How is it to live and work here?
I go from city to city. Stay for a few weeks in one place. While I’m there I ask this question twice – to residents, about the city, and of employees, about their work. Unhurried conversations, no agenda. Using our 4 pillars to algin the answers. Then I look for what came back often enough to be a pattern rather than a story.
the city question
How is it to live here. I talk with people who were born there, people who arrived last year, people who are thinking of leaving. Spontaneous interactions and preset meet-ups. The pattern is whatever comes up often enough to stop being one person’s opinion.
the work question
How is it to work here. Same weeks, same city. I talk with the people inside a business organization – on their own ground or at a central place somewhere in the city. Five businesses, each with its own private read, and one public read of what came back in more than one.
happening now
IBIZA / home – August 2026
Producing the City Signals and City Report of my visit to Athens.
Both available end of August. See the publications
still to come
EVENT – SEPTEMBER 30 – OCT.1 – ROME
The Futures 4 Europe event in Rome. Here we will do a live side event on future and Quality of Life.
EVENT – NOVEMBER 09-12 – LISBON
Bringing some humanity in the Tech world 😉
DUBAI / NOVEMBER 2026
We’re planning our trip to the Dubai community. If you want to collaborate, please Contact me, to discuss!
YOUR CITY OR BUSINESS?
A city that wants to know how life there actually goes. Or a handful of businesses that want to know how work there actually feels.
Contact me, to discuss!
where the tour has been
It started with cities. Four of them – Ibiza, Lisbon, Bologna, Athens. Businesses came later, because the same thing kept surfacing in the conversations: how is it to work here. Now I ask both on the same visit.
Ibiza – September to November 2025
Coffeetalks at Meke, the Monk and Luxalad. The Coffee Camper. The Ibiza Tech Forum, on health and longevity. Read the Ibiza report.
Lisbon – November to December 2025
Visting the big Web Summit Event. An evening with members of Aethos Social Club. Quality of life for breakfast at Heden. Read the Lisbon report.
Bologna – February to March 2026
Walking the streets. Conversations about how the city actually works for the people who live in it. Read the Bologna report.
Rome – May 2026
The European Innovation for Sustainability Summit, bringing the quality of life lens into the room.
Athens – July 2026
Athens, the foundation of democracy and philosophy. What do we see back of it in daily life in Athens.
how I work
Observation. Streets, neighbourhoods, venues – the details that quietly say how life is lived there.
Conversations. Coffeetalks, mostly. What daily life feels like from inside it.
Immersion. Time inside someone’s routine. Part of a workday, a walk with someone who knows the place.
what comes out of it
Most quality of life data is gathered at a distance. Surveys, indices, policy reports. They measure outcomes. They rarely capture how life is actually experienced from within.
What a city or a business gets is the (human) layer underneath the numbers. What people say when nothing depends on the answer. The patterns that came up often enough to act on. Signals that started a year or two before they show up in the figures. And the questions worth asking next, which is often the more useful half.
HOW IT ALL STARTED
Want to know how the concept for this tour came to life? Watch the video!
be part of it
The Tour is privately initiated and not funded by any institution. This means it moves on what people offer to keep this project going.
Open a door. Connect the Tour to people, organisations and places where real life happens.
Host a conversation. A small group, or space for a coffeetalk in your city, company or venue.
Tell me how it is where you live. What’s good, what’s hard, what deserves attention.
Some parts of the Tour, our publications or other activities, can be supported. If you’d like your name on the next one, read more on how to sponsor at the: partnering page.