Thursday 20 January 2011

Edinburgh

Since Tuesday evening I have been in Edinburgh. Yesterday was a conference for 350 people and today was a team meeting for 30ish. I am currently at the airport on the way home and thoroughly exhausted after 2 late nights and not enough sleep.

 On Tuesday when we arrived, 3 of us went for dinner at a restaurant above Victoria Street. I say above as Victoria Street as it was built on a hill and the top of the buildings became a path - strange, but clever. See below...

The conference was the usual big company thing: very high level concepts but the presentations were slick and well produced with animations and music (lots of Kings Of Leon and Snow Patrol which great). It was a typical sales event with lots of overly positive announcements and an interview with Polar explorer Alan Chambers, talking about leadership - really interesting stuff.

The big news... within 6 months, we are all getting work iPads (though I was intending to start looking elsewhere in the Spring and they will be highly restricted I'm sure). Also a new logo was announced. I love a good logo and branding!

Last night was excellent with a dinner for the 350 and some surprisingly entertaining speeches from our bosses followed by a brilliant show by a Derren Brown type mind control guy called Drew McAdam. It blows my mind to see this kind of thing up close. The extremely cute guy on my table (who had committed crimes in knitwear) thought he knew how one trick was done and was called up to the stage - only to be made to look foolish.

A few people on my table mentioned a TV programme only shown in Scotland called "Gary: Tank Commander" that is meant to be so bad, it's funny. I have been advised to check it out on the BBC iplayer. I will report back!

I am looking forward to my bed.
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Posted by Stephen Chapman at 21:12
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4 comments:

  1. A Lewis20 January 2011 at 21:40

    I think that we (flight attendants) are getting iPads by the end of the year too. Our pilots are getting them in the next month or so.

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  2. oneexwidow20 January 2011 at 22:32

    I've always loved that bit above Victoria Street... especially where it gets to eight or so storeys high - proper Ye Olde Edinburgh!

    Look forward to seeing new logo etc... It's funny as I was looking at the current one a couple of weeks ago and thought it had been around for a while! Is it a brand new logo or a refresh of the current one?

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  3. MadeInScotland20 January 2011 at 22:57

    i love edinburgh. So many happy, happy.

    ahoj

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  4. Stephen Chapman21 January 2011 at 09:19

    Oneexwidow - the logo change will be partly a refresh, partly new. As we were told, and the experts are correct, our brand is far more than a logo. I am still not convinced that our message is showing us as a modern company led by technology rather than a 100+ year old dinosaur.

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