EirePreneur

Fresh Start Expo - for business startups

John Ryan at The Business Shop passes on word about Fresh Start Expo 2006  - an event to be held at the RDS in Dublin on the last day of September and first day of October. Besides covering futher education, jobs and careers it will focus on startup business -

Alternatively, if you have an idea for a business, are in the process of setting up a business, or started your own business recently, make sure the Fresh Start Expo is on your Agenda.

I've copied in my Google Calendar below so just fast forward to the aforementioned dates and click through to add the event to your own calendar. See you there!

A particle collider for geeks and angels

I don't like to duplicate the content on this blog but Walter's reply to my last post is too quotable to wallow in the depths of the comments section -

"Ireland has an abundance of geeks/talent but try getting  geeks and rich-people together in the same room.  Ok - it happened at the recent web2.0 event in the Helix but I didn't see much informal chatter between the two groups.

Irish VC thinks: "so that's what a geek looks like..."
Irish geek thinks: "so that's what a VC looks like..."

Geeks mixing amongst themselves is one thing - what we really need
is a particle collider to get Irish Geeks and Irish Rich people (god
knows there seems to be enough of them) to inhabit the same space for
more than a few hours."

If We Only Had The Valley Over Here

Damien Mulley asks do we need an environment more like Silicon Valley here in Ireland and lists the main factors in success from Paul Graham's controversial keynote at XTech. But nowhere do I see a mention of "Geek Dinners". I'm serious! This is one aspect of Valley culture that I think is seriously underestimated.

Look, I'm more a nerd than a geek (geeks are sociable nerds, right?), I don't have the best people skills but after I started blogging and soon started connecting with a raft of great people I quickly learned the magic and importance of networking. The old adage "It's not what you know but who you know" came sharply into focus for the first time in my life. The number of doors that have opened and continue to open as a result of blogging and the few geek dinners I've attended continues to astound me. In fact I'm currently exploring a new business idea with a programmer I met at one such event.

When John Collins introduced Fergus Burns of Nooked at the Web2Ireland conference a few weeks ago he called him the consummate networker. And in the few times I've met Fergus it was indeed apparent that he seems to know everyone who's anyone on the Web 2.0 scene on both sides of the pond. I have the greatest of admiration for that kind of networking and the recent selection of Nooked for the Innovate! Showcase can at least be in part attributed to Fergus' restless jetsetting (besides the fact that they have damn great technology). We need much more of that can-do, 'press the flesh' attitude among Irish entrepreneurs.

The likes of Scoble, Arrington, and Winer seem to be at a networking BBQ or geek dinner every other night of the week. Its the informality of it all that amazes me. These guys just call around to each others houses like lifelong buddies with no great fuss, no airs and graces. The food is just an excuse to talk tech. What a wonderful culture. Can you imagine the conversations they have? The informal brainstorming? There must be a constant stream of inspiration. You'd probably get a dozen different business ideas per hour. What I wouldn't give to see that replicated in Ireland.

If We Only Had Old Ireland Over Here (sentimental Irish-Australian folk song)

I was dreamin' of old Ireland and Killarneys lakes and dells
I was dreamin' of the shamrock, and the dear old Shandon Bells
When my reverie suggested in a vision bright and clear
All the strange things that would happen
If we had old Ireland here

If We Only Had The Valley Over Here (sentimental Irish-Geek folk song)

I was dreamin' of the Valley and the Googles and the Dells*
I was dreamin' of the poppy**, and dear old Standford Bells
When my reverie suggested in a vision bright and clear
All the great things that would happen
If we had the Valley over here

*I invoke my right to artistic license in relocating Dell and ignoring the fact both Google and Dell have European centers in Ireland. How bloodly inconvenient at this time of great emotional stress.
** The Golden Poppy of course! ;-)

Outsourcing versus Offshoring

Antoin O Lachtnain clarifies greatly something I was always a little befuddled about - the difference between outsourcing and offshoring -

"Outsourcing is not the same as offshoring, where work is done abroad rather than in the home country. Outsourcing does not depend on driving down costs for it to be successful. In fact, there could be an increase in costs and the outsourcing would still be considered successful. Offshoring, on the other hand, is almost always about cost."

15 recommendations for small business support

From Ireland On-line:

"Fifteen recommendations were included in the report in order to create a better environment, stimulate growth and inspire entrepreneurship in the small business sector. They include raising the standard of management capability through the establishment of a Management Development Council, providing knowledge acquisitions grants, making innovation vouchers available to small business and developing a national entrepreneurship policy."

Knowledge acquisitions grants? Now that's a new one on me. What exactly are they?

Interesting new Irish marketing podcast

Well, its new to me anyway eventhough The Persuaders is Ireland's longest running business radio show and celebrates its sixth birthday this May. Apparently its broadcast weekly on Dublin City 's Anna Livia FM 103.2 but this culchie never even realized that the Floozy in the Jacuzzi had given her name to a radio station.

Anyway The Persuaders...

... addresses topical issues from the world of marketing, advertising and public relations. Each show featured interviews with top Irish and international experts, and offers an independent perspective from presenter Alex Gibson, who is a senior lecturer in marketing at the Dublin Institute of Technology. You can sign up to receive weekly programme notification from the show's weblog.

Liam Burke has already added the feed to the Open Irish Directory so you can audio graze it in the sidebar here under -

Open Irish Directory -> News & Media -> Podcasting - The Persuaders

Isn't that a handy way of sampling a new show! I'll take in a few episodes before I offer a review.

Connecting third level research to Irish businesses

Bernie Goldbach wants to boost online connections to third level research in Ireland -

WE ARE REVIEWING a steady stream of third level research projects in Tipperary Institute and as we do, I realise that only a few have an RSS identity. In other words, they are parked in cul de sacs with no obvious way to enjoy a peer review or community scrutiny. Some of these projects have elements of intellectual property relating to up-and-coming Irish businesses. I believe those companies could benefit from the synergy of reviewing the projects with an eye to folding in the best-of-breed into Irish companies.

Absolutely, this is a cracking idea! I've experienced how the process could work while monitoring the progress of Robin Blandford's CommentCasting project, developed as a Final  Year Project for B.Eng. in Digital Media Engineering in the School of Electronic Engineering at Dublin City University. I'm sure Robin would confirm the benefits of blogging and connecting with podcasting bloggers like Brian Greene and Tom Raftery.

We should have a Reading List of third level projects and promote them in blogs and on social bookmarking services. My own final year project in UL - a Windows utility - didn't amount to a hill of beans but I'm sure that if blogging had been around at the time and I'd been as actively plugged in as Robin is to a peer review process, it would have been a whole lot better.

nowEurope - a refreshing voice on entrepreneurship

The latest Enterprise Ireland eBusiness newsletter points to the nowEurope group blog which...

... receives support from the European Commission as part of the NETIES project. NETIES stands for: NETworking for Innovation and knowledge Economy among SMEs in the new member states. The stress is put on innovation and entrepreneurship support, especially in knowledge economy development, which has been identified as the regional weak point.

Its a refreshing change to listen to the voices of Czech, Hungarian, Polish, and Slovak bloggers. Here's EI's spin on it -

NowEurope.com is a website that reports on technology innovation in Europe. The site, funded by the European Commission, includes opinion, commentary and debate about technology and entrepreneurship on the Continent. The website also includes upcoming events, case studies and relevant links.

Subscribed.

Pssst, wanna join my pyramid scheme?

Unlike other pyramid schemes the only thing you need to invest when joining the Open Irish Directory  (OID) project is a little of your time. And believe it or not, everyone is a winner,.. from the very start.

The OID is an information pyramid, a directory, a hierarchy of categories and sub-categories into which we'll organize the Irish web, blogosphere and feedosphere. There are two ways you can help us build it -

The Very Easy Way

Simply copy (drag and drop) this bookmarklet - OID - to your browser toolbar and click on it any time you visit an Irish website that you'd like to add to the directory. Please follow a few simple guidelines when submitting the bookmark -

• Edit the title to make it concise and accurate (eg. remove the "Welcome to....")
• Copy and paste a relevant passage from the webpage into the description field.
  
• Tag liberally
  
• Do not use 'Ireland' or 'Irish' as a tag - it goes without saying!
  

The Easy Way

Build and manage a sub-category for inclusion in the directory. Pick a category according to your domain of interest and/or geographical location. For instance you might like to build a list of websites relevant to parents in Cork. Or to list the websites for businesses, clubs and organisations in your community. Here's how -

• Register for a free account at OPMLworkstation or OPMLmanager
  
• Add your website and feeds to the list and keep an eye on the OID for new bookmarks matching relevant keywords (eg. 'Cork' and 'Parenting')
• Email me at address above or comment here to notify us of your new directory category
• Blog about your category and invite submissions though the process as listed in "The Very Easy Way" above.

There you have it, the most benign Pyramid scheme ever. No money changes hands and you get help build a useful resource for the internet newbies and oldies alike.

The Geeks are coming to Galway

Pester power won out in the end and Ed Byrne is back blogging, with a brand new HQ. Chalk that down as another great thing that came out of the Irish Blog Awards.

"James Corbett and myself had a great chat at the Irish Blog Awards about a number of things - but chiefly we decided to start running monthly Geek Dinners around the country."

Yikes! We did? How many pints had I drank? Hey Ed I'm no Damien Mulley and I find it hard enough to organize my own dinner but I'll do my best to help :)

"Straight to the point … the first one will be held in Galway on the 1st of April,... Location is yet to be decided."

Excellent, I love that city and Geeky Galway does have a nice ring to it. Actually I've wondered if the word Geek puts people off coming along to these things. I know its worn like a badge of honour in Silicon Valley but when I was in school it was worn like a bullseye for target practice. Well, that's what the geeks told me anyway ;-)

Ed spells out the the reasons we really need to get this kind of thing going, and keep it going. Go read his blog and then leave your name in the comments if you'd like to join us... please. Let's hope the Dublin dweebs, the Corkonian clever clogs, the Newry nerds, the Ennis eggheads, the Swinford swots, the Limerick lads (we don't have geeks 'round these parts) and everyone in between can join the Galway Geeks in giving the Celtic Tiger a collective kick up the entrepreneurial arse.