Posts Tagged: Face to Face

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 »

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 »

The Ubiquity of Kenny G (and great education at The IRF Invitational)

by Padraic Gilligan, VP, Industry Relations, MCI I’m sitting at Gate B4 at San Antonio International Airport, waiting for my flight with American Airlines back to Chicago and onwards home to Dublin. I’m surrounded by the anodyne, bland and deeply annoying ubiquity of Kenny G, an entirely inappropriate and unfair symbolic conclusion to a stimulating,… Read more »

Killarney, Destinations, Hybrid, Delta

Walking in Killarney For 10 years now the Gilligans have spent Easter at the Killarney Park Hotel. This year was no exception but for two things: one, no Gilligan child had an excuse to absent herself from the dreaded mandated family activities due to pending exams and two, Master Shea Gilligan, aged 8 months, became… Read more »

It’s not about the money, money, money? Leveraging employee engagement and emotional connections for success

“It’s not about the money, money, money” Leveraging employee engagement and emotional conections for success by Padraic Gilligan, Vice President, Industry Relations, MCI In the November issue of Pharmaceutical Market Europe, Nick Eve, CEO of UK based communications agency, Pumphouse, writes about employee engagement. He quotes recent research that shows the issues facing major corporations… Read more »

5 Steps from a Reluctant Networker for Networking Success

By Pádraic Gilligan, Managing Partner, SoolNua [First published by MICE Exchange] You pause at the door but then decide on another trip to the restroom. You’ve been at the entrance to the ballroom twice before but, each time, found compelling reasons not to go in. First time, when you looked into the room, there was nobody there. Second time… Read more »

Budapest is knocking on heaven’s door

“Budapest is knocking on heaven’s door” by Padraic Gilligan When the long haired buskers in the underpass are playing complex counterpoints by Bartok and Bernstein rather than “Knocking on Heaven’s Door” by Bob Dylan then you know you’re in Budapest. This is a city with a profound intellectual and cultural DNA which it carries naturally,… Read more »