Trivia

A few words about me and what to expect.

Who

My name is Dominique Jaurola [married Purcell].

I would describe my doings as entrepreneur, futurist [or foresight professional], author, strategist, humanity explorer, conceptual thinker, pragmatic dreamer and connective.

I was born in Finland. I have also French and Australian nationalities. The French nationality through mother’s nationality and the Ozzie nationality is the result of my chosen home country and husband.

Where

I live mostly in Sydney, Australia. But my heart is in a number of places.

What and why

This blog has its origins in a few different sources of inspiration.

The blog is hence a collage of a few things which are top of mind for me: building a business, humanity exploration, foresight, Internet and mobile industries and my life as I interact with gorgeous people with passion and purpose in their lives.

Soft trivia

Believe it or nots and other tid bits:

1/ First residential client for a bb/ISDN connection at home in the
Southern Hemisphere – claims Telstra engineering [mid 1990s] – used it for
a regular [yes indeed] video conference with Finland while doing a global
role from Sydney for Nokia. Still waiting for video conferencing to really hit the market

2/ Co-author, contributor on 3 books
- Co-author: Strategic Foresight: The Power of Standing in the Future [2002]
- Contributor: Thinking about the Future [2007]
- Contributor: Future Histories, which had business and science fiction
writers talk about future [about 1997, Horizon House]

3/ Started Foresight/Futures thinking on consumers at Nokia and headed up
the whole digital mobile phone platform development for phones to be
launched 3 years later [in 1994-95] at Nokia also. Saw Nokia go from small nobody to household name over the 9 years I worked there. Led 60 people on a vision program on ‘mobile information society 2010′. Lots of the things identified have come to fruition, not always by Nokia.

4/ My heros are those people who dare to challenge the current thinking and often it is these creative minds who dare to make a change in themselves. I also admire people who dare to shift their careers and lives many times over. Do something very different. I inherited the passion and trait for challenging the status quo from my father who was always on the look for how to make things better.

5/ I lived in France for two years: Near Epinal in Alsace-Lorraine 79-80 [AFS
exchange] and then in Paris, living with my aunt [French mother lives in
Finland] and studying at the Sorbonne.

6/ I lived in the US for a few years: Laguna Beach, CA and Santa Barbara CA
and Columbia, SC [mid 80s]
- I worked in Laguna in a small military and law enforcement start up and
dealt with US government on Cocom regulations, oh what fun that was

7/ I started working during summer holidays when I was 13 years old, at a
farm – carrot fields – and learned that there are better ways to earn a
living, now of course I have become the modern shift worker as I work in
the globalized world and live in Sydney which is in a tricky time
zone for global conversations…….

8/ I was on the first elected board of the Association of Professional
Futurists for 3 years. I am a futurist or as many [including me] rather
call it Foresight Professional. This means that I think about the
possibilities and challenges proactively and apply the outputs of that thinking to decisions, thinking and actions right now. I have tools in my tool box to bring the outside of the box to use and help others do the same.

9/ Started up a business [with biz partner] during the Internet boom for
bridging the gap between idea generation and commercialization – had 100
clients and when the crash happened all Internet business suffered,
including this…..Still get an e-mail once in a while telling me that it was a good idea….

10/ My son wrote a piece of music for my birthday when he was 5 years old: It is gorgeous and called “The Soul Hunter” and husband swears the name came from my son too. I need to take it from its tape format to digital and make it in to a ring tone.

11/ Love France – it is my mother’s country after all – and lively
conversations over hours at dinner…..Love NYC [been walking there for
hours] and of course Sydney is a gorgeous city. Finland is good on a sunny February day with glittering snow, on a sunny warm summer day by the lake and on a crisp and cool autumn day and then in spring when the leaves first come out…..hmmm maybe I am missing those seasons after all.

12/ Happy ‘drugs’ = hobbies: jazz ballet at the Sydney Dance Company, down
hill skiing and cross country skiing [yes you can do that even in
Australia, 6hrs from Sydney], canoeing on Sydney waters, hiking, beautiful
writing [I read a lot] and music. On a rainy day when feeling fragile I watch Pride and Prejudice or something similar. Seen Pride and Prejudice – the TV series – about 10+ times and counting…. yeah crazy I know.

13/ Could eat raspberries and blueberries by the bucket full but luckily
also learned from French grandmother that “Il faut toujours rester sur un
desir” = one should stop while still desiring more

14/ Walked [fund raising event called Trailwalker for Oxfam 2005] 100km in under
38hrs with a team called “Fourgone Conclusion” of 3 [4th member had to bail out at 81km]. It happens in the Sydney bush and you walk mostly on up and down trails, which can get tricky. Last 11km felt like I was walking on knives as the soles of the feet got very sore. We stopped for 6hrs in the middle of the walk to get some sleep, which was a good strategy but another stop/sleep would have made me not go back so the last section happened during the night [we arrived on the beach where the finish line was around 1am]. Team raised about 5000 dollars from friends and family, thank you again for your support!!!
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