Networked

I came, I saw, I took a lot of notes, and I networked. Good conference overall. Yesterday I got a rejection from ShareAction (not enough campaigning experience), so I didn’t walk into today feeling super confident. Rejections take their toll. I’ve applied to most of the organisations represented at the conference, so it’s hard to feel the love. However I did a fairly good job of networking--for an introvert. I probably talked to a dozen people during the various breaks (the conference ran from 9am-7pm including cocktails).

One of the highlights was dinner with: a 35-year-old whose parents emigrated from India to Canada (after neither U.S. nor Australia granted them visas). He was educated in New York and London and now works with the World Wildlife Fund in London, where he’s married to a woman from Ecuador. Another man of Indian descent grew up in Kuwait, Dubai, and Oman, before going to university in London six years ago, where he now works for an environmental consultancy. The third man, 25, grew up in German-speaking Switzerland, his parents are English, he went to school in Paris and London and now lives in Paris working for a research firm. We had a really interesting discussion about millenials and their approach to investing, work, consumerism, etc. The final speaker at the conference was a marketing executive focused on ethical products (Marks and Spencer’s, Lush, The Body Shop...). He said a lot of provocative things that we spent time debating (is it possible rice fields produce more methane than cows? Is chocolate full of heavy metals?). Three more photos from yesterday.

I had a long walk from central Edinburgh to my B&B. I stopped at a pub, where I had a delicious halloumi burger and a cider. The pub is dog friendly and one of the diners had an adorable terrier on his lap.

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