By Erica and Matt Chua, on Mon Jul 8, 2013 at 1:30 PM ET What did I most want to eat after almost eight months in India, Nepal and Sri Lanka? Some old-fashioned American fast food. OK, it’s not that I wanted fast food, it’s that the UAE offers such a wide selection of the stuff that got me. In the rush to “modernize” the UAE seems to have lost all sense of itself in a wash of North American craptacular foods. While we in the West try to limit our consumption with public health campaigns, taxes and regulations, the Middle East rejects such beliefs with each trans-fat filling station they build in the desert. Sadly, after so long on the “sub-continent” of Asia I too fell victim of, “taste over common sense”. Let’s take a food tour of the UAE…
It started with Tim Horton’s. Not really American, it’s a staple of our Northern Territories (AKA Canada), offering the cliche police staples of donuts and coffee. For me it was a welcome change from dosas for breakfast.
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Erica & Matt Chua: Eat Like An American
By Saul Kaplan, on Mon Jul 8, 2013 at 8:30 AM ET
I had the pleasure of speaking at the 2013 Amplify Festival in Australia. Now that my jetlag has subsided I’m able to reflect on what was a wonderful event hosted by AMP, a leading financial services company in Australia. Congratulations to AMP and Annalie Killian, the festival’s remarkable curator, for catalyzing a week overflowing with inspiration and insight. More companies should consider hosting similar innovation immersion events open to employees and the local community. It was an easy invitation to accept for this innovation junkie. They had me at the event’s theme, Shift Happened Transformation Required!
 One of the highlights of my trip down under was meeting Lucy Marcus, provocateur and global expert on corporate governance best practices. Lucy is a force of nature in and out of the boardroom and I thoroughly enjoyed our conversations on the oversight role of the board of directors for a company’s innovation agenda. We agreed that the board of directors has an important role to play and Lucy asked me to appear on her ‘In The Boardroom’ show on Reuters TV to share my top five board innovation imperatives for the board. The short video of our conversation below also serves as proof that we actually were in Australia. Check out the Sydney Harbor in the background!
5 Innovation Imperatives: Inside The Boardroom
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Saul Kaplan: Innovation in the Boardroom
By Julie Rath, on Fri Jul 5, 2013 at 8:30 AM ET
I can’t believe it’s already been three weeks since my trip to Paris. I had a spectacular time wandering the city and checking out all the shops on my list.
When it comes to how the men over there style themselves, I will say this — French men wear scarves like nobody’s business. Even once indoors, the jacket comes off, but the scarf stays on.
It’s clearly an integral part of the outfit. Below are a couple mannequin shots I took outside Eglé Bespoke demonstrating different ways to incorporate a scarf into your look.
dressy
casual
Note in both images how the scarf doesn’t cover up the other detail at the neckline — tie knot or collars. It actually adds visual interest and dimension to the look, making it more sophisticated. Another nice thing about adding neckline detail is that it draws the eye upward making you look taller and flattering your chest. On top of that, the vertical lines created by the downward drape of the scarf are slimming…scarves for the win!
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Julie Rath: Scenes from Paris
By Jonathan Miller, on Wed Jul 3, 2013 at 10:00 AM ET  Photo courtesy of Thom Karmik One of the most critical bits of advice shared with me by my friend and nationally-celebrated mental performance coach Jim Fannin, was to never dwell on the past, keep my mind focused on the present, and when a setback occurs, say “Next!” and move onto the next challenge.
As a writer, I have to break the rule a little bit. After a nearly 13 hour ride in the $1000 no limit Texas hold-em tournament in the 2013 World Series of Poker — the same event last year in which I made the final table and won nearly $70,000 — I busted out when my Ace King suited (a very good hand) was beat by a pair of Jacks (a slightly better hand. I finished in the top 400 out of the nearly 3000 entrants — not too shabby, but far short of my goal of winning the championship bracelet.
I’m proud of how I played, and I don’t have any regrets. The trouble is that when you play the conservative “tight/aggressive” style I employ, you need to occasionally get dealt some good opening hands. And unlike last year, when a top hand appeared in my grasps when I really needed it, this year, in the 13 hours of play, I never was dealt any of the best 3 hands — Aces, Kings or Queens.
 So it is time to say “Next!” and prepare for the next challenge. That one starts at Noon PDT today (3:00 PM EDT), “The Little One for One Drop No-Limit Hold’em.” This will be the second largest competition of the World Series (behind the Main Event of course), and 10% of all proceeds are sent to One Drop—a non-profit organization established in 2007 by Guy Laliberté, Founder of Cirque du Soleil. One Drop strives to ensure that water is accessible to all, today and forever by developing integrated water-access and management projects around the world. In the U.S., One Drop is a public charity that undertakes innovative activities in which water plays a central role as a creative force to generate positive, sustainable change worldwide.
I’m headed to the gym, to take on my second day of weight training under the long distance training of the world’s great poker physical fitness expert, Josh Bowen. Check it out below, and I will keep you updated regularly as always on my progress at my Facebook Page and on Twitter.
By Erica and Matt Chua, on Mon Jul 1, 2013 at 10:00 AM ET After two and a half years on the road we are finally heading back to the U.S. for the first time, but the adventures aren’t over. I’ll be returning home to bike across my home state of Minnesota with my family for a great cause: helping families with members suffering from multiple sclerosis. We’ll be putting on our spandex for The Ride Across Minnesota (TRAM), something I’ve wanted to do for years. Best of all, I’ll get to do this year’s ride with my family, that I haven’t seen in 18 months, to help support other families that are struggling with this debilitating disease.
I haven’t done much training for TRAM unless you count my time in the saddle on top of this ostrich
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Erica & Matt Chua: Riding for a Cause
By Jonathan Miller, on Thu Jun 27, 2013 at 3:00 PM ET My high school German teacher insisted he did. This dude says no: [Huffington Post]
By Jason Atkinson, on Wed Jun 26, 2013 at 8:30 AM ET
By Erica and Matt Chua, on Mon Jun 24, 2013 at 1:30 PM ET How do you distinguish “old” in a city that was founded over 1100 years ago? When some of the “newer” areas are older than the United States of America, it’s all old to me, but to the Egyptians there is an old and new Cairo. The old part is called “Islamic Cairo”, which seems like another redundant name in Cairo, one of the largest Islamic cities in the world. To learn more we set off to explore this “old” Islamic Cairo…here’s what we found.
Signs such as this begin to get old, I mean really old, as almost every building was constructed before “Columbus sailed the ocean blue” which marks old for me.
Old Cairo isn’t a dead city or closed off to be a museum, rather it’s as alive today as it ever was, full of homes, stores, restaurants and mosques.
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Erica & Matt Chua: Climbing Above Old Cairo
By Jonathan Miller, on Wed Jun 19, 2013 at 3:00 PM ET
Check out this letter from a bi-partisan coalition of Congressmen:
Every year, U.S. retailers sell over $300 million worth of products containing hemp seeds and fibers. Hemp finds its way into more than 25,000 different products around the world, from lotions to protein bars to auto parts to fuel.
But because of outdated laws preventing the growth and cultivation of industrial hemp in the United States, American farmers can’t grow hemp. It’s all imported. What’s more, our institutions of higher education can’t even grow or cultivate hemp for research purposes.
Our bipartisan amendment is simple: It allows colleges and universities to grow and cultivate industrial hemp for academic and agricultural research purposes. It only applies in states where industrial hemp growth and cultivation is already legal.
Hemp is not marijuana. Our amendment defines industrial hemp as a product containing less than 0.3 percent THC. At this concentration, and even at much higher concentrations, it is physically impossible to use hemp as a drug.
From Colorado to Kentucky to Oregon, voters across the country have made it clear that they believe industrial hemp should be regulated as agricultural commodity, not a drug. At the very least, we should allow our universities—the greatest in the world—to research the potential benefits and downsides of this important agricultural resource.
Sincerely,
Jared Polis
Member of Congress
Thomas Massie
Member of Congress
Earl Blumenauer
Member of Congress
Links
Congressional Links
By Erica and Matt Chua, on Mon Jun 17, 2013 at 1:30 PM ET LOCAVORista may have fallen in love with Buenos Aires and thought it had the best street art, but she was mistaken…Sao Paulo holds that crown. Yes, Buenos Aires offers a wide array of high-quality street art, but it pales in comparasion to Villa Madalena’s paint covered walls. In fact, it’s harder to find places without street art in this posh Sao Paulo neighborhood than trying to locate art. Let’s take a quick walk through the neighborhood to check out just some of the paintings.
The minds of the many artists in the neighborhoods have spilled out onto the walls exactly as this mural depicts: directly from brains to spray paint.
One of the larger works, the whimsical scene stretches almost an entire block, even working in the landscaping.
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Erica & Matt Chua: Sao Paulo Street Art Smackdown
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