May 2009 - Fellow

  • "shout about what you have"

    I got the chance yesterday to attend one of the best events I've been to this year - all focused on European tech startups wanting to get into the US market. It was hosted at the "Plug and Play Tech Center": an incubator for hi-tech companies...
  • Thank you 3M

    We heard a lot about 3M in our time at Babson - a company that grew from an accidental discovery of a weak adhesive, too weak for anything but temporarily fixing small squares of paper to things. What could be more useless than that, eh? Well, as you...
  • Can't See the Blog For the Smog

    Where are we going with the blogs on the Saltire site in the future.... I asked myself the question.... If the Saltire Blogs were not in my life..would I be missing out on something? What value do we hope to bring/create in the future? Do we chat on facebook...
  • Fairytales and Terry Wogan

    “ The ultimate result of shielding men from the effects of folly is to fill the world with fools .” Herbert Spencer This quote was exemplified to me in this mornings “Town Hall” meeting by Monsanto’s CEO, Hugh Grant. Yesterday...
  • My salubrious greetings to each and every one of you…..

    Of course such a greeting is not something I would have ever given anybody, until I had spent 16 weeks of this year at Babson. (A chufty badge for the first person to name the professor who once greeted us this way.) Yes, 16, intense, enjoyable, sometimes...
  • No Comment...

    This evening Neil and I went to hear about how Sun use social media. They clearly put considerable effort into the area with several full time staff and over five thousand employee blogs, including a popular one by the CEO: http://blogs.sun.com/jonathan...
  • The First of Many......

    Well, we are now at the start of week # 20 and I really do not know where to begin. I started this journey in January with 'Eyes Wide Open' and I have thoroughly enjoyed every minute! The 16 weeks at Babson College seem so long ago now and it...
  • Good game means game's good

    As Jim mentioned in his blog, we were kindly invited to go play golf by Garth Prentice, the general manager of the division of Shawcor we are placed currently. A great day was had by all and, despite numerous games and side bets, the proceedings ended...
  • Meet me in St Louis!!

    OK, I've been in St Louis for a few weeks now having moved from Boston on 3rd May. What a cutlure shock for me.....to begin with at least. St Louis is a very different city from Boston and indeed, from Glasgow, my home city and the city I love dearly...
  • Ya Wee Stoater!!

    Like most things in Texas, golf is played that little bit differently..... Firstly, a prudent Tee Off time, like this one is 6.30 am!! Why - I hear you ask..Well at this time in the moring it is how shall I put it...Tenerife on Vindaloo. So by 11.30 am...
  • Optimism

    Nice article in today's FT about the sucess of opentable.com's IPO: http://blogs.ft.com/techblog/2009/05/a-taste-of-that-old-dotcom-fizz/ This really backs up everything I've been hearing over here on the West Coast - as long as the business...
  • Passionate Board meeting's

    Today I got the chance to really join in. "Iain - it's the Annual Shareholder meeting this afternoon, you should come along and meet the Board." Not every day you get to meet first hand the Board of Directors and the Company Directors of...
  • Bonjour de Boston

    James Murray and I are working for the French company Veolia in their US energy division. Although Veolia is a huge company (they employ around 330,000 worldwide which is slightly more that GE do) their US energy team is small and pretty much working...
  • Venture Capital - Silicon Valley Style

    While we were at Babson our professors arranged for us to attend a number of events where Angel Investors and VCs spoke of what they are looking for when they make investments. We were even able to sit in on the pitch session of one Angel group, hearing...
  • Why be an Entrepreneur?

    Bumped into Tim Rowe for lunch today. Tim runs the Cambridge Innovation Center just around the corner from me. Great place - Think of it of a little business hub where people work, eat and sleep. And everyone is running a business or contributing to one...
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