When I say danger, I am not exaggerating. If you are online and geotag your photos you risk being robbed, raped or murdered if you aren't very careful. I do apologise, I don't like having depressing stuff on my blog, but you do need to be a little scared; you do need to consider how you work online. If you value your property and especially your life read on.

So what is Geotagging

Wikipedia describes Geotagging as: the process of adding geographical identification metadata to various media such as photographs, video, websites, or RSS feeds, and a form of geospatial metadata. These data usually consist of latitude and longitude coordinates, though they can also include altitude, bearing, accuracy data, and place names.

That sounds pretty harmless, so what's the problem?

The problem is that people innocently take photos of their home, where they hang out, their friends' places etc, and then upload them up to the web. If your camera saves geo-tag data, as my iPhone does, that information is uploaded with it. We are becoming very social beasts and share our lives on twitter, facebook etc, and unfortunately, that places location data in the hands of potential cyber-stalkers. Having an unlisted number is useless if you do things like this. There are two problems with this. One is that through facebook and twitter etc these people know your habits. And secondly, with geo-tagging, combined with Flickr and Google Street View etc, they know where you do it. Potentially where you live, where you walk the dog, where your kids go to school etc.

Scary ... but what's a Cyber Stalker?

Essentially Cyber Stalking is where one person becomes infatuated with another and starts obsessively following them online. I've had this happen a couple of times and it can be quite scary. Sometimes these people are covert and remain largely silent, other times they will make every attempt to make contact and be noticed. This can be emotionally very stressful, but it becomes physically dangerous when that obsession moves offline, and that is the point of this post. If you geo-tag your photos carelessly you make it so much easier for this to happen. Here are a couple of useful resources for assistance with Cyber Stalking: The National Center For Victims of Crime, and WiredSafety.org

Here are five things you can do to protect yourself

#1. Consider turning off Geotagging in your camera and mobile. Certainly if it asks, "Can I use location data?" don't do so at home or other places you consider 'private'. I wouldn't care too much about it when on holiday for example, and in fact it's quite a cool feature in iPhoto, but I wouldn't use it where my family regularly hang out. #2. Talk to the kids. Make them aware of the danger of this. In fact monitor all your children's online activity and set strict rules around interacting with strangers. #3. If you like this feature, then just don't upload to flickr etc without first stripping the meta data out of the photo. #4. Don't be scared online, but don't be blasé either. Be considered about how people are interacting with you and whether or not they might be a risk. Some of my best friendships are with people I have met over the internet, but you must be careful. #4. Spread the word. Please Please Please. Re-Tweet, Digg, and Stumble this post and let people know about the risks. The more people are aware, and the more we pressure places like Flickr to provide features that protect and/or educate us the safer we will all be. Am I being over zealous? I don't think so, but I'm curious what you think.Step 1 - Spread the word NOW ... Thanks :) Step 2 - Let me and others know what you think, and/or do to stay safe online.

Over the last 6 months or so I've been to France, UK (twice), Australia (3 times), Netherlands, Germany, Switzerland, USA (3 times), and if you are based in New Zealand like me that's a lot of flying. For a lot of people that sounds glamorous, and on occasion it can be, but seriously, the inside of a hotel room in Paris isn't much different from one in Las Vegas and if you don't get out of it you could be anywhere. I've just got back from a course in San Antonio (Texas) and by the time I left I felt like a caged rat. In 8 days I only got outside my hotel 4 times, and that was to cross the road to get some lunch. In February I was in Las Vegas and saw the sky only once in five days and that was to cross the road on our way to dinner.

So what went wrong?

When I go away, I tend to load up with catch-up work to do in the evenings, you know the sort of thing – where you haven't been able to get something off your plate for ages. This time I never even got to do that. The course was 10-12 hours a day, we had a software launch at home I was helping with, and when I did have a spare moment I worked on an ebook I have been writing and want to publish soon.

Let me be a warning to you!

Do that for 8 days, or even worse, once it becomes a way of life, you watch your health deteriorate, your frustration levels rise, your productivity drop and realise there is good reason for being overweight. Not to mention the absence of any fun. It doesn't need to be like that, and last week was certainly a turning point for me. I've been doing this long enough, I should know better.

What should you do instead?

Don't lock yourself in your room. Take time out to discover the city you are in. Some of our staff make sure they plan at least one 'key' experience, whether a special meal or a show. This ensures the travel stays fun and they have wonderful stories to share.

Don't eat in the hotel, and especially room service. Discover your surrounding eateries. Whether it be as simple a visiting the local Whole Foods or  a Thai restaurant, the quality of food will likely be better, healthier and hopefully cheaper. If you can, enjoy the walk there as you will get to see the sights and stretch your legs.

Network. I did get to network with people on the course, at breakfast and over lunch, but from experience I have found spending time over dinner is much more effective for establishing long term relationships. That is when people really unwind, share stories and have fun together. Make sure that on at least some nights you go out and discover the city with your new friends.

Don't over commit. Travel, and the job you have gone to do is work enough. Try to focus and giving this thing 110% of your focus and look after yourself. You will do a much better job there, and be twice as effective when you get home. Having said that, there can be a lot of downtime so make sure you take a good book, your iPod, our some basic work to kill the time.

Use the pool or gym. I know it can be more expensive staying in a hotel with a full gym facility and pool, but it is well worth it. Get up early, do a good 30-60 minutes on the bike or treadmill and you'll have full energy for the day and jet lag will be a thing of the past.

Ignore family. I don't really mean ignore your family, but telling yourself you miss them, and want to be home, is not going to make the trip go any quicker. It's just going to make you miserable. I find this is easier said than done, but you need to focus on the job at hand and keep your thoughts with you. Plan your contact and use services like Skype to stay in touch. Your family should know you love them, and that you will be home safe soon.

Sleep, sleep, sleep. With all the work to be done, the networking completed and the change of time zones, this can be a challenge. But sleep is crucially important to your health, your ability to concentrate and, if you are doing a course like the one I was, then there is a significant link between sleep and learning. My tip for long distance travel is to try to keep normal hours when you get there. Don't be tempted to go to bed at 10 am when you arrive because it's 10 pm at home. Stay up until at least 8-9 pm so you get a good night's sleep. Once you get to around that time, and as soon as that wave of tiredness hits, it should immediately be lights out. If you push on to watch the end of the movie you are going to be up for hours and in real trouble.

Anyway enjoy your travels, be more responsible than I have been, make sure you enjoy yourself and good luck with your travels.

Yesterday I wrote about how not to travel. To be sure, living stupidly out of balance as I've been is damaging to your health, depressing and unsustainable, but working 9 to 5 doesn't seem to work either. Being careful, never putting in extra effort when required, will almost always cause an enterprise to flounder and it's not the making of good "War Stories". In my office is a bookshelf full of business books and autobiographies, and at home I have shelves full of the same. You never read, "Well we started the business, it all went well and I made it home early every night." Instead the stories start with tension, stress, heartache and personal sacrifice.

Being scared and defying the odds is what makes a good story

How about this advert for explorers to join Shackleton's race to the South Pole, a challenge that saw another group, led by Sir Robert Scott, doomed to an icy grave. Incredibly, 5000 people evidently applied to join the team.

"Men wanted for hazardous journey. Low wages, bitter cold, long hours of complete darkness. Safe return doubtful. Honour and recognition in event of success."

You change the world by expecting the unreasonable

I'm not sure what it's like at Apple now, but stories of the development of the first Mac are flavoured with people sleeping under desks, living on pizza and Coke, day in day out, month in month out ... People not just developing a product, but a team hoping to change the world. - Richard Branson didn't build Virgin by just talking about music, or by just talking about a record company, he did it by living his dream day in day out 24/7, even selling music from the boot of his car. He did what he had to do so that one day he and his people would change the world. Sure it was play hard ... but it was also work hard. - Mother Teresa's story is not one of personal comfort, it's one of self sacrifice. She influenced the world by putting herself last. Putting her needs behind those people she served. - I am completely unreasonable with myself. We don't measure ourselves against our neighbours, or even our competitors, but against people like these that have already changed the world.

Will money make you happy?

I have a friend who, whenever you talk about working hard, says, "Money won't make you happy". What she doesn't understand is, it's never really been about the money. It's about the challenge, the excitement, about making a difference. It's about changing the world ... it's about creating something legendary.

But are these stories just the lies we tell ourselves?

Steve Blank wrote this story about lies entrepreneurs tell themselves which I agree with and have from time to time told myself. The truth is, however, living your dream leads to a passionate life, but pursuing them and working hard is not an excuse for not prioritising family, friends and the people you love. Life is for living and one's mission will end up empty and with regrets if being out of balance remains your way of life. Just be careful, because when you care more about others, or about your mission more than you do about yourself, it can be hard to see that things are "out of balance".

Ok, I have just made myself feel sick on Twitter by un-following most of the 3000 people I was following because I simply found myself in a situation where I was overwhelmed by the tweet traffic generated by that number of people. As much as I carefully considered my reasoning for doing this, pushing that delete key on Twitter Karma, has certainly left my hands shaking. If you find that I am not following you now I am very sorry. If however we've been talking directly I'll re-follow you over the weekend once the the delete process has finished. I just couldn't keep up with the wild stream of updates, direct messages from spam robots and most importantly I kept missing the valuable messages and updates I wanted to see. Drastic action was required.

Overwhelm has become a theme recently, but simplicity and presence are now my focus

You will have noticed in my post about "Being an entrepreneur and how not to travel" that I basically burnt myself out on a recent trip, and while this is true, it would be more accurate to say that I have been doing this more and more over recent years. So much so that last year I had to take a couple of months off due to sickness caused by stress and exhaustion. Fortunately people have been pointing out that I am heading there again and as I don't want to go through that once more need to prioritise.

Fine ... But why so ruthless with twitter?

I joined Twitter for the conversation, to make contact with people with whom to socialise, and keep up to date with information. During that time I have been deeply honoured to have built a pretty big following, and for much of the time I automatically followed people back, I guess to be polite. That was great in the beginning, but as the list grew, it became harder and harder to keep track of the people I was actually interacting with, and by now I can't even see what people say unless they specifically reply to me because the stream of tweets moves to fast. What started to as fun, soon turned into something of a burden as it makes me feel disrespectful if I don't also get to see what these friends are saying, and of course I'm having only half the fun. It was never about talking at people, it needs to be about talking with people. How I used Twitter started to change the day I found myself in trouble as I started to think more consciously about twitter spam, follower ego and how much noise there was. I love the service and love how you can interact so easily with people but felt there had to be a better way.

Simplicity and focus.

I'm hardly the first person to do this for example Loic Le Meur, a high profile geek and founder of Seesmic, did the same and deleted 23,000 followers, and although Tsudohnimh proposed a great solution for dealing with a large number of Twitter followers, I didn't want another system. In a post on needing to have fun, if you want to be creative I introduced a book and time management system called Zen To Done. This is now becoming a way of life for me at work. You will see it even in the fact that my blog looks different, it's simpler, cleaner and by changing it's focus slightly, it lowers the expectation of me by allowing me to be myself.

I'm sorry

I am again sorry that I can't follow everyone, but I believe strongly in being present with the people I am with and therefore if you interact with me on my blog or twitter, I will with you. Say hello, let me know how life is treating you and what makes you get up in the morning and if you're interested I'll do the same. Alternatively if you prefer just to listen, that's cool too. Until we meet, have an awesome weekend and all the best.

Why is it that people spend so much time asking how, and so little time asking why? Did we as kids run out of some predetermined number of "Whys" we had been granted? I know my kids ask me constantly, why dad?, but why? ... Why after why, after why? Nothing unusual, I am sure you did it to your parents, I know I did it to mine ... The question is why did we stop? I am often asked for advice about starting a business, and in the early days would jump in and try to help. I'd give support, and maybe some direction, until I noticed how few people actually did something. I still helped, but only if the person was genuinely committed, as I had become frustrated with this inaction. But then I realised what the reason was.

I started asking questions

"Excellent, why?" ... A blank look is returned ... "Why, do you want to start a business?" ... "To make money ... and get rich" ... "Why?" ... "Why what? ... "Why do you want to be rich" ... "So I can give my family a great life, so that we can have stuff" ... "Why do you want that?" ... "So that we can be happy."

But that's failed logic

At this point I understand their desire, but I also know I am talking to someone that is not going to be an entrepreneur ... In fact they are probably never going to be truly happy until they find a better answer to "Why", and until they learn to ask why for themselves. You see, it's a failed logic, money won't make you happy. In fact maybe all this person needs to do to be happy is to lower their expectations about money, to build a story around why they don't need money, why money is wrong and why working that hard would take them away from what's important ... like family. The truth is however, that won't make them happy, that will just make them numb. Happiness will only come through connection to a higher purpose ... if you, like "one's destiny" ... it comes from contribution.

At the end of this post I have linked to an interview with entrepreneur Michael Hill (Jeweller) from a National Radio show this morning. He made an awesome comment that I believe supports this:"When you are in harmony, you don't want to take, you want to give."

Observation #1

Have you ever noticed how many successful blogs are about how to be a successful blogger?. And if they are not about blogging then they are often a "how to" site, maybe with tech tips etc. What about these for example? How to become a popular blogger or How to become wealthy right now and 5 ways to 'systemize' your blogging. Before I start a fire storm, I'm not criticising these sites. I think they are awesome and have great stuff to share, but what about the question ... Why? ... Why do you want to be a successful blogger? Why is this information right for you? Written goals a good, but they are exponentially more powerful when you add a 'WHY?' to each item. A deeply considered and deeply felt why ... a deeply considered connection to that higher purpose. These blogs will give you a strategy once you are moving, but this connection to purpose will be the fuel for your fire.

Observation #2

I was at a course last week, and sat for most of the week at the back of the room. I noticed that a large proportion of the room were hurriedly writing notes, trying to take down every detail – they needed to make sure they captured the strategy perfectly ... A smaller group didn't take many notes, what they seemed to record was not the strategy verbatim, but ideas that connected with what they already knew ... they recorded the inspiration.What I found interesting was: the group that took the notes hadn't started a business yet or were struggling. In fact many of these people, without wanting to be unkind, will probably never start. They are trying to educate themselves a safety net and of course without an empowering "Why", no safety net will ever be good enough. The second group however, didn't need a safety net as they were so well connected. They had turned their 'why?', into a 'why the hell not?' as if to say, 'what else is there?'

I guess I am reminded today

If we want to change our destiny, if we want to change our life's direction, if we want to grow beyond where we are now then we must always explore why? NB I came across a blog recently that I am starting to love called mixergy.com. What I love is how Andrew really trys to dig deep in his interviews, sometimes to the point of making the interviewee a little uncomfortable. He passionately explores the 'Why?' behind what the person does, and do they live what they 'say'. Have a look, I particularly enjoyed these two interviews, one with Seth Godin on Why You Need To Lead A Tribe and How Alltop Is Growing By Following Its Founder’s Advice – The Guy Kawasaki Interview

Interview on New Zealand National Radio with Michael Hill Jeweller