Free lunch

My friend and former study buddy Colm O’hAimhirgín sent me an e-mail on Monday asking me if I were going to Business in the Community’s annual conference today. I didn’t know about it, so I sent an e-mail to my BitC contact on Monday, asking if she needed the services of a writer for hire to cover it. I told her I’d write up a summary of the event gratis in return for free entry (80 pound ticket). Yesterday I heard back from her that she accepted my offer so I spent today at the conference.

It was a fantastic networking opportunity and I had good chats with a woman from a major utility company (I happen to be writing about utilities for Preventable Surprises), a guy with the Belfast Harbour Commission (I happen to be writing a magazine piece on the shipping industry and emissions), and a woman with Ulster Bank who wants to do what I’m doing--leave the corporate world and connect to something she’s more excited about. I gave out all the business cards I had on me.

One of the break-out sessions I attended was on how to retain an ageing workforce. Even though I think of myself as a Luddite and as someone who is barely hanging in as expectations of workers change rapidly, I had to give myself credit as I: took notes on my MacBook Air as each speaker presented; tweeted about the conference, creating bitly links as needed; researched the shipping industry; and Skype chatted with David about the dog. I’m not the same Luddite I was when I worked at Vanguard and worked in a very narrow silo.
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