Notes for June 23rd 2023
No notes or tabs last week as I was away for two weeks and only on home turf now. I'll kinda catch-up on things.
The submarine news was wild this past few days. But as much as we'll see documentaries and deep-dive explainers of what happened, and the probable legal fallout. I also think it's interesting that hundreds of migrants died trying to get to Europe, and the news coverage was tiny.
I've had an epic journey over the last two weeks:
- NYC with work to run through H2 planning with the team. - Body & Soul Festival with my wife over last weekend. - Cannes Lions festival with work.
Needless to say, I am tired, jaded, bloated and slightly sunburnt as a result. I also have a bag of work to get through because I missed so many emails/Slacks/etc.
My wife & I went to a music festival for the first time in years. Body & Soul is small, boutique-ish and features music, arts, food and mindfulness. But for us, it was a brilliant time to reconnect without kids or distractions and fully disconnect ourselves from everything and just plug into each other. Who knows when we'll get to do that again.
It was my first trip to Cannes Lions. My wife had been to the film festival with her work a few weeks prior. But this is very different, probably because of the money involved. It's largely a media/advertising type of audience but there are partners we work with at $job there, too. It's hard to describe how busy you are, because you're not busy with scheduled 30min slot meetings or the usual stuff. It's more being in a space for an hour or two, and meeting a litany of people to move the needle forward, build a connection and then take that to the next catchup/meeting/etc.
- I got a lot out of it, but as is always the case with these things, next steps are important. I also think that $job is in a specific product company, so the conversations we had needed to be around solutions for customers. That can be hard for a media/advertising company but they all seem to be fully on-board with building new, interesting things. - I also got to see talks with Lando Norris & Zack Brown from McLaren F1, watch Foo Fighters perform, etc.
$job is bringing in a new workplace-related rule around people returning to the office 50% of the time. It's only happening in 3 select offices, one being Dublin. I'm the site lead for the office so represent the decision and what happens next. And I love it. I'm the only person on my team in Dublin, and even only 1 other person exists in the real sphere of influence for my work. But being embedded cross-functionally, getting to know other people, learning, etc., is important.
On the flight to NYC, I watched ‘The Banshees of Inisherin’ and ‘Everything, Everywhere, all at once’ on the flight. Both brilliant movies that deserve the praise they were awarded.