Today is selfie Thursday and we wanted to thank our fearless leader “Jan the Man.”
Today at Dublin Castle at the Global Irish Civic Forum.
-HQ
HQ all up in a presentation and team dinner with Nuritas.
Great day today, we wrapped up a project and worked on quite a few other pieces of our program for Jan the man. Our company project was stopped mid way through and challenged and it was good to be thrown off. We worked hard on our company project and per the CEO it got off track. We stayed positive and explained our vision of the company and views, but I think it was intended to be constructive and be positive. It is absolutely something we can learn from. Ask me about it and I’ll give you my two cents.
For the rest of the post…. A picture is worth a thousand words. 🍞🐦
HQ all up in the Nuritas offices wrapping up our project and interviewing the founder about Leadership.
The bank holiday yesterday must have still been on everyone’s mind because the train and offices were not thriving to say the least. Case of the Mondays, except on Tuesday for our office and commuters everywhere. Just my observation on the commute.
Team Nuritas killed it and did a bunch of work last week to put us in a position today to refine and go over it with an employee. It was great to go through our presentation and paper so we can refine and hear the feedback. All positive from what I am hearing especially with the scope and timeline. The pessimist in me says there needs to be more, the optimist says we did a lot in a short amount of time and we can’t get details on everything. We focused on the power of why article by Simon Sinek and wanted to help focus their business and customer, while focusing on 5-6 things that help build the brand.
Other than that not too much exciting things going down. Jan the man has us working hard. A carvery dinner at O’Neills will set me straight. And by straight I mean I am going to go to sleep with the meat sweats since the portion sizes are absurd. I like it…
-HQ
HQ all up in Trinity College and doing work
Pretty uneventful bank holiday for me here in Dublin. We got a good overview of the other group projects which was good insight. No pictures for today. Sorry ladies and gentlemen.
Alex and I had a lovely man date to a fantastic rustic breakfast place off of St. Stephens Green. It rained pretty much all day here and this is what I expected when I came to Ireland.
I spent the afternoon on my Leasership strategy paper for Jan, then spent a solid 4 hours on a virtual new employee orientation for the company I will be working for a week from today. I need to go run or workout, tend to get annoyed if I don’t have an outlet.
Going to get a burrito and I’m excited. As I always am, to eat.
Cheers.
HQ all up in a bus back to Dublin for a whiskey tour and for a hurling game.
The Teelings Whiskey distillery was nice enough to give us a morning tour in this lovely Sunday morning. Not quite there yet with the construction still going on, but when it is completed in a few weeks it will be off the chains. Beautiful facility and have been methodically developing the whiskeys over the last few years.
HQ all up in Belfast wandering around and in the Titanic Museum
long day of walking around, one less day in a bus which is fine with me. Black cab tour was deep. Seeing the peacewalls was incredible, in a positive and negative way. It represents so much violence, emulates a peaceful barrier yet there are still troubles. Religion does nothing but divide sometimes.
On a lighter note I had a fantastic lunch with Jan and company. It was awesome to sit down and have no time restrictions and just relax.
HQ all up in a Belfast bound Bus early as… and visiting the Northern Ireland Science Park (NISP)
Fantastic day honestly, but the group had a rough start for various reasons. Driving to Belfast was fairly quick and painless and we got straight into a tour of the Titanic Dock. Fascinating and incredible engineering in so many ways… Check the pics.
We returned to have 4 guest speakers for the afternoon (1 prior to lunch). While I liked Brian at the end, I wish we had more time to pick his brain and chat with him. Of all the people I would say right now, Alister had the biggest (and corkiest) impact. His “observe everything” and “pay attention to the details” resonated perfectly with some of my beliefs. I’m all about being aware of my surroundings and knowing what’s going on, but to take that a step further with customers and clients… that is what’s forgotten a lot. You have to be keenly aware and almost train yourself to recognize (or observe?) opportunities for a potential business. And when it comes down to it, focus on the details of your customer or product, I mean real deep impactful appeal of your product or service im relation to the customer or client.
Cheers,
HQ
HQ all up in Nuritas doing a project and meeting the Founder
We met the founder of Nuritas today, Dr. Nora Khaldi. Upon first meeting her, you can see her passion for what they are doing and how impactful this little company could be. Backed by her charm, the incredible mathematics and scientific research on functional food, and the CEO’s drive I belive this company is going places. I’m excited that can help in some fashion. A fresh perspective from four MBA’s and a good dose of bluntness should, hopefully, prod them in the right direction. Or at least I would like to think it will help. We’ll see…
Our train ride in this morning. We have been lucky with the weather, although it rained in the afternoon. It was quite nice for the commutes.
So, Alex said jump so we could try to get a picture where you are “gravitating.” This is the result. We had mixed results. A bit awkward if you ask me, it was even more so trying to get this picture. Yikes…
Beautiful view right before it rained on the Dun Laoghaire pier. Cheers!
HQ all up in Nuritas and asking questions – Wednesday May 27th
Wednesday started off fast with a few morning meetings at Nuritas. Great meetings and time flew by, which is good. It’s a good sign, it means that the work is interesting and piquing my interest. This is a picture from the train station at Dun Laoghaire train station looking out over part of the pier. This is only a half block from the offices, which is more of a little yellow house if you ask me. Either way, totes adorbs.
Picture from the front step of Nuritas. This was after a long afternoon of meetings and then going over the structure and team roles of the Nuritas project. It’s good to remember to take a break every now and again. It helps to step back, reflect on the work finished, take a deep breath, and then refocus on the task at hand. Great day and I’m excited with the direction of the project and team.
Get on out of this piece ma ninja….
HQ all up in the Dáil Éireann and Nuritas offices Tuesday May 26th
We started today off right heading to the St. Stephan’s Green and finding our way to the Department of Foreign Affairs. Quite a lovely tour of the old 1700 house, former residence of a the Guinness family that was donated to the State. Our second stop was a few blocks away at the Dáil Éireann, which is more or less the parliamentary headquarters (The House of Representatives and Senate). Reflecting back our lecture at the Dept. of Foreign Affairs it was interesting to hear Rrory (?) talk about the ambassadors, business, and Ireland as pertains to the European Union. In particular, a common theme came up again. It revolved around companies not taking risks and trying to develop the international networks since the domestic marketplace was/is quite limited. Imagine if Ireland did not join the EU in 1973 and they were not able to do business or export/import with other european nations. They would be set up for long-term failure, again and again. That would be the equivalent of 3/4 of Colorado being completely coastal and having no trade or very limited business opportunities outside the state borders and quite possibly having a hard time even interacting with surrounding states. It severely limits your network, relations, and business prospects.
Inside the Department of Foreign Affairs.
Having tea – I do not drink tea really. Or eat cookies in this manner for that matter… but when in Ireland, pinkies up.
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