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 »
Posts Tagged: Meetings and Events
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 »
MCI Academy and Madrid goes Mental
by Padraic Gilligan, VP, INdustry Relations MCI I’m NOT sitting at a railway station I’m sitting on a granite ledge. It’s about 30 degrees and I can feel the warmth of the sun on my face. Around me there’s a veritable babel of different languages and random sounds. The breeze is warm and bone dry…. 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 »
Greece – is there a better time to visit?
by Padraic Gilligan Athens The Aer Lingus flight to Athens had just over 100 on board, light for the beginning of June. We departed mid afternoon from Dublin and in just over 3.5 hours were descending into the heavily mountainous terrain that surrounds Greece’s capital city. 2 hours ahead of GMT, Athens was in the… Read more »
Coming Home – Revisiting Ireland’s Incentive Icons: Killarney Park, Europe, Dromoland, Adare
by Padraic Gilligan, Managing Partner, SoolNua I’ve greatly enjoyed the opportunity over the past 4 weeks to re-acquaint myself with Ireland as an incentive destination. A combination of familiarisation trips and live programmes brought me, in quick succession, to two of Ireland’s premier locations for corporate meetings and incentives, the Shannon area renowned for its… Read more »
Hard Lessons in Unintended Consequences – the GSA Western Regions Conference
by Padraic Gilligan, VP, Industry Relations MCI and VP Ovation Global DMC Merton’s Law An infestation of mink was playing havoc with the eco-system of a rural area so, to encourage a proactive community response, the local authorities instituted a bounty of $5 for each mink turned in at the local sheriff’s office. The scheme… Read more »
Ovation Trophy 2012 Day 1 – Lucerne to Interlaken
“I will not attempt to describe the beauty of this country … I will merely tell you that is is literally impossible to tear oneself away from this lake and these shores ” Leo Tolstoy It didn’t take long for it to start. Once the teams were assembled and the lanyards distributed the new identities were… Read more »
Ovation Trophy 2012 – the Prologue
“Yesterday evening I arrived at Lucerne, and put up at the best inn there, the Schweitzerhof” [Count Leo Tolstoy, “Lucerne”] I looked around the Cirrus as we pulled away from the dock opposite The Schweizerhof, one of our host hotels. What an eclectic mix we were – Danes, Germans, Italians, French, various Swiss, many Brazilians,… Read more »
Care in the Air. Customer service at Delta Airlines?
I’m seething with rage at Delta Airlines. When I needed an airline to be “human” and to understood a painful personal situation I was treated appallingly with extreme disrespect. When I then spent considerable time documenting this experience for the airline I was told that complaints had been “out-sourced” to another airline and then I… Read more »