Walk with me.

I'm finally trying oHours. But instead of just sitting down for a coffee, I invite you to walk with me. Grab a coffee and walk around. Walk to a cafe and back. Walk from Old St to Soho or Liverpool St or the Southbank or Dalston or... Join me for part of my walk home (Old St to Brixton). Or suggest a route. You can see when I'm free here.

You don't need to sit to think.

Last weekend, Lean Startup Machine invited me back to give a talk, mentor and judge at their London event. It's an honour, it's fun, and I really enjoy seeing different teams in action, trying to help them. As always after these events, there's a desire to continue conversations, so: let's meet for coffee?

I get 'coffee advice requests' quite often, and I ask people to help and mentor me and listen to me, too. In the past, I've sat down and talked with people about

their/my next career move
customer development goals and how UX research techniques could help
quick 'UX surgery' on their/my product/prototype
what UX help they would need and how to find the right person to work with
their/my idea or project
how business models reflect social impact and how we can measure social ROI
agile and UX and collaboration
hackdays, DesignJam, event stuff
how to write a conference proposal, how to prepare a talk
and lots of other random topics of mutual interest.

I love these conversations; giving and receiving the gift of attention, one-to-one or in a very small group. I'd like to have more of them. But I don't want to spend even more time sitting and drinking and snacking.

Talking while walking is special.

Some of the best conversations of my life happened while I was walking with another person. Or on the phone with them while walking around. Moving your body allows the conversation to flow.

Of course, sometimes you need to look at something, sketch on a big piece of paper, get your thoughts in order with post-its. In this case, why don't we walk to the coffee place/bar, externalise our thoughts, and then walk back?