Imagine standing on a rocky beach, dressed in about 4 layers of clothing, looking out over a snowy landscape covered with a few thousand penguins, and some icebergs floating off in the background.
This is my office for about a quarter of the year.
It may seem a bit odd on first glance that a business strategist who works with entrepreneurs would land up in a place like this, but what I do in Antarctica is almost exactly what I do in my online business.
Building a memorable business or brand is always based around the same principal: the marriage of an exceptional product or service with an exceptional customer experience.
In the Republic of Freedom – my online consultancy – I help entrepreneurs build an exceptional customer experience around their exceptional product or service.
In Antarctica, the company I contract for provides the exceptional product (expeditions to Antarctica) and I help facilitate the exceptional customer experience.
Here’s what that looks like:
Where I work isn’t in the middle of the windswept Antarctic continent, but rather on an expedition ship that sails between the southernmost tip of South America down to the Antarctic Peninsula and back. Passengers come with us on the expedition ship and the ship is where we live for the duration. We cross the infamously volatile Drake Passage over two days, and then have between five and six days to explore penguin colonies, iceberg gardens, glacier faces, and research stations through the use of zodiacs (six meter long motorized rubber boats).
Our ship functions as a floating hotel since there’s nowhere to stay on shore. There are a number of research stations scattered about Antarctica, but they don’t provide any accommodation for civilians.
So we sleep, eat and provide educational lectures on board the ship. However the real excitement comes when we load passengers into the zodiacs and do landings. Landings are when we get ashore and visit penguin colonies, hike up small mountains to get epic views of the landscape, and check out the occasional snoozing seal.
The people I get to work with are a fascinating combination of scientists and extreme adventure guides. Pretty much everyone on my team has an area of specialty like geology/glaciology, polar marine mammals, ornithology, polar history, mountaineering, sea kayaking, etc. Most of the team provide educational presentations in their area of specialty.
While my role is the only one that’s passenger-experience focused (I don’t do presentations), the whole team is equally involved in the execution of operations, so we all drive zodiacs, lead hikes, and do on-shore nature interpreting.
It’s such a privilege to get out from behind my computer and away from the online world, and help actively build a company culture that’s an industry leader in Antarctic expeditions. I get to solve problems almost immediately after they occur, help the team deliver a consistent message, work through challenges constructively, and I get to spend time with loads of ridiculously interesting people.
As I write this, I’m sailing south over the Drake Passage on the last voyage of the 2014/2015 season. I’m almost ready to go back to land-based life, but the Great White Continent and all of the adventure it brings is never far from my mind. What an incredible privilege to be able to play here.
