More posing from this stunning vehicle… and also from my co-driver 😂. He has enough bad pictures of me to compensate, I can tell you…
Told you the FOX Racing shocks also flash blue…
I’ve been taking part in a really special @fordeu event this week, sharing all the excitement with you on Social Media. Be social with me using the icons below #RangerRaptor More…
Sunset.
A quick change, and time for the technical presentation hosted by our Chairman, Steven Armstrong.
Then dinner, and catching up with Elisabeth and Florian, from the other employee pair.
We were all exhausted, sand-blasted (I swear sand poured out of my ear like a cartoon), and smiling from cheek to cheek – reflecting on our good fortune to be here at all but also on the experience of being in such an effortlessly capable vehicle in such exciting surroundings.
You know, we are still only on day one… stay tuned!
I’ve been taking part in a really special @fordeu event this week, sharing all the excitement with you on Social Media. Be Social with me using the icons below #RangerRaptor More…
One of the really wonderful things (for me) about events like #GoFurther is the chance to spend time with colleagues from all over Europe.
I’m lucky that after 13 years with the Company in a variety of roles I have got to know so many people – and certainly I’ve been catching up with many already this morning!
But also events like these hold the joy of meeting new colleagues, like Bal from our Transport Ops team who was kind enough to point out the Dagenham estate as we flew over it this morning (and who gave up his window seat also – thanks Bal!).
Bal is an RS fan so I wonder what he will think of what we see today..?
Our start this morning was really early – leaving Dunton just a little after 5am – and in typical fashion getting up early meant a rotten night’s sleep for me.
The welcome at Sugar City, then, just outside Amsterdam, was itself welcome. Coffee, cake and a game of Scrabble with colleagues gave us a break as the buzz began to build…
I’ve been taking part in a really special @forduk event this week, sharing all the excitement with you on Social Media. Be Social with me using the icons below #GoFurther
I couldn’t let you go without considering the whole trip I’ve just been on with my HR goggles on.
As I’ve mentioned before, this is the first time that my employer has offered employee places on a product launch event (other than the teams of employees who make them happen of course!).
This year three teams of six people from the UK, Germany and Spain were selected to have exactly the adventure I’ve just been on – or not exactly the same because I came away feeling that everyone had got something different out of the experience, in part dependent on what they brought to it.
You already know I’m no petrolhead. I’m about the experience, and the feelings. So for me this was about engaging with our product a little more and understanding more about what our Company does.
I’m already proud of what we do; and in comparison to my experiences working with other companies I’ve worked in, the tangibility of what we strive to produce is intoxicating – seeing something you’ve had a part in, however small, on every road in the country feels GOOD.
The simplified definition of engagement I prefer is an environment where you are fully involved and interested in your work, and inspired to do your best.
Every box there was ticked – for me I felt like part of a team, like my participation was valued, and I was inspired to think differently and more positively about what we do and how we do it. I was proud of my Company. It was also a lot of fun, and fun is something I’m always interested in!
For the employer I would expect to see behaviours empowering (trusting), setting expectations regarding principles and values, and focusing on satisfaction of both internal and external customers.
Talking to my colleagues we certainly all felt an expectation to work hard in recognition of the trust placed in us. This was a luxurious ‘office’, don’t get me wrong, but even though it was never articulated, we all naturally assumed a position of wanting to be worthy of the experience, to justify the Company’s trust and investment in us, and hopefully pave the way with great feedback for future events for other employees (and maybe us again!).
Although it would be hard to scale this, with 13,000 employees in the UK alone, I feel this experience worked really well as an illustration of employee engagement. Not one colleague I talked to came away without an improved view and enthusiasm for the Company. That’s got to be a good return!
There were a few elements we felt would improve the experience further – we spent a lot of the time in our own employee huddle and internal networking was great, and new friendships formed. However, while we would not want to get in the way of the ‘real work’ being undertaken by the journalists attending the event, when we did get to spend time with them over lunch on the second day it was incredibly interesting to hear about that side of things, so if I could tweak one thing I would find a way to integrate the employees with the journalists a little more. Certainly they mentioned to us that no other manufacturer had invited employees to attend in this way before…
Anyway I’ll leave the discussion for now, and reward you for all your attention with a few more of my favourite photographs…
All photos since we hit Spain (apart from the ones with me in them!) are by me, and copyright retained by me. The on-the-go posts were brought to you by the magic that is a Flashair SD card, which enabled me to use my DSLR as much as possible, and wirelessly transfer the files to my smartphone for blogging. Recommended, even if you’re not blogging about Fiestas!
Thank you to everyone who has followed my All New Fiesta Adventure, on here and on Social Media. Hopefully I’ve given a new perspective on these beautiful new cars, although I accept I also have friends and followers who will be glad when I’m just posting about my kids again…
I’ve been taking part in a really special @forduk event this week, sharing all the excitement with you on Social Media. Be Social with me using the icons below #newfiesta #FordFiesta
You never forget your first. Well this beautiful, shimmering, sometimes bright blue, sometimes a turquoise ocean greeny hue, was the very first car I’d ever driven abroad. The very first LHD car.
I stalled it, and I drove on the other side of the road, but I didn’t hit anything…
Here as promised are some arty detail shots of my favourite curves of the car.
My own car is a Titanium spec, and so I felt right at home. I’ve mentioned before how a 3dr isn’t suited for me as a shorty in terms of seatbelt shenanigans, but I was instantly at ease knowing that if I veered out of lane the lane keeping tech would alert me; if I went too fast or in the wrong gear, the car would gently give me a nudge, and that the blind spot sensors would get me out of any mirror flusters. The B&O Play system was the icing on the cake…
Driving the most lovely roads from Valladolid to our hotel in Valbuena de Duero was an absolute pleasure. In fact the only reason I preferred being a passenger in this little beauty was because that gave me more opportunity to scout out locations to make this gorgeous finish pop.
There are other bloggers who can tell you more about the technical specs of the car, I can only say how it made me feel… windy as it was, this selfie says it all…
I’ve been taking part in a really special @forduk event this week, sharing all the excitement with you on Social Media. Be Social with me using the icons below #newfiesta #FordFiesta
Music connects, uplifts, affects… and FordSocial reports research from Spotify that reveals “that it is during solo drives, in our own private space, that we cue up secret playlists, turn the music up and sing our hearts out. For many of us, there are playlists that we only dare turn to in the car, an especially intense place to listen to music where the sound is designed to perfectly fill the space we are occupying.”
You know already that when I heard I was to join the launch event team I turned the volume right up with some Faith No More. My tastes are pretty varied – I know I’m feeling down when I haven’t got the heart to sing along to the radio, and I flip between stations to find something that fits – be it smooth Motown, ’80s pop, ’90s rock… but if I can play steering wheel drums while I drive it’s probably a winner – Guns’n’Roses tends to hit the spot pretty reliably!
The new B&O PLAY Sound System for editions of the all-new Fiesta is said to be the most powerful for a car in its class. “Engineers spent a year listening to more than 5,000 tracks to ensure the premium 675-watt technology sounded great whether enjoying Adele, Foo Fighters or Jay-Z – or chilling out to classical music – no matter how quietly or loudly you play it.”
So I polled my friends to find out what their go-to, turn-it-UP tracks are for the car, and while we cover a huge range of musical tastes, here are the tracks that came up time and time again:
All of which I would cheerfully turn all the way up. As you can see, I have excellent taste in friends!
My colleagues at this launch event chose these:
Even our Chairman, Andy Barratt, has recently shared his musical tastes (from Coldplay to Górecki if you’re asking).
So what was my verdict on the B&O system in the All-New Fiesta?
Spanish radio is not good. And whoever had preprogrammed a playlist into the system had missed our tastes entirely!
But when you find something you love you can turn up the sound and despite being as loud as you want it sounds wonderfully balanced – surrounding you from all angles, with depth, rather than attacking you with a front wall of noise.
As someone who tends to like to tick the options box the extra couple of hundred pounds is worth considering, and of course the B&O PLAY system is included as standard with the Vignale, which was our Day 2 drive.
To find out more about Ford’s research with Spotify, click here.
I’m taking part in a really special @forduk event this week, sharing all the excitement with you on Social Media. Be Social with me using the icons below #newfiesta #FordFiesta
Drive 