I admit I am a chicken when it comes to nasty weather (who would have thought after walking for miles in snow-covered New York’s sidewalks!), so this weekend the rain, wind and low temperatures (plus a nasty technological installation) kept me home, away from amazing events I really wanted to attend like the Web We Want Festival, and the HowTheLightGetsIn2015 Philosophy and Music Festival. But a man has to eat, so on Saturday I went to the Maltby Street Market.
The event “Expand your Network after Setting Up in London” organized by the Spanish Chamber of Commerce in Great Britain at the London & Partners office was quite interesting. The venue was ideal: some of the best views in London. As a matter of fact that meeting room is often used as a recording studio.
Networking events are quite useful if they are industry focused, if someone already knows everyone and introduces to those who may have specific synergy (or if everybody has a chance to quickly introduce themselves).
On Tuesday I introduced my company officially to the Google Campus London community, with a “pitch”.
It didn`t surprise me to see the relaxed “cool startup” vibe, or the fact that it was full of entrepreneurs. What surprised me is how much people liked my pitch. I ran out of business cards!
It was interesting to hear what those entrepreneurs are working on: from a Polish working on “on-demand concierge services”, to a Russian with “personality analysis applied to finances”, or an Egyptian/Spanish couple working on “social-selling fashion”.
On Sunday I went to the Southbank Centre for a number of reasons:
The Poetry Comics exhibition at the Saison Poetry Library (Royal Festival Hall) – the largest poetry library in the UK.-
Amazing as the library itself is, this exhibition co-curated by Chris McCabe and Chrissy Williams made it even more so. Featuring works by William Blake, Derik Badman, Bill Berkson / Joe Brainard, Kenneth Patchen, Oliver East, Kenneth Loch, Bianca Stone, Paul K.
Yesterday I was invited to the London Global Art Fair 2015, which takes place May 21-23 at Olympia, Kensington, London.
With 150 galleries from 40 countries exhibiting works by over 500 artists, aged 25 (Nicole Wong and Vivien Zhang) to 93 (SH Raza) from 63 countries across the globe, in walling that would wrap over 13 times around the Royal Albert Hall, London Global Art Fair is as much a market as it is a celebration of creativity, art and culture.
Living in London means being surrounded by culture. For example, in less than 5 minutes’ walk from our apartment, and without even crossing the London Bridge, we have the Tate Modern (Britain`s national gallery of international modern art), Shakespeare’s Globe Theater, Southbank Centre (Europe’s largest centre for the arts: theatres, concert halls and a cutting edge art gallery presenting over 1200 events each year), and BFI Southbank (the leading repertory cinema in the UK, specialising in classic, independent and non-English language films, operated by the British Film Institute).
I have been working at the Google-TechHub Campus in Shoreditch (the “Silicon Roundabout”) London for a few weeks. It is really cool. In no particular order, here are some things I love about this place:
A cafeteria (open to anyone) with terrace, foosball table, bitcoin machine, device bar (to test your developments in many different devices) and even a spacesuit! A small but well stocked library of tech books Very nice team, from security to reception, to admin, to social media… all of them Two levels of office space, one of them (supposedly) “quiet zone” Unlimited supplies of toast and tea, great wifi, and good scanners/printers A ton of areas to sit down and have a meeting, not just the “meeting rooms” Most importantly: the events.
