I suppose the theme that came out of last week – was ‘am I listening enough?’ It was a busy week, full of celebration. I had a fabulous time at the Contours Conference in the Gold Coast…. What a fun group. I had to rush back to Sydney to host a boardroom lunch at RedBalloon. It is very un-RedBalloon to have a board room lunch – so the invited guests sat amongst the team and we all had lunch together. Then two of my colleagues presented their RedBalloon journey. Jemma – GM who started life in product management (8 years ago) and Megan Employee Experience manager. I delighted at listening to their experience of the growth of RedBalloon.

Friday was a day for many celebrations – our April Fools day tradition continued with some really ‘special experiences’ that only a ‘fool’ would not take up. Well done marketing team… love your work.

And at 11.22 on 1 April the scoreboard clicked over to 1,000,000. We are half way to our BHAG of 2 million people by 2015. It was fabulous to bring the team together for an impromptu celebration.

It was truly humbling to be a part of the Qantas eXcel awards celebration at hanger 96 at Mascot airport under the wing of a very large 747-400. Whilst I was personally involved in the selection of the ‘peoples choice’ winners- there were more than 700 people at the party – and it is an amazing thing to know that each of the winners there had received a RedBalloon voucher at some stage through 2010 (in recognition of their achievement). How delightful to listen to customers about the experiences they went on or are planning to do.

And in between all that I attempted to study for the AICD exam and put together an argument for the assignment.

This Week

Monday: Study & phone hook up briefing for Boot Camp presentation

Tuesday: Monthly Company Meeting and board meeting

Wednesday: Interview with Anthill, boardroom lunch at Taylor’s wines and AICD exam

Thursday: Presentation by Lowy Institute and then I’ll present at Kochies Business Builders Bootcamp

Friday: More Boot Camp and finish AICD assignment.

Reading: AICD Company Director Course Notes