July 18, 2022 — I just completed three weeks of work travel which, before the pandemic, would have been nothing special. But now it’s the busiest I’ve been in over two years.
It was challenging not only in being away for two out of three weeks, but add in the anxiety of travelling in these pandemic times. A lot of worry about whether I’m taking too much of a calculated risk.
But so far so good. And now I’m home for two months before more travel.
Here’s a story I wrote while on my recent trip to Boston.
The Future of Elevators?
Open the elevator door please Hal.
I’m working a conference here at the Boston Marriott Copley Place. Nice Hotel. And they have a cool new elevator system that I’ve never seen before, but I’m sure it’s gonna become more and more common.
Unlike traditional elevators, you don’t call for a car by pressing an UP or DOWN button. Each elevator lobby has touch-screen terminals, you press your destination floor and the screen responds with the letter of the elevator bank that you will be taking to your floor. A-J in the case of this Marriott.
The idea is that this system smartly allocates riders, to minimize the time waiting and the time spent in an elevator car, instead of stopping at many, basically random, floors.
Based on watching and using the system here for the past 5 days I think it works.
There’s a display over the door and inside each elevator car telling you what floor(s) it is headed for. More often than not my floor has been its only destination. Occasionally there will be two destinations. I’ve only been in a car with more than two destination floors a couple of times all week.
It does take a little getting used to.
When you request your floor you have to remember to keep watching the screen for what elevator you’re gonna ride, and not just absent-mindedly waiting for the “ding”.
And I still step into the elevator and reflexively turn to press my floor’s number on the nonexistent button panel in the car.
Finally, I’m sure that when I’m in the next hotel, with a traditional system, I’m gonna forget, and just stand there waiting for it to smartly take me to my floor all by itself. [GEWF]
Now for a few thoughts on how we lived our lives before the pandemic and now.
First. Second. Third. Fourth?
The Pandemic has changed our sense of place, I think.
I’ve always been fascinated by the community building concept of a person’s First Place, Second Place, and Third Place.
Your First Place is where you live. Second Place is where you work. And Third Place is a public gathering place where you spend social time, like a bar or club of some sort.
The idea is that having a good balance of all three Places make for a satisfying lifestyle.
The Pandemic has kinda messed this up in a couple of ways.
Most obviously, because so many of us spent the past two years working from home. So the difference between the First and Second Places has become confused.
The other mess-up has been, especially during in the first phase of the crisis, we completely stopped visiting our Third Places.
So this whole idea has been going through some adjustment.
But even before the Pandemic this Three Places notion had been evolving. The growth of the “knowledge economy” has resulted in the original three places combining in various ways.
“[Arnault Morisson] argues for the existence of a fourth place. In the knowledge economy, the rise of new social environments is blurring the conventional separation between the first place (home), the second place (work), and the third place. New social environments in the knowledge city can combine elements of the first and second place (coliving); of the second and third place (coworking); and of the first and third place (comingling). Furthermore, the combination of elements of the first, second, and third place in new social environments implies the emergence of a new place, the fourth place.” — Wikipedia
You can read more about these Places in this wikipedia entry. [GEWF]
Finally, this past weekend was the 150th Open Championship of golf on The Old Course at St Andrews Scotland. It’s a big deal.
But it got me to thinking about one mundane thing. Regarding a controversy that’s raging in pro golf lately: “LIV Golf”. Specifically, its pronunciation?
As a one-time, big fan of professional golf I wanna say that this LIV Invitational Golf Series seems like a pretty bad idea. But I am curious how it's supposed to be pronounced? "Fifty Four Golf"? "Ell Eye Vee golf"? Something else?
That’s it. Until next time.
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