to begin a trip, but at least my backpack was now properly christened and ready for two months on the road.

Take the plunge and don't doubt yourself.

Roads fork and so does life. When you have a decision to make, think through your options, pick one, and don't second guess yourself. If you're right, that's great. If you're wrong, find the lesson learned, and move on. Life happens now. I was on a bus heading back to San Salvador and missed my stop. I could have gotten off at the next stop, but decided to take it to the end of the line - what other way was there to get a tour of downtown? Turned out it wasn't one of my best ideas, but at least I got to see a side of the city that I would not have otherwise.

Best stories come from the worst experiences.

It's human nature to like hearing about other people's crappy experiences. Stories of great experiences generate jealousy. You know it. Don't deny it. I thoroughly enjoyed my trek to La Ciudad Perdida, but from my experience, people don't want to hear about the hundreds of stone structures discovered at The Lost City, a stone masonry city that's old enough to be Machu Picchu's great-great-great grandfather. Instead, what elicits the most emotions are the descriptions of the hot and humid Colombian jungle air that left me soaking in my own sweat, and the beds that had soaked in hundreds of other backpackers' own sweat. I can sense your disgust already. 

Nothing is ever final.

If I accepted the first price given to me each time I wanted a taxi or some other good/service, I'll be a backpacker living without the backpack. Negotiate for a higher salary. Bargain for a better deal. Compromise on who does laundry and who takes out the trash.

A smile goes a long way.

It puts people's guards down, even if inside you're secretly thinking about how you're going to manage to pay for the $30 meal you just ate with only $20 in your pocket. Besides, it also does a whole host of positive things for your body - reducing stress levels, lowering blood pressure, making you look younger and sexier without the other person first being inebriated. On my way back to the States from Peru, I missed my connection in El Salvador and had to spend the night there. The airline compensated each passenger with a $200 voucher, but a smile and an hola at the ticket counter got me an extra Benjamin.

Habit creates complacency, but also frees you to do other things.

I get bored easily. That's why you will never find me (when I'm traveling for leisure) in the same city for more than 3-4 days. Blink and I'll be on a bus heading somewhere. But, that doesn't mean I don't like a little bit of routine in my life, just not so much that it puts me in a rut too deep to crawl out. The more "non-essential" things you routinize, the more intellectual horsepower you'll have left for other things. Although I'm not technically in Zambia for leisure, my morning gym routine frees up a period of time when I don't have to worry about anything except to enjoy the peacefulness of the morning sunrise. Then the chaos ensues.

Being uncomfortable is okay, and exhilarating.

Singapore was the first international place I traveled to solo. I still get a little nervous every time I land in a foreign country, especially in the middle of the night. But, at the same time, it reminds me that there is still so much to explore and to learn. Being uncomfortable is a sign that you are living, growing, learning. The moment you feel too comfortable is really the moment you should be sweating your palms about.

You can't control everything.

A crazy bus driver, an out-of-control client, a GPS that takes you to a nuclear power plant when all you want to do is go to the mall. There are things in life that you can control, and things that you cannot. For the former, take charge. For the latter, there's MasterCard. No seriously, just be smart enough to know that it's the latter and stop stressing yourself over it. This includes natural disasters, other persons (e.g., your partner or the guy in the car in front of you who won't turn off his turn signal while driving on a single lane road). 

You don't know everything.

So don't assume anything. This applies to what you think you know about other religions, societies, or cultures just as much as it applies to the people in or out of your life. If you don't know something, go find out, even if it means putting yourself out on a limb. 

Crap will hit the fan. Learn your lesson. Laugh it off. Act now or move on.

Nothing ever happens as you think it will happen inside your self-confined imagination. Things will break down, people will behave unexpectedly, and that is okay, because that is life, not the end of it. Be grateful for the experience.

Material things get in the way of life.

Live uncluttered. If you have too much stuff, follow this chart. If you're considering making a purchase, refer back to the same chart and imagine what category that item will fall in within 6 months' time. A hike on a summer's day requires nothing but a good pair of shoes, a water bottle, and a shopping bag to carry out your garbage. As Trashy the Bear says, "Only you can prevent forest litter."

Cross-posted: Huffington Post | LinkedIn

Quetzaltrekkers is a non-profit and an all volunteer-run group that seeks to build a sustainable way to improve the lives of Guatemalan street children and those at risk of becoming one. Working together with volunteers and highland communities, Quetzaltrekkers offers visitors half a dozen treks to explore Guatemala.

While all the treks offered by Quetzaltrekkers would make any avid trekker start packing, I had limited time and chose to do the three day, two night journey from Quetzaltenango (a.k.a. Xela) to the gorgeous Lago Atitlán.

On day 1 in Xecam, a 15-20 minute bus ride from Xela, we hit the ground running with a charge up to 3050m, the trek's zenith. As we climbed up the "hill," the fruits of our strenuous hike revealed themselves in the form of amazing views of the Xela valley we were leaving behind. Then, we found Alaska, the alpine grass plain that greeted us at the top. The area is so called "Alaska," because...continue reading.

What comes to mind when someone mentions "startups"? The archetypal image of two guys in a garage cranking out a tech-based, soon to be VC-backed startup in Silicon Valley is one of the many myths of the entrepreneurship world that drive away a lot of potential entrepreneurs.

It is apt that the theme of this past Sunday's 11th annual Entrepreneurship Conference focused on rethinking entrepreneurship and breaking the myths that have taken hold in the ecosystem. Though there are many, two myths that surfaced a lot of discussion centered on validating the idea and funding the startup...continue reading.

Many of us go through our everyday lives like the shampoo mantra -- "rinse and repeat." Our lives go on autopilot and are dictated not by deliberate actions, but by short-term tradeoffs based on the immediate pressures we face. More often than not, we make decisions based on short-term thinking -- whether it's (A) deciding between having dinner with a significant other vs. completing a "major" project, (B) choosing to stay in an unsatisfying job vs. taking the risk of a new career, (C) going back to school vs. chasing after your dreams, (D) accepting your weaknesses vs. seeking to improve. We put greater emphasis on the immediate benefits (or losses) and less on the long-term impact of those decisions. Blowing off dinner with a significant other may seem less consequential in the present day than not meeting the client's deadline (a potential immediate firing), but the long-term consequences of these repeated decisions are often unaccounted for -- until it's too late. More fundamentally, we have a bias for the present and for the immediate payoffs. Why is that? My hypothesis is that many of us are low on EQ...continue reading at Huffington Post

Three out of four startups fail. That is a statistic that should make every inspiring entrepreneur pause. Whether it is due to poor management, unfavorable macroeconomics, or simply bad luck, the reasons for failure span across a wide spectrum. However, rather than asking why startups fail, let's take a look at why some startups succeed. After all, don't we always wish there's a silver lining somewhere?

...continue reading on Huffington Post.

Forget about sitting on a beach chair somewhere in the tropics. Bring out the adventurer in you and experience Latin America in a way that few other travelers do. Here are five ways to explore Latin America that will leave you wondering why you've waited so long.

Continue reading on Huffington Post...

Rain check Machu Picchu and challenge yourself this year with a trek to La Ciudad Perdida, The Lost City tucked inside the dense jungles of northern Colombia.

The combination of heat, humidity, and inclines will make the 4-6 day trek very uncomfortable, but rewarding. We started off in the small town of Mamey, where we fueled up on bread, ham, and cheese, because, little did we know at the time, we would need all the energy we could get. We kicked it off with an easy hour's walk. But, in the high humidity of the steamy Colombian jungle, even just standing there caused the body to sweat. Slowly, before the hard part started, my shirt was turning a shade darker as sweat spread into larger concentric circles. Unfortunately, whatever becomes wet in the jungle often stays that way.

Continue reading on Huffington Post...

In a couple of days I'll be kicking off 60-plus days of trekking through Central and South America. Unlike my trips through less tropical climates, I've placed more focus on decreasing the probability of coming back looking like a pin cushion for mosquitoes.

Aside from the uncomfortable itchy and scratchy feeling of mosquito bites, there's the important health component. With dengue fever, filariasis, malaria, eastern equine encephalitis, West Nile virus, mayaro virus, and other arthropod-borne illnesses endemic to certain regions of Central and South America, knowing the basic preventative measures can be a trip -- if not life -- saver...continue reading

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...continue reading

The only moment that is guaranteed to us is now. This very second. Then why do we always find ourselves contemplating about a past that we cannot change or worrying about a future that may not happen? While each of us may have our own nuanced answer to this question, it ultimately boils down to one thing: control.

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...continue reading

In November, Google released the sixth edition of its 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)? Continue...

In the last few years, social media has been the go-to solution for organizations seeking a quick fix for things from raising event attendance to publicizing their latest and greatest. Facebook this, tweet that, YouTube this. But, if the past failures of 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...finish reading on HuffPost