by Pádraic Gilligan, Managing Partner, SoolNua & Chief Marketing Officer, SITE Global Chains v Independent Hotels – the debate continues This week I found my mind exercised, once again, by the on-going debate around the merits and demerits of independent hotels versus global chain hotels. Our relentless contemporary pursuit of travel experiences that pivot around… Read more »
by Pádraic Gilligan, Managing Partner, SoolNua The value of Incentive Travel? Meetings & Incentive Industry Professionals will find lots to love in the Events Industry Council’s (EIC) recently released Economic Significance of Meetings to the US Economy. Just consider these top line results. On overall revenues we generate $325 billion (eight position) for the US… Read more »
by Pádraic Gilligan, Managing Partner, SoolNua Harvard Research on Impact of a Conference I’ve been a subscriber to Harvard Business Review for many years now. It’s a great way to keep in touch with all the latest theories in the business world. The articles there are backed by meticulous research so you’re not reading half-baked,… Read more »
by Pádraic Gilligan, Managing Partner, SoolNua As a community, I think it’s fair to say that meetings and incentives professionals are better than average at networking. By and large we’re a jolly lot, particularly those of us in a “client-facing” role who are let out of the office to attend launches, functions and educational events…. Read more »
by Pádraic Gilligan, Managing Partner, SoolNua In a typical thought provoking article on MeetingNet, Sue Pelletier kicks off 2018 with a challenge to the Business Events industry: “What would a truly human-centric meeting look, smell, sound, taste, and feel like? Her question arises from an article in the New York Times quoted by IMEX in the… Read more »
by Pádraic Gilligan, Managing Director, SoolNua The Delights of Vinyl Two years ago I received a turntable for my birthday. It took me back 30 years as I re-indulged in the almost forgotten carnal delights of handling long playing records – the visual excitement of the artwork, the cerebral pleasure of the layers of information… Read more »
by Pádraic Gilligan, Managing Partner, SoolNua In his poetic masterpiece The Waste Land, T.S. Eliot writes “April is the cruellest month …”. For the incentive industry and SITE, in particular, we might re-phrase Eliot’s words and say “2017 was the cruellest year” for this year we lost two shining lights, Jane Schuldt and Paul Flackett,… Read more »
by Pádraic Gilligan, Managing Partner, SoolNua My SoolNua colleague @AoifeMcCrum and I co-presented at ibtmWorld in Barcelona this week on the “hardy annual” topic of Social Media. We were exceedingly grateful to the wonderful crowd that showed up at 16:45 – the dreaded graveyard slot – for an hour on Social Media and its impact… Read more »
by Pádraic Gilligan, Managing Partner, SoolNua Debits and Credits I attended an event in my hometown recently that resonated perfectly with an on-going preoccupation of mine (and that of @Supergreybeard) and that’s workplace culture. I guess we’re at that stage in our careers when you do the Math, look at the credits and debits, ask… Read more »
by Pádraic Gilligan, Managing Partner, SoolNua When it’s gets dark, that’s when Vegas comes to life This year the Business Events industry convened in Las Vegas for IMEX under the heavy cloud of a violent atrocity in which over 50 attendees at a country music festival lost their lives. One moment we’re struggling with unspeakable… Read more »