I’m bad at blogging while on vacation – the swich in my head for blogging goes off, which explains two weeks of zero posts.

However it’d be nice if I got the hang of explaining before I disapear – a note to self for next time.

Quick report:

• Australia rocks. We had a great time in Sydney, Melbourne & Carins. People were friendly, happy and clever and it was great fun talking, touring and eating great food (which was everywhere). The culture struck me as a mix of European attitudes and American culture: people get style, the arts, and respect the good life (values I associate with Europe) but Australians have less pretension and happier dispositions than most Western countries I’ve been to. At least that’s what I observed in my two weeks there.
• Averaged 20+ people per class. It wasn’t all vacation: taught a class on project management for a day in 3 different cities (Sydney, Melbourne, Canberra) hosted by the good folks at Step two designs. Had good, interactive groups and I learned a few things myself. James, Kim, Cairo and Patrick from Step two were excellent hosts and took care of everything.
• Picked up some great lingo: breakky is breakfast, a dag is a funny person, “dogs balls” means obvious, and Woolys is Woolworths. (Why does American slang seem suddenly so dull?)

I have a few more speaking gigs this year, but my primary focus is wrapping up the book. More on the survey results, prize winners, and the book itself soon. Glad to be back!