After a week of visits in the leading tech companies in Dublin’s Silicon Docks, here are some of my personal highlights.

The idea of Dublin becoming the Silicon Valley of Europe seems to be on its tracks. Hosting the European headquarters of all the main tech companies in the world, Dublin looks like an interesting scenario for talents looking for growth.

Last week, along my Vlerick Business School colleagues, I had the opportunity to visit some of these companies and talk with some of these talents. Here are some of the highlights I could learn from them:

1. Storytelling

As part of our first company visit, Oracle, we had the opportunity to learn more about their products and services through a storytelling/role playing demonstration. Not only it was one of the most different approaches I’ve seen to explaining what a company does, it was a way to make it one of the most memorable presentations from the whole week. A powerful tool to make your presentations stand out.

2. “Culture eats strategy for breakfast”

As said by the consultant and writer Peter Drucker, Culture expresses goals through values and benefits. Part of Microsoft’s mindset, Culture was clearly one of the most mentioned terms from all of the visited companies and seems to be what makes the difference in the end. If the culture is a good fit for you, go for it! Otherwise, you may avoid it!

3. Customer Centrism and Effective Questioning

Impact is a buzzword for a reason. Having your customer in the center, care about what they are doing and aiming to have an impact on their lives seems to be another common goal of all the visited companies. In order to achieve that, one of the followed strategies is effective questioning. Are you sure you’re using the right questions? Are you sure your customer understands what you’re asking? Are you sure you’re focusing on the solution and not on the problem?

4. Test New Things and Play

Innovation comes with a risk, if you don’t try it, you don’t evolve. All the visited companies seemed to have the mindset of trying and learning from its accomplishments and failures. Daring to play, making mistakes and testing new things is what makes those companies what they are.

5. Multicultural and Diverse

Dublin is a multicultural city and this is reflected on every company’s offices. The minimum amount of nationalities of the visited offices was 70, which in my opinion, is already a significant number. As well written by Frans Johansson, the Medici Effect is what occurs in the intersection of multiple fields, disciplines and cultures, combining existing concepts and creating innovative ideas. Dublin and all those companies benefits from that.

6. “Move Fast and Be Bold”

Quoting one of Facebook’s core values, it is important to do, test and learn the most you can in the shortest amount of time possible. That’s not a reason not to be bold, but bending the rules and “hacking” systems is what drives innovation and transforms companies.

7. Most of all, Be Passionate

Passion was the key element that all the employees had for their companies and positions. As one of Microsoft’s values states, “come as you are and do what you love”.

Having the opportunity to visit companies such as Facebook, Google and Microsoft is an one of a kind experience. I’m sure there’s much more to come and learn, as Dublin increasingly becomes the innovation hub of Europe.

What other lessons can we learn from the tech world?

#Dublin #Tech #Innovation #SiliconDocks

Written by José Vitor Corrêa

Luckily for us our students also captured their Dublin trip experience. Watch the videos they’ve made and discover their insights into this amazing city and its companies!