Well, the best laid plans of mice and men....
I will save you the specifics, however the exigencies of the office demand that I again shed whatever self-respect I have accumulated and suffer the indignities of domestic U.S. air travel for a quick business trip in San Jose.
For those of you who are keeping score (or keeping me honest), I had promised in October to use virtual meeting technologies as a substitute for live meetings, which I have successfully done on no less than eight occasions over the last two months, preventing environment damaging, time consuming and esteem sapping travel. I have presented to small and large teams using web collaboration tools, video-conferences, and virtual worlds with successful results.
There does appear, however, to be a strong correlation between the seniority of the meeting attendees and the necessity to attend in person. I will be briefing some senior executives tomorrow at my own company as well as a strategic partner of ours on Tuesday in San Jose, thus I have been unsuccessful in accomplishing my goal of not traveling any more for CY07, and that means......
The Nature Conservancy has received an early Christmas present of $1,000, as promised, for me violating my pledge not to travel. To further make their Christmas holiday a special one, it turns out that TNC is one of the approved charities on Cisco's gift-matching program, so they received an additional 'k' from my esteemed employer.
They will, no doubt, find good use in their excellent programs and research. Hopefully enough to offset any emissions I create tomorrow on United Airlines.
It's too bad that the streak had to end, but at least the Nature Conservancy will benefit.
Reading your posts on reducing your travel has made me think about my own habits.
Hopefully I'll be able to try something like this on my own in the new year.
Safe travels!
Posted by: Aaron Uhrmacher | December 09, 2007 at 10:27 PM
Just wanted to send a heartfelt thanks from The Nature Conservancy. We really appreciate your generous gift and the steps you're taking to change your daily habits. Our website, nature.org, just highlighted this interview with one of our scientists trying to combat climate change in China and I thought you might find it interesting. Thanks again and keep up the good work! Sue
(http://www.nature.org/wherewework/asiapacific/china/features/glacier.html)
Posted by: Sue C. from The Nature Conservancy | December 11, 2007 at 07:57 PM