In Part 1 of this “SDI is going to Lisbon” blog series, we talked through why a company would take 100+ employees to Europe. So that leads us to the next question… Why Lisbon??
Part 2 – “Why Lisbon”
What does the the earliest surviving latitudinal map of the world as known to Europeans and the announcement that Search Discovery is taking our entire team to Lisbon have in common?
Quite a lot really.
In this image of the Cantino planisphere or Cantino world map (circa 1500), we see the world just starting to be filled in, a snapshot of the cumulative discoveries of oceanic routes and lands made by the Portuguese in the 15th and 16th centuries, a period historians call the Age of Discovery. We also see in this image a snapshot of the most technologically advanced feature of the era, the emergence of latitudinal mapping (meaning places could be mapped by coordinates on the globe), which was good news for the safety and advancement of the explorers and entrepreneurs of the era.
In several ways, the entrepreneurial spirit of these explorers who sailed from Portugal to explore, trade, and learn is alive and well at Search Discovery and closely parallels our own Core Values.
Working on the leading edge of the data industry requires a culture that values both a pioneering spirit with the courage to pursue new paths and the vision to imagine how things could be in order to create a better tomorrow. We live these core values every day at SDI by keeping people at the center of our enterprise. If we wish our people to lead global companies in leveraging data to create change, we must provide our team with opportunities to apply their skills and expertise to rich, novel challenges. To do this, we must give our people the time, education, and support to make discoveries. At Search Discovery, we create opportunities for our data explorers to drive discovery and success for our clients, because when we make the experience of work awesome, we make awesome work for our clients. This is why we’ve chosen to travel together to Lisbon, one of the oldest cities in western Europe, home to the mariner vanguard of exploration and discovery.
Over the years we’ve enjoyed the benefits of bi-annual, company-wide on-site weeks that we’ve previously hosted in Atlanta. These events have been a.) LOTS OF FUN!, and b.) critical in creating shared experiences and creating meaningful personal connections for our team. But with our global focus, expansion into Europe, and overall growth, we’ve outgrown our Atlanta headquarter on-sites. Traveling together to Lisbon—a city with deep roots in exploration and one of the hottest tech scenes in Europe—will allow us to bond, share novel and exciting experiences, and create singular memories that will last a lifetime.
We set sail for Portugal this Saturday May 5th. Stay tuned as we map our latest discoveries.
What is it that confers the noblest delight? What is that which swells a man’s breast with pride above that which any other experience can bring to him? Discovery! …To give birth to an idea–to discover a great thought–an intellectual nugget, right under the dust of a field that many a brain–plow had gone over before. To find a new planet, to invent a new hinge, to find the way to make the lightnings carry your messages. To be the first–that is the idea. To do something, say something, see something, before anybody else–these are the things that confer a pleasure compared with which other pleasures are tame and commonplace, other ecstasies cheap and trivial.
