Bad day today – one of my oldest friends (were were best man at each others weddings) and my business partner / co-founders of Evolution died yesterday of altitude sickness while climbing in China / Pakistan.

Why did I blog this? Jon was a great friend and was the one who took the top left picture when we were paragliding in Turkey. Plus the irony of his last email to me on 29th June…

Nigel,

Sponsorship still stands, good luck with the convalescence.

Tomorrow I’m off to Kashi in China at the start of an expedition to climb
Muztagh Ata. Subject to altitude sickness looking to walk up using “skins”
and then snowboard down

Take care … Jon

You can find details of what happened here and here

He leaves behind an amazing family. I and many others will miss his northern accent. I will miss you!

(PS – if you need to contact the family, please drop me a note and I will put you in touch)

Apologies for being off air for some while – a combination of France Telecom destroying my ADSL for several weeks and a truck knocked me off my bicycle 20km into the 380km Marseilles to Monaco charity ride. Back now

Well I finally made it to 40 the other day and have to make a decision on whether to return back to the corporate world or completely change direction.

Having had some time off recently I tend to agree with Sean’s observations (I used to work for Sean).

Somehow employers and employees should look at devising a sensible approach for people to take sabbaticals every X years without impacting corporate productivity or the individual feeling that their job is under threat. I have a “back of the envelope” hunch that this would lead to increased productivity and more sense of “self worth” – especially in larger firms. Will look into research in this areas as there are immediate issues which spring to mind (e.g. lock in’s etc.).