Peter Marber HSBC Halbis Partners, head of Global Emerging Markets Fixed Income and Currencies
I IMAGINE THE recent terrorism threat in Britain will change forever the things international businesspeople carry in their briefcases. If there are certain things you are not permitted to carry in a briefcase on an aircraft, then we will have to find ways to live without them. This may not be a bad thing.
On business trips, or at least until now, I carry a laptop and a palm pilot, but I am not a slave to either. I don't carry around bushels of paperwork either. When I am flying I use my laptop, but not entirely for work. For example, on my latest trip to Tokyo, Hong Kong and Beijing I used my laptop to work on my new book.
I use flying and airport waiting time to review what I have written and put my thoughts in order. I am a compulsive rewriter. If in the future I have to use pad and paper, then so be it. They were both around a long time before we started using computers. I take books with me, but rarely anything that is too business-related or too serious. I read enough of the heavy-duty stuff in the course of my work. At the moment I am reading a book about Bob Dylan, which is an excellent piece of escapism.
Where I travel dictates to some extent the things I carry with me. Of course, there is always business-related materials, but these vary according to who I am meeting. If I am meeting with clients and potential investors, I carry the paperwork and support documentation to explain market opportunities. If I am on research missions, I carry the things I need to prepare evaluations.
These days, because of the convenience of e-mail and the internet, documents and the very latest information can be accessed whenever required. Anything that helps reduce the number of things I have to carry has to be a good thing.