So week 2 has flown by in a New York minute!! The office was much busier on Monday morning, with a new buzz about it as some the London office Directors were over for the company’s Town Hall meeting. This meeting was a big event as the three founders of the company were delivering a presentation on the future direction and aims of the company, with all employees in attendance. The meeting was really interesting, finding out more about how the company has developed and evolved and how they plan to move forward to enhance both internal and external performance. The presentations really highlighted how advanced Lab49 are in the field in which they operate, employing an extremely high caliber of consultants and working in an efficient and forward thinking manner. Additionally, being able to hear firsthand from the founders themselves how they envision the future of Lab49 was both captivating and inspiring, an experience I’m sure few other interns will get the chance to encounter. The food and drink reception was valuable for meeting and networking with other colleagues as many of them work out on client site so are not in the office. This was followed by a trip to the Empire Hotel, a lovely rooftop bar with views over the Lincoln Centre. It was good to speak to colleagues in a more informal environment and find out their backgrounds and get some insider tips on the best places to visit in NYC.

Tuesday morning Chris and I were given a presentation on how the company project manage their engagements. Having studies various methods of project management in uni and via an external qualification I was curious to find out how Lab49 manage the ever evolving technological environment. The information given has made me appreciate how different management techniques and systems are required for different types of project in order to ensure projects are delivered on time and to clients’ satisfaction- extremely important factors in the consulting business. Despite this discussion only lasting an hour I feel it will have a longer term impact for both my final year and future career. Lab49 have been great at accommodating our interests- giving us one to one tutorials on various areas on the business whether it be a specific consulting technique or more general business practices- basically a customized training program!

We were also introduced to our next delivery. It has been great to get to work on a real client project, delivering research that is of real significance to how the project will develop. I spent most of the week conducting research on the market our client is expanding into and conducting data analysis on the findings to draw conclusions on the overall landscape of this specific business area. It was difficult trying to source all the relevant information but after my presentation on Friday to the project team I feel I was able to deliver valuable and worthwhile insight. It was great to discuss the project with colleagues from different areas of the business and see how all the various components of a project need to work together. The meeting also allowed us to outline the next steps which I am looking forward to working on this week.

Outside of work I have been very busy as well. This week involved a trip to the cinema to see Inception (would definitely recommend), beating the boys at basketball (do not accept any of their poor excuses as to why they were beaten by a girl!) as well as a weekend packed with exploring the city. After work on Friday we headed up Broadway to go to Ella’s Stardust Diner for some soda and candy (getting used to the American lingo!) This is a restaurant where wannabe Broadway stars work as waiting staff, suddenly bursting into song and dancing across the tables, in a hope of getting recognized and hired onto the circuit. This was followed by a trip to Top of the Rock at Rockefeller Centre to catch the sun set over Manhattan. We made it up to the very top just in time to get some wonderful photos of both Central Park and the Empire State Building before the sky darkened and the heavens opened. It was certainly an experience being 850 feet up with lightening ripping through the sky, but it made for some good video footage!! The boys from IBM had joined us again for the weekend so Saturday was spent soaking up the sites including Statue of Liberty, Wall Street and the site of the new Freedom Tower. We then headed up town to the famous Carnegie Deli. This place is covered in photos of celebrities who have eaten there and tried to conquer the masssssive sandwiches on offer. The pastrami sandwiches are unbelievable- see attachment for photo- you could easily still be working you’re through one 2 days later! Thank goodness for doggybags! A long walk home through Central Park was then required so try to work it off! At night ‘The Team’ headed up to our local basketball courts for an extremely hot 3v3 match (temperatures had nearly reached 100 degrees that day, a slight contrast to the flood my family are experiencing back home!). On Sunday I went for an explore around Greenwich Village, Soho and Washington Square Park. There are lots of lovely boutique shops around this area as well as many buildings used for films and TV shows, including the Friends building, Carrie’s apartment from S.I.T.C. and the Magnolia bakery- yum!

Here’s to another week in the city that never sleeps! Hope everyone is doing well J

C x