A few words about me and what to expect.

Who

My name is Dominique Jaurola [xPurcell].

I would describe my doings as entrepreneur, futurist [or foresight professional], author, strategist, humanity explorer, conceptual thinker, pragmatic dreamer (dreams for change and pragmatism for making things happen) and connective (patterns and thoughts).

Where

I live mostly in Sydney, Australia. But my heart is in a number of places. I have lived in several countries and speak a few languages.

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:

Connected as the 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 (this was the case in 2007, now in 2014 we’ve done it).

Co-authored, contributed 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]

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. Lead 60 people on a vision program on ‘mobile information society 2010’. Lots of the things identified have come to fruition, not always by Nokia.

Admire(d) those people who dare to challenge the current thinking and often it is these creative minds who dare to make a change in themselves. 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.

Lived in France for two years: Near Epinal in Alsace-Lorraine 79-80 [AFS exchange] and then in Paris, studying at the Sorbonne.

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 🙂

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…….

Elected to the first board of the Association of Professional Futurists for three 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.

Started a business [with biz partner] during the first huge Internet boom. It was for bridging the gap between idea generation and commercialization “Innovation community” . We had 100 clients and when the crash happened all Internet business suffered, despite the fundamentals not having changed people thought that was it, Internet is not a viable solution, or something like that. I think many let out a sigh of relief, oh we can do things like before…..Still get an e-mail once in a while telling me that it was a good idea…. Now working on another venture/start-up.

So proud…My son wrote a piece of music for my birthday when he was five years old: It is gorgeous and called “The Soul Hunter” and my then husband swore the name came from my son. I need to take it from its tape format to digital and make it in to a ring-tone. And so the years go by… he is now an absolutely beautiful adult, just love his conversation. Not biased at all… (well, in my defence, others do say the same).

Enjoy happy ‘drugs’: hobbies: jazz ballet at the Sydney Dance Company, skiing [yes you can do that even in Australia, 6hrs from Sydney], canoeing on Sydney waters, hiking, reading, philosophy lessons at Sydney University 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.

Could eat raspberries and blueberries by the bucket-full but luckily I also learned from my French grandmother that “Il faut toujours rester sur un desir” = one should stop while still desiring more. Sometimes that works and then other times…

Trained to walk 100km in the Sydney forest/bush in 2002, 2004 and again 2010 with a team of four. As per the Oxfam event rules: you have to finish within 48hrs. First year I twisted my ankle badly at 55km and had to stop; second time we finished under 38hrs – 8hrs of that was because we decided to sleep along the way; third time we walked right through the night and finished in just over 29hrs.