Pictures my wife won't be impressed with.

Yes it's true. I'm a little bit different, I think this clip compliments of Gary Hamilton from Andor helps summarize me pretty well! 

After almost 2 weeks in Ireland I figured it was time for a post of random pictures I have taken throughout my journey's each one of these has some meaning and information in it that either myself or a business associate can and will benefit from but after taking each one all I could imagine was what my wife would say if I was taking these while we were on vacation! 

Pavement Markings

Guinness delivery truck

Irish Coast Guard

Utility work 

Mini Loader

Pavement Markings

Thatch Roof

Titanic dock pumps

Cobblestone repair at Trinity

Pavement marking

Utility/road work

Lug nut indicators

Lug nut indicators

Pavement markings

Pavement markings

-The Curious Bob

Is there an echo? - Common Leadership Topics

We had an eventful day at Startup Ireland today, we had a 4 separate meeting when it was all said and done.

Meetings included one with an incubator type company from Tel Aviv Israel called H&H, a leadership meeting with Eoin Costello, a meeting with a former Start-up Chile participant and finally a quick debrief with Jan.

The meeting with Eoin was definitely the most interesting (besides Jan of course!) as he really shared some of his unique experiences with us that helped to put him in the spot he's in today. What I found particularly interesting was that Eoin's overall message on leadership based on his trials and tribulations echoed that of almost every other leader we have heard from on this trip. They say there is no single secret to success but it sure is fascinating how similar these particular views on leadership are:

Know yourself, specifically your short comings and weaknesses, surround yourself with talented people, ask lots of tough questions, be flexible and adapt to the environment. The tough part about leadership is not the technology or product development, it's managing and leading the people in your organization.

I'm looking forward to sharing more details about Eoin and his past obstacles at the speaking engagement on June 16.

During Lunch we had an impromptu discussion with the co-founders of FenestraPro which is an AutoDesk CAD plug-in using heat transfer principles to reduce the gap between architecture and engineering when it comes to designing energy efficient green buildings. I saw a lot of parallels with myself when talking to these guys as they both came from a technical background.

Co-founders of FenestraPro, Dave Palmer and Simon Whelan. “The industry quite frustrated by the problem of redesign, and our software is quite intuitive, easy to use and helps solve that problem,”

LINK

Tomorrow will be our last day working onsite with Startup Ireland, overall it has been a pretty neat experience to see first hand the ground floor of these young coming companies here in Dublin.

-The Curious Bob

Bank Holiday

Spent the day touring the Cliffs of Moher with some members of the group. There were some amazing views. I even ventured to the edge and sat looking out over the Atlantic with my feet hanging over the edge. Definitely took some mental commitment as my 'gut' was pretty sure that hanging off the edge of this vertical 400' cliff was a bad idea! I couldn't help but think about  Brian Keating's talk from Friday in Belfast about pushing the limits of your comfort zone. Sure this is a little different context but all too often we get too content with the statues quo and don't take the calculated risks we should.

As we drive around, It's pretty neat to see all the small bed and breakfast places outside of town. I definitely look forward to coming back for a true countryside vacation here.

-The Curious Bob

Irish country side

Spending some time with locals in the countryside on a rural mountain pub tour. Sure they use the word "mountain" a little loosely around here but it was a great night nonetheless.

The first pub we stopped at was really a unique little spot with great craic! It was called the Blue Light Bar, the history goes back to the time of heavy shipping. The pub is on a nice lookout so back in the day after the import inspectors would go home for the night, the pub could tell awaiting ships that it was ok to come a shore with the illumination of the bar's blue light. They had some nice turf fires going inside to accompany the great pour of Guinness and it really added to the authenticity.

Blue Light Bar

Rural tours bus - Link