mytropicalescape.com

Whether you want to craft the world’s next greatest novel, take the trip of a lifetime, or open a small business the initial idea to create or do “something” has to come from somewhere.

I have always wondered, why do some people come up with innovative ideas while others appear not to? Or, does everybody come up with thoughts for new initiatives and projects but only a few pursue them? For example, what on earth ever possessed me to come up with the post 97 Remarkable Ways to Diversify Your Network in a Down Economy?

Why do only some seem to have this mindset?

image source: TrainforHumanity tshirt concept from Joaquin R. Kierce

Right now I am sitting here cursing Becky McCray, not literally, heck not even figuratively…because Becky is one of the nicest, most helpful, small biz folk on the internet.

However, you see, Becky recently sent a twitter message saying, “Think I might need a trip to Culebra this Feb.”

Of course, being the opportunist that I am, and not wanting to waste access to such a great talent if she actually comes to Culebra, my mind instantly went into creative mode and I replied back:

“maybe we could do a small scale small biz/social media meet up and try to land some other keynote people”

I thought the messages would just end there and nothing would come of it, but within seconds Becky sent something back to the effect of “that’s a great idea….”

Then out of nowhere, and as if the stars were aligning perfectly, the next morning I got this message from the indefatigable Liz Strauss:

@lizstrauss I’m doing well, Mark! Every time I see you I get an urge to plan an event at your place.

Again my mind began racing with the possibilities.

Where this campaign will go, I really have no idea, but I very much like the idea of some type of Idea Incubation Workshop here in the Caribbean during, let’s say, the middle of winter.

Are you an Ideanator (my new term for one who regularly comes up with ideas)?

To help ease my curiosity about the origins of idea generation and innovative thinking I recently asked some folks on Twitter for their input on Big Ideas, and the following are the responses I got:

@josephrueter to start: intentional curiosity, confident humility, sharing, information consumption, diligence, smart/engaged people around.

@sweetsfoods You know Mark, that several times unexpected big ideas come from ….night dreams!

@toddwaller Big Ideas: From reading, applying and seeing ‘other’ ways: assimilation and preparation.

@bgswanson re: big ideas. I think they come from someone who has the mindset to see a problem as an opportunity.

Where do your big ideas come from?

I find it absolutely astonishing how many new project thoughts I have while I am running. The other day I was out for my evening run and I began to think about some features that I would like to see included as an email or Twitter application (and I would greatly appreciate it if YOU would develop them).

The first, GeoTwit (or GeoEmail), would give the geographic coordinates, current weather, and the time of day somehow contained within people’s Twitter messages. Of course there are inherent security risks but you could enable the feature only for trusted friends.

The second, and the one that I think could have real monetization potential, is TwitFlick (or EmailFlick). This application would somehow offer me the option to view the latest Flickr photos based on where my Twitter messages or emails were coming from. For example, let’s say Jarkko Laine sends me a Twitter message from Finland; well I think it would be cool to have a feature that would allow me, based on user settings, to view the latest Flickr photos from Finland. For those who are interested in traveling to a particular “messaged” destination the application could be monetized with hotel and rental car offers…anyway, just an idea.

How about you? What ideas have you got going? Where did they come from?

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Greetings - someone recently emailed and asked if I was going to be posting anything soon. That made me feel good because I thought only my mother read this site.

It has been a VERY long but good year since we bought our business here in the Caribbean. Unbeknownst to me my drive for writing, which is minimal to begin with (remember - I am an idea person!) decided to take a holiday.

So, being that I am going on a real vacation to Nicaragua next week, I decided to declare myself on blog + not writing + vacation = blogcation

When I get back some friends of mine and I are going to launch a pretty cool humanitarian project that we have been working on putting together for the past couple of months. I think eventually we will have the ability to help some people that don’t necessarily need our pity, but they need our ACTION. Some of you already know what the premise is and for the rest I look forward to your feedback once we go live.

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Recently I was asked by ExpatInterviews.com to provide information and details on living overseas in the British Virgin Islands and in Culebra. The team at ExpatInterviews.com created their site because they feel, “it’s always exciting to know about what motivated people to live in another part of the world, how they generate their income, how they manage to live there, and what they’ve learned from their experiences in a land that’s become their new home.”

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Today, I was supposed to put up a post on Reverse Culture Shock but that is going to be preempted by some really GREAT news! I have just had an article published at ZenHabits:

Escaping The Cubicle And Getting Off the Corporate Treadmill

Zen Habits is a fantastic website that was started by Leo Babauta and he covers topics such as, achieving goals, productivity, being organized, motivation, eliminating debt, saving, getting a flat stomach, eating healthy, simplifying, living frugal, parenting, happiness, and successfully implementing good habits. Leo has done a tremendous job with his website in a very short time and he now has close to 20,000 subscribers. In fact, Leo’s site is so popular that it got me to thinking, maybe we need to hold a ZenHabits week down here in Culebra …

In order to provide more information on Culebra I have just launched Culebra Blog. This site (mytropicalescape.com) was originally developed as a way to help others’ who are interested in living overseas whether in a working, volunteering, or long-term traveling capacity. Because I would also like to get out more posts on our new island home, and not wanting to turn this into a “strictly” Culebra site I decided it would be best to separate the two.

So, if you are looking for expat information you have come the the correct place. However, should you like more specific details on Culebra, (e.g. tourist activities, how to get there, where it’s located, etc) then I suggest you head on over to the culebra blog.

Post made possible by the Palmetto Guesthouse

A while back I read a story that stated, “the BVI is the number two investor in China for new infrastructure.” For an island nation of approximately 25,000 people I find that completely overwhelming. Well, today I did a little further research because I find the topic fascinating and discovered that for the first eight months of 2007 $9.91 billion dollars from the British Virgin Islands was invested in China. If you would like to read the whole article you can have a look at the British Virgin Islands Business News.

Our Culebra internet access should be improving very soon! Through a small miracle, and help from a friend on Puerto Rico, we finally managed to get a DSL router. That is half the battle… and our next step is to get the DSL service enabled at the Palmetto Guesthouse (once online I can write more in depth about this). Hopefully, the connection will be done by the end of this week and then Terrie and I, plus our guests, will have high-speed internet access.

Another quick update, we just picked up our first shipment of organic, fair trade coffee from Sweetwater Organic Coffee roasters in Florida. So, if you are a coffee fanatic coming to Culebra we can take care of your morning caffeine needs.

Living on Culebra appears as though it will be quite different than living in the British Virgin Islands. Aside from the most obvious difference, they speak spanish in Culebra and English in Tortola, our new island home is quite a bit smaller with an estimated population of 3,000 (BVI population ~ 25,000). Also, for the four and a half years we were in Tortola I worked for the BVI government but here, as owners of the Palmetto Guesthouse, we are our own bosses and have been working everyday for the past 30 days.

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