March 2009 Archives

Who doesn't like a good game of trivia? It's a fine test of knowledge and a good distraction from life's everyday aches and pains. So, let's play Travel Trivial Pursuit.

Do you know which city in the world is the most expensive for business travel? Which U.S. city is the most expensive for eating? And just what is the average daily cost of a domestic business trip (excluding airfare)? Are you beginning to feel like we are playing "Jeopardy" (please give your answer in the form of a question) instead of Trivial Pursuit? Patience, dear reader. The answers to all of the above questions, courtesy of the Corporate Travel Index 2009 published by Business Travel News, follow.

If you are a foodie, you will be leaving your wallet alongside your heart in San Francisco. It's the priciest place in the country to chow down, with a meal per diem of $137.48.* New York ranks second in the food category at $130.98. On the international scale, Amsterdam is #1 at $237 for meals, followed closely by Paris. If you put San Francisco on the list of international cities, it would only rank #30 in terms of daily food expense.

In this new day and age of budget-consciousness and money-under-the-mattress scenarios, many people are ruing past purchases. Did I really need that mink coat? Did I really need to add that $50,000 game room to my house? With apologies to our struggling U.S. automakers, did I really need to purchase a Hummer when a Honda would have been sufficient, not to mention more energy efficient?

Now, Jane, being the cautious type, has bought none of the above. Jane, you see, is not an accumulator of stuff, but rather of experiences. While she rarely spends her hard-earned money lavishly, when she does so, she does so on travel.

When senators and representatives are tweeting while the President is giving his non-State of the Union speech, you know a tipping point has been reached. No, dear readers, Congress was not starting a trend by whistling at the President during his talk. Rather, members were using a messaging service created by a company named Twitter to communicate, presumably, to their constituents. Those messages, sent via Twitter, are the "tweets."

A tweet is a 140-character note delivered to a cell phone or a computer via Twitter.com. That's the length of this sentence & the 1 before. (Take Jane's word for it). To keep things short, one must be creative in the use of #s, &s, and improper spelling--like "R U going 2nite?"

Dale Carnegie was the original Tony Robbins, without the fake tan and the big teeth (at least Jane believes that to be true--she's never actually seen a picture of Dale Carnegie). For more than 70 years, Carnegie's time-tested How to Win Friends & Influence People has been a bible for those looking to succeed in business. As tough times are good times to step back and re-assess what works in the business world, Jane picked up her copy of HTWF&IP and plucked out some old-fashioned but never out-dated wisdom to share with you, her dear readers.