I spent two months on my Dott Tour. Talking to folks from around the company in real life was leagues better than the year’s worth of superficial Donuts I’ve been forced into GMeets with (dear colleages, I still love and appreciate our interactions). Our product is just so physical, and so heavily locale-tuned that a screen simply doesn’t do it justice.
I felt much more in tune with the company’s movement than before the trip. For example: losing scooters in Paris was a huge event, and in Amsterdam the news sounded like the beginning of the end — but being with the team in Paris it sounded more like a speed bump than a flat tire.
I also learned that, much like Aubervillier, our expansion to Sardinia, Italy was based purely off the local team’s confidence that it would work. And it did. The lesson? Listen to the local team. It feels almost medieval to make calls from a remote HQ – whether corporate or government – that only occasionally has market exposure, like a ruler that doesn’t interact with their people. Some assumptions were challenged, others were reinforced, and yet others were learned.
If by this point in the article it isn’t already obvious, the locals do know best, because each city is different in the way it moves, whether in attitude, infrastructure, operator — or lifestyle. And with the help of my colleagues and friends, and a sprinkle of naïveté, I am so blessed to have experienced even just a small window of it.
I hope you feel a little closer too.
Outro
Thank you to everyone who has helped this article see daylight, whether you were part of my trip or part of the journey in writing this.
Trying to capture the subtleties of several weeks’ worth of observations resulted in a lengthy article. Congratulations if you got this far!
I do a more critical analysis in another piece, Tour de Dott: The Takeaways. It’s a much shorter read, although less of a picture book 😉
I hope you’re inspired to look more critically at how your cities move. Transportation is something we all touch, whether we like it or not, and it accounts for a quarter of worldwide emissions. Let’s work to make it better, for us!
Part 1: Intro & Seville
Part 2: Malaga
Part 3: Madrid
Part 4: Paris
📍 Part 5: Not the End
🛴 Tour de Dott Takeaways
