photo: CC // racketrx

I was looking for some sort of reset button for my life and found it here in Hawaii.

Six summers ago, I was actually living here in Waikiki.

Completely burnt out and hung over from five insanely fast years in Shanghai.

I wanted a place I could just stay still in for a while as the rest of my life caught up to where I had been and where I was going.

I was looking for some sort of reset button for my life and found it here in Hawaii.

Then events in my life pulled me away from this island before I was ready to go.

Yet emotionally I never really left. I know this from the sense of place I feel each time I visit.

And I've visited about 9 times in the last year and a half alone.

So I think it was only a matter of time until I found my way back again.

And while I still have yet to pick up the tangible pieces of my life and ship them over here in the coming months…

In my mind, I've already moved back.

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Life has always had a way of getting me to where I want to be -- but only when I'm ready to appreciate where I'm going by accepting where I had to go first in order to get there.

I know that doesn't make sense. But neither do a lot of things when we first come across it for the first time. :)

Those of you who know me can say that you're not surprised. This move back to Hawaii is 5 years in the making.

...and with that, there's some good people downstairs who've taken the time out to share an amazing week with me.

I'll explain more later. In the meantime. Get ready to rethink everything. :)

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Don't knock it until you try it.

And if you try it and still don't like it

...then give it to me, I'll finish it.

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photo courtesy of Pacific Aviation Musem

A core part of what makes GeeksOnAPlane tours memorable are the access to places we don't often get to see and the shared experiences we don't often have time for in our day to day environments. It kind of takes me back to the days of school field trips where you wake up super excited because you just know it's going to be a cooler day because it's different from every other day.

In less than 5 months, Dave McClure has convinced a group of entrepreneurs and investors to drop their routine in exchange for a bit of trust that he know's what's good for them. Some of these shared experiences off the top of my head:

• Fast pitches from Japanese startups in a basement bar in Tokyo.
• A bunch of geeks tweeting and twitpic'ng their way up a climb on the Great Wall of China.
• After party in Shanghai with Halle Barry and Clive Owens
• Landing in Shanghai and frantically reserving our Facebook vanity names while waiting for our luggage.
• Bringing a Silicon Valley voice to the White House to spark immigration reform in support of innovation
• An action packed schedule via planes, trains and buses in different cities throughout Europe

What you see is an orchestrated series of events planned well in advance. What really takes place in the planning is a chaotic itinerary often thrown together, edited and added to right up to the last minute. GeeksOnAPlane Hawaii is no exception and we've learned to embrace this as part of the DNA of what makes this worth doing. Why? Because trust me. What finally results are all the conversations, connections and friendships formed in between the stuff that's scheduled in, tweeted, blogged, filmed and shared.

So having said that... really appreciated the Pacific Aviation Musem in Pearl Harbor reaching out to us for an insiders tour of their museum at Ford Island. Thanks to the awesome Anne Murata for understanding "geeks on a budget" and inviting us to another opportunity to get together for a shared experience we're looking forward to. I don't know about you, but having cocktails under the wings of a B-25 Bomber after touring a battlefield hangar and stepping off a flight simulator sounds pretty "GOAPy" to me.

Stay tuned!

Update: GOAP Hawaii was awesome. Enough said. See for yourself here.

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I spent an amazing 10 days in Hawaii back in June for the Hawaii Tourism Authority that gave me a chance to go beyond the beautiful brochure version of the islands and see and share it from a perspective that only those who live there could share. I met some really amazing people there who I now call good friends.

I flew back to LA and was still in love with Hawaii when 3 days later I threw my stuff back in a suitcase and set off on a whirlwind 10 day sleep deprived GeeksOnAPlane tour of Tokyo, Beijing and Shanghai with a group of amazing tech investors and entrepreneurs that I had helped Dave McClure co-organize. By the time we got to our last city, Shanghai, we all were friends thanks to conversations in a Tokyo subway, on buses stuck in Beijing traffic, in an afterparty following Startup2Startup, on a dance floor in Shanghai, a geek trek to the Great Wall of China, Barcamp Shanghai, TEDxShanghai and a lot of shared meals, conferences and meetups in between.

A month later, I attended my first TED conference and they’re not kidding when they say it’s a life changing event.  TED takes that a step further by bringing together people from different countries, sectors and areas of expertise …the conversations and connections I made during those 4 days in Oxford were amazing. So much so, I spent 10 hours on a flight back to Los Angeles …rethinking every aspect of my life. I know you've been there. If you haven't, then you will and be sure to let me know when you do.

Making real connections. I don’t think experiences like this should be reserved for chance conversations in the hallway of conferences already scheduled. Nor do I think we can sustain our need for a shared experience with each other via tweets or comments left in an archived blog post or passing Facebook newsfeed.

Then there are times when you want to disconnect altogether. If only for a few hours. Hawaii has a way of doing that to me each time I visit. I wanted to create an experience that would allow my friends some time to do the same.

As we go into the final stretch of 2009 with 2010 around the corner, the goal is simple.

At the core of this, it's about bringing good people together.  On the surface, we all bring a level of experience and expertise to share with each other. It's a week where good people and ideas will intersect technology, sustainability and entrepreneurship. Conversations will be sparked. Partnerships will form. Projects will develop. Yes. I know. Hawaii. It may be hard to put on the line item of an expense report. But then again, that's not how this started to begin with. I hope this makes sense.

When good people get together, great things happen. <--- really. this is what it's all about..

...see ya next week Hawaii.

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