Over the last three months, I have traveled to LA, San Francisco, Las Vegas, New York, Boston, Philadelphia, Detroit, Cleveland, Columbus, Dayton, Cincinnati, Kansas City, Indianapolis, St. Louis, Sioux Falls, Fargo, Minneapolis, Chicago, Wichita, and Hutchinson, KS.  My travels have involved many airports and one very long road trip that was sponsored by the Buick Division of GM in support of the #140Conf Detroit.

While the idea of business travel is nothing revolutionary, I've made a conscious effort to track and be more aware of how I can be productive, stay on track with managing and supporting clients, and enjoy the adventures of business and personal travel.

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The Benjamin Franklin Bridge, Philadelphia

Work.  Create. Observe.  Absorb.  Rest.

Constantly changing environments, I try to stay focused on architecture, the colors and of the materials that are used in the homes and commercial buildings, and how people use public transportation.  I try to tune out the suburbs and the homogenous elements that have taken over our country when every Bed, Bath & Beyond, Best Buy and Starbucks starts to all blend and look the same across the U.S.

My camera is a way to not only track my memories, but makes me adjust my internal lenses so I can see the places I am traveling to from the perspective of my normal eyes and the other set of eyes my camera has.  Disciplining myself to shoot while on the run, it helps me focus (literally) and sharpens my critical thinking.

When in an urban area like New York, Boston or San Francisco, I love to walk.

 And when I walk I will try to walk for two hours, and then stop at an Apple Store or Starbucks, or in the case of many places in New York City, find an open park with free WiFi so I can handle inbound and outbound emails and work in progress.  I will often walk for two hours and then stop to work for two hours.  Along the way when walking, I still check email, return phone calls, or do conference calls en route.  Even with some of the challenges of having quality cell phone coverage with an iPhone, my voice and data work gets done.

I find myself going back to my hotel around 4 or 5 PM and either taking a nap or just laying down with no phone, no computer, no TV.  I unplug and I rest.  I am finding that resting clears my head after having a rush of walking and absorbing the vibe of a city and lets me reflect.  I feel refreshed when I wake up and and then ready for meeting clients or friends for dinner. 

As I write this post, it's 9:40 AM EST in New York City.  I purposely scheduled no meetings and no phone calls until 11:30 AM today so I could clear my tasks list and begin thinking of my week ahead which will take me to Hutchinson, KS and then back home to San Antonio on Tuesday.

This travel cycle is two weeks.  I'm home for one week, and then back one for one more, with other travel scheduled through the end of the year.

Depending on what you do, if you are able to travel and combine work with your personal passions, I strongly encourage you to do as much of it as you can.  If you have a flexible schedule, be open to out of the way stops.  Driving from Detroit to New Jersey, we stopped at the Martin Guitar for a factory tour.  You don't have to be into music or guitar playing to stop at a place like this.  They have an amazing history museum where you can see many of the guitars played by greats like Elvis, Roy Rogers, and Paul McCartney.  

It helps me connect and build new relationships, expand my sphere of contacts and most of all refreshes my outlook on the world.  

I'm blessed by these opportunities to not only earn a living doing what I do, but more importantly, to meet and connect with some very interesting and kind people who welcome me into their offices, and often times their home.

Many of us are reinventing ourselves.  Last night at ShowStoppers Digital Holidays I ran into journalists like Bill Howard and Robin Raskin who I had not seen in years.  They too are reinventing journalism and innovating the future of media.  Even with all the changes that are going on in the world of media, they are at heart, story tellers.

I'd love to hear your story about your travels, your reinvention, and how you stay productive on the road.

All photos by Alan Weinkrantz.  Thank you Bob Jagendorf for helping me become a better photographer.

Calling Ted Cohen a Rock Star is an understatement.  I had a chance to catch up with him backstage during the #140Conf Boston.

He may not have played in a famous band, but he's been very much a part of the evolution of some of the greatest names in music history including Prince, Van Halen, The Ramones, The Pretenders, The Doobie Brothers, Coldplay, Van Morrison, Santana, Dave Matthews, The Rolling Stones, and many others.

Check out his complete biography and deep ties into the music industry here.

It's No Longer about Ownership; It's About Access

Ted's take is that you are not going to fill up your iPod with 100,000 songs at a cost of $1.00 each.  He sees the next phase of the music and entertainment industry as a whole as shifting to a subscription service where having access service replaces product.  Adding to the value proposition is the curation, recommendation, personalization and editorial adds to the value by the service provider.

The video is a little over 6 minutes long.  

Turn up the volume, listen to it twice and takes serious notes.

Read Ted's Lips:  

Curation. Recommendation. And Discovery.

In advance of tomorrow's #140Conf Boston, friends gathered at The Landsdowne to not only have TweetUp before tomorrow's event officially gets under way, but to also sing "Happy Birthday' to Jeff Pulver himself.

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My evening actually started on the Boston Subway, en route to the event.  I was wearing a Twitter T-shirt and someone came up to me and asked if I was going to Jeff's event.  I met Podcast Consultant, Adam Weiss and spent a few minutes in transit and then walking over to the event catching up with what he's been up to.  It's always amazing to follow someone like Adam for years, have a sense of his persona, and only to have him come to life - totally by serendipity in a subway.

I had a chance to see visit and connect with Jeff Pulver (of course), Chris Brogan, Julien Smith, and someone who just moved back from Japan, Lisa Petro, who is about to embark on a very ambitious and bold plan to break international and educational barriers through KnowMyWorld.org.  I connected with Maya Paveza, who goes under the moniker of @mayaREguru - real estate expert and really nice person who offered me a ride in the morning to the Back Bay Conference Center.   

Startups are vibrant.

 Pierre-Loic Assayag's Traackr, merits a serious look if you want to do serious measurement of online influence.   

Need a great hotel in Boston who gets and is part of the social media community in Boston?  Oh yeah - meet Christopher Lynn, Director of Sales and Marketing at the Colonnade Hotel, which was also one of the sponsors of the #140Conf Boston.  I met a very forward thinking printer, Keith Spiro, who is combining SEO and Social Media with good old / old school printing.  One delightful surprise was Lane Sutton the 13 year old entrepreneur who I covered in a short video interview for the #140Conf Blog. And finally, there was Peter Weissenstein, who played a vital role in remotely guiding us through Chicago traffic during the recent #140Conf Road Trip. 

This is just a cross section of wonderful people that you will be able to hear from and will be in the audience, learning, sharing and giving of their time and most of all, their hearts when #140Conf Boston convenes tomorrow morning.

So far, we have 56 amazing Characters speaking and taking part in the #140Conf Boston which takes place on September 14, 2010.