Words with Meetings Industry Friends: Rhonda, Joan and Andrea.

By Padraic Gilligan, VP, Industry Relations MCI It started with Rhonda Marko. Pretty quickly Joan Eisenstodt joined in and, more recently, Andrea Michaels. All strong and powerful women. All true icons of the meetings industry. I’m unsure whether they know each other personally but I’m certain they know of each other as all have carved… Read more »

Copenhagen: from hostile Vikings to hospitable design kings

by Padraic Gilligan, VP, Industry Relations MCI How things change in 1000 years The Danes have come a long way. From marauding, cultureless philistines who raped and pillaged all over Northern Europe to laid back, uber-cool independent types with an eye for razor-sharp design and a sincere  commitment to sustainability. It may have taken a… Read more »

Walking the Camino de Santiago – 5 Reasons why you should do it

by Padraic Gilligan, Managing Partner, SoolNua When I saw “The Way”, Martin Sheen’s recent movie, directed by his son Emilio Estevez, I knew I wanted to walk  the Camino de Santiago. For over 1000 years pilgrims have walked “the way”, their destination or journey’s end being the magnificent cathedral of St James located in the… Read more »

Shanghai Surprises (Part 3) – Marriott, Fairmont and Peninsula

by Padraic Gilligan, VP, Industry Relations, MCI Shanghai and Las Vegas When you visit Shanghai sooner or later you think of Las Vegas. They have much in common. The pace of development is one thing. The scale of the construction projects is another. The audacity of the buildings is a third. The palpable sense of… Read more »

Shanghai Surprises (Part 2) – how it all ended

by Padraic Gilligan, VP, Industry Relations, MCI How it Ended My Shanghai sojourn started with a marvellous meal. This is how it ended. The ballroom of the Kerry Hotel looked stunning with accent lighting and clever up-lit props – huge hand painted masks that swiveled in box frames, three dimensional cartoon art in bright colours, festive lanterns,… Read more »

Shanghai Surprises (Part 1) – when people come together, magic happens!

by Padraic Gilligan, VP, MCI Group The Dangling Conversation It was an unlikely gathering. An Irishman, a Singaporean, a super elegant Indian lady and a very pretty Chinese girl. The dinner had been spectacular. Mixed appetisers – baked crab meat, table tossed Caesar salad and freshly cut micro-thin slices of top grade Parma ham –… Read more »

Hybrid Events and the new event participant

by Padraic Gilligan, Vice President, Industry Relations, MCI “It’s not who attends your event, it’s who participates” Sebastien Tondeur, CEO, MCI Samuel Johnson, or Dr Johnson as he was more commonly known, had a wonderful ability to summarise a universal truth in a single, simple sentence. His aphorisms are both sublime and ridiculous: “Integrity without… Read more »

Moira Hearn (1949 – 2012): A Personal Tribute

by Padraic Gilligan, Managing Partner, SoolNua I will arise and go now, for always night and day I hear lake water lapping with low sounds by the shore; While I stand on the roadway, or on the pavements grey, I hear it in the deep heart’s core “The Lake Isle of Innisfree”, W.B Yeats Moira… Read more »

Site EMEA Forum, Berlin – Where to Europe?

by Padraic Gilligan Berlin, Early Morning, 7am The room is already flooded in bright light when my alarm squalls into life at 7am.  I think my vintage football shirt might be appropriate in Germany’s capital, now that Arsenal FC has signed Poldolski so I wear it for my morning march. I try to capture on… Read more »

“Berlin: coolest city on the planet?” At Site EMEA Forum 2012

Site EMEA Forum 2012 The last 4 weeks or so have had me all over Berlin – Potsdamer Platz, Unter den Linden, Pariser Platz – but it hasn’t been as exhausting as may seem: Berlin was the key setting for two recent novels that I read – William Boyd’s The New Confessions and Esi Edugyan’s… Read more »