Dublin Over Pt 1: Dublin Over?
On Friday, I mentioned my recent research presentation in Dublin, Ireland. This event was the culmination of an extended family trip that featured stops in Lisbon, Marrakech, London, Killarney, and finally Dublin. What an amazing bucket list-filling phenomenon!
Those visits are a story… several stories… for later.
This project itself, brought to life with my friend Laura Egan, was loaded with learning in so many ways too. I’d like to share a few of these lessons with you today, and a few more later this week.
Like these:
- The research project and presentation itself, a tribute to living legend, marketing researcher H. Keith Hunt, actually started last year as a project on a different legend, management author Peter Drucker. While traveling to a Consumer Satisfaction research conference in Fargo ND, I read an article written as a tribute to the late, great Drucker and I thought of my own professional idol, Keith Hunt.
LESSON: It’s always a good time to pay tribute to someone you admire.
2. One little problem… this article on Drucker involved a methodology known as a bibliometric analysis. You know, a statistical analysis of articles and publications that measures an author’s output and impact on their field. Yeah, me neither. From moment I first read of it, bibliometric analysis joined the long, glorious list of concepts that I’ve heard of but didn’t understand.
LESSON: Don’t be afraid to explore new and scary concepts.
3. So the next morning I stepped into the conference meeting room. The place was empty save for one early arrival. Instead of looking for the emptiest of many empty seats, as so many of us would tend to do, I decided instead to sit one seat over from the only other person in the room. After all, we were at the same conference for similar reasons, so we must have something in common worth talking about.
LESSON: Don’t avoid real human contact. We need it more than ever.
4. And we started to talk. No agenda, no expectations other than building a professional relationship and a new friendship.
LESSON: Just read that item again.
Let’s stop there and call this a cliff-hanger. I’ll be back tomorrow with a patriotic passage, and then with more on this topic on Wedneday.
See you tomorrow.