Department of foreign affairs and trade Visit

The dept. is located in the Iveagh House near the city center. It was first purchased in 1736 for 250 pounds. It has gone under several redesigns inside and is a very beautiful building both inside and out. It was donated to the State by the Guinness family in 1939. The room where we met for the day was in what's known as the music room (pictured below with our speaker and Jan). The rich history involved here is very cool and I enjoyed seeing this building as well as having the opportunity to spend time with our speaker today. This opportunity was also amazing in the fact that not many people are granted this kind of access to the department or the house. No normal Ireland citizens are allowed in, and no tourists are allowed in either. We were granted access because of our affiliation as business students.

We learned a lot today from visiting the dept. here in Ireland. Many interesting things as to how the dept. is involved in business and the promotion of not just Ireland, but creating pathways for Ireland's future in the world market place. Here are my main takeaways from what Ireland is doing to build a better and more sustainable future:

- They play a crucial role in supporting the government's trade and tourism and investment strategies

- The embassy plays a large role in coordination priority market plans

- They are networking constantly and building this network to bring in support for Ireland through investment and promoting the Irish culture as well as promoting a flourishing business market in Ireland and through key partnerships across their targeted market

Also I learned so much about how the dept. is engaged on every level in it's role to promote this better future through things like media, promotion of food and the like to be influential. Our speaker touched on all areas.

The road to recovery has been a big focus for this dept. to promote to the rest of the world and to assure the world that they are on the right track. This has led to more investment in Ireland and attracting new business to Ireland.  Also learned that 72% of investment coming in from the US to Ireland is coming from California. St. Patricks Day has played a large role in how the dept. also targets themselves into promoting Ireland and the culture they offer.

I also asked two questions that led me to understand and come up with some key takeaways in both networking and then the role of networking and leadership paired together. Both these main points are things I want to incorporate in how I will work towards building better networking and leadership skills.

Networking requires 3 key things:

1. Be good at listening, use your two ears more than your one mouth

2. Target the people you need to know

3. Get out there and actually meet them!

Networking and leadership

1. Make networking a priority and get yourself to the right places

2. Get your people there too, you need your people on the ground making the connections

3. Make sure you are at the events and even possibly making promotional events

This short meeting was my favorite learning part of our trip so far and I'm glad I have the blog going to not only share it, but also to have this record of it now to remind myself of it.