EirePreneur

I'm such a Twit

Walter invited me to Twitter but he's since stopped Twittering himself. It's okay, Bernie's still Twittering away and I'm becoming more of a Twit each day.

Actually I'm fascinated by Twit. It occupies an interesting niche in the spectrum of textual communication somewhere between the asynchronous soapbox of blogging and the synchronous privacy of IM. Actually Dave Winer's (mostly) stream of thought, short text burst style of blogging is an example of twittering by blog..... hmmm,.... blottering?

Defined at last: Serviced, Virtual and Bedouin offices

The quality of comments to this blog continues to be much better than the posts! Thanks to MJ at Infurious for clearning up my serious confusion regarding the differences between Serviced Offices, Virtual Offices and Bedouin Workspaces. His full explanation deserves a bump up (below) and you can read the Infurious blog to learn more.

Serviced Office: it's an office. Many services provided. Relatively short term contracts but it's still a closed door office. Market leaders here would be Regus and the various enterprise parks in the North who cater for early-stage companies. With Mac-Sys we went from a 300 sq ft office to a 900 sq ft office within 4 months (and with a tripling of the costs) and finally settled on a 1500 sq ft office (for little more than we were paying for the 300...)

Virtual Office: no office, but you get a PA/telephone answering service, maildrop, office services, call forwarding and all for a small monthly fee. Many serviced offices offer this to their clients as well.

Bedouin Workspace: No office. Just a open plan workspace where the guy sitting next to you is not only not in your company, he's not even in your market. You have probably got all of the features of serviced and virtual offices but whereas the Serviced Office will generally give you workspace on a 3 month contract (wow, short!), the Bedouin office won't require a contract (it just may be cheaper to get one if you plan to use it a lot). Regus are responding to this need with some hot-desks in some of their centres but in Belfast it consists of a single sofa, beside a major thoroughfare, near the door (brrr!) in front of the tea, coffee and chocolate bar vending machines. Not the same thing at all!!!!

Our rationale for the Bedouin workspace is that you shouldn't need to pay for an office that you're not using 24x7 for papers and furniture storage."

Technorati Tags: virtual office, bedouin, workspace

Good Morning Inishowen, and low-end telepresence

Last night's Six One News reported on the launch of a new service to combat loneliness and give the elderly a greater sense of security. In Co. Donegal older people, many living in isolated rural areas, are telephoned regularly by the Good Morning Inishowen service to check how they are and to keep them in touch with their community. As one senior citizen says, "I have plenty of good friends and neighbours and family but they're all at their work during the day  - the phone calls are very helpful."

Most of the volunteer callers are actively retired people who have special empathy with those living alone. While other social services are available it's often the case that those called spend a good part of the day on their own. One of the volunteers says what motivated him in the beginning was the few cases of people who weren't found until two or three days after something had happened them, through simple lack of communication. Good Morning Inishowen is backed by the HSE and it's northern counterpart and funded by the EU. It will soon expand it's coverage from three to five days per week.

The reason I find this initiative so interesting is because it ties in with something I was thinking about a few weeks ago. While watching Scoble's video demonstration of the Cisco TelePresence 3000 one of the first things that occurred to me was - wouldn't it be a wonderful way for senior citizens living alone to battle the loneliness of a solitary existence.... if only they could afford and manage such a system.

But, while Cisco's product is state of the art there's no reason a more modest system couldn't be plenty effective. Beneath the sliding and swooshing gloss of Nokia's new high-end mobile family lie incredibly capable communications black-boxes. With 3.5G (HSDPA), WiFi, Bluetooth, GPS, uPnP, TV-out and 5 megapixel camera sporting Carl Zeiss optics and DVD quality video capture the upcoming N95 could easily serve as the hub of a low-end Telepresence system.

Sure, video-calling has been a flop with the masses but where's the attraction for the young and mobile in ogling a 2-inch image of a friend they can meet in person  several times a week? The marketing is all wrong - it's the mobility-challenged who stand to gain most from video calling. Especially now that TV-out functionality can transform the transmission into something approaching life-like.

But regardless of how capable this technology is it's far from simple enough to use for the average person, let alone the elderly. There's a business opportunity here comprising of a hardware/software solution and service component. First we need an accessibility cradle for the phone e.g., sporting two large buttons - a green one to activate voice dialling and a red one to end calls. This would be attached to the side of the TV with TV-out extended to the socket. We could start with the operator's video-calling service but the ideal is an always-on option routed via the phone's WiFi to a DSL access point. Users should be able to sit down to dinner in the telepresence of their remote neighbours and friends.


Technorati Tags: inishowen, donegal, elderly, telepresence, cisco, nokia

Le Web 3 is dissapointing many

It's a bit disappointing that none of the Irish startups (except Joe from PutPlace.com) have yet reported from Le Web 3 (the nerves must be getting to them ;-) but perhaps it's something to do with the dodgy WiFi.

Tom Morris isn't happy with it either and in fact seems rather unimpressed with the setup as a whole -

"Is this an unconference? No. BloggerCon is an unconference. BarCamps are little unconferences blossoming all over the world. If 900 people sitting in a room listening to one person and not being able to ask questions is an unconference, then I'm a pink zebra - because words will have no meaning."

That sounds very disappointing. Anyway, speaking of Tom Morris, don't miss out on his new podcast if you're interested in understanding how a bridge might be built between the SynWeb world of RSS and OPML, and the Semantic Web of RDF, SPARQL and OWL. It really is a terrific monologue and I wouldn't mind if Tom kept it that way.

Further on the topic of OPML Jim Moore has been making some big announcements and renamed his blog accordingly. And finally GrazrScript now includes form validation (I must include that on my Universal Irish Jobs search).

Technorati Tags: le web 3, opml, grazr, jim moore, tom morris

TechCrunch is tracking Segala, and so am I

As a follow up to the previous post about Segala it's worth amplifying two of the comments made in response.

CEO Paul Walsh says that, despite the 'startup' label, the company was formed in 2002 and has been working on Content Label technology for almost 2 years now. In addition Segala....

".... generated €2.2m in its first year, was in profit in months and with the exception of its very first project, has never pitched for a project or employed sales. So, we’re now looking for investment to expand the business and realise its full potential! My business partner and I have put in €450k of our own money on top of profits, so the investment is almost like second round funding... So, how many Web 2.0 'widget companies' can say that?"

Sam Sethi of TechCrunch UK & Ireland comments -

"Segala is one of the companies I am currently tracking on TechCrunch as "big in 2007". content labels have a humble beginning right now but as they move into areas such as ecommerce, identity reputation and advertising then they will have a much bigger impact."

Before the most recent episode of Podleaders I hadn't even heard of Segala and now it's a big bright echo on my radar screen - thank goodness for the podcasters and bloggers spotlighing the exciting companies the mainstream media are missing.

By the way, Damien Mulley's Press Release about the other Irish startups going to Le Web 3 in Paris inspired an article in today's Sunday Tribune - a further sign of what the self-help blogging/startup community can do for itself.

Technorati Tags: Segala, Semantic Web, Contel Labels, TechCrunch, Sam Sethi

Another Irish startup presenting at Le Web 3

Paul Walsh says Segala is joining the other Irish startups visiting Le Web 3 in Paris to demo what he calls "a real implementation of the Semantic Web in action".

Are we cavemen with computers?

I wondered from the start if Bernie Goldbach was winding people up with his views on furtive podcast recording. He is afterall a Director of Digital Rights Ireland. Catching up on the debate that started here Bernie says - "the real issue–who is watching the watchers watch you?"

That would be sousveillance which, as Wikipedia explains...

"... refers to the recording or monitoring of real or apparent authority figures by others, particularly those who are generally the subject of surveillance. Steve Mann, who coined the term, describes it as 'watchful vigilance from underneath'."

Is sousveillance the ultimate destiny of a podcatching, youtubing, lifecaching society? In a post about Lifelogging Mark Wallace urges us to...

"... think of the cave paintings at Lascaux, which are thought to be more than 10,000 years old and are often cited as one of the earliest example of the human impulse to art... But what if these are less art than an early example of the human impulse to history, to record oneself through whatever means are at hand, and in that act to somehow create a representation of identity (individual or collective) that’s not unlike the identity we create online through tools like MySpace or in virtual worlds?

Which brings me to pose the question - are we all just cavemen with computers?

Technorati Tags: sousveillance

Hot-desking nomads found in Dublin

Evert Bopp makes an inquiry on the Enterprise Ireland discussion list about temporary office facilities in Dublin, and it leads me to the monumental discovery - that I've been using the wrong search terms all along - Bedouin workspace, hot-desk, virtual office. Wrong, wrong, wrong.

The reason I've found such a dearth of resources for nomadic entrepreneurs is because the correct term is, apparently, "serviced office". At least according to Pat Walsh of Sky Business Centres in Dublin. Providing meeting room facilities, temporary and virtual office accomodation their service is typically used by clients 'not requiring the shackles of a leasehold'. Check out the video where founder Pat Walsh explains -

"We look after everythings from a desk and chair, a telephone system, broadband, wifi, we pay their rates for them, their communal insurance, we supply catering, security, carparking so they can forget about those headaches and get on with running their business."

Apparently they've got a year round occupancy rate of 90% and they're interested in expanding through franchising. By the way, it's not obvious who did their virtual tours but perhaps they should commission the360co to re-do them!

Anyway, the main take away for me is to use "serviced office" as a search term in future - there are numerous results for Dublin alone.

UDPATE: Actually, the more I read the more I realize that, depending on which service provider you ask, there can be quite a difference between a virtual office and a serviced office package.

Technorati Tags: hot-desking, bedouin workspace, virtual office, serviced office

Cutting-edge startups represent Ireland at International Web Expo in Paris

Three Irish startups run by a new breed of web entrepreneurs, will be showing off their tecnhologies at the "Le Web" conference in Paris next week, Damien Mulley writes. These new Irish startups are some of the first to to develop new products that will address the emerging needs of a new generation of web user.

Walter Higgins from Sxoop Technologies, Joe Drumgoole from Putplace.com and Conor O'Neill from LouderVoice.com will be showing off their new products to a global audience in Paris on December 10th and 11th.

Walter Higgins from Cork-based Sxoop and Joe Drumgoole were each granted coveted presenter slots to show their individual products in front of 1000 other web entrepreneurs. "Demoing at LeWeb is going to be very exciting because the cream of European entrepreneurs and venture capitalists will be there." said Higgins. Drumgoole added "Presenting is a perfect opportunity for PutPlace.com to get some initial feedback on the first version of the product and see what our competitors are doing in this space.

Higgin's Sxoop is a software development company, specializing in Web application development. Its flag-ship product - Pixenate - is an online photo editor that lets you edit photos from any PC anywhere - No software install required.

Said Drumgoole of his product: "PutPlace.com exists to help home users manage their photos, videos and music. We will find all your content on your phone, PC or laptop and back it up outside the home away from coffee spills and computer viruses. We then offer you the ability to publish your content on any accessible location on the web. Finally give you a complete map of all your digital content where ever it resides so you can find it in the future."

Putplace is accepting pre-registrations for its service at www.putplace.com.

As it is not yet released to the public, Conor O'Neill will be giving "hallway demos" of his LouderVoice site to interested parties. Hallway demos are informal and fast-paced talks out in the corridors during the breaks at the main event.

Describing the genesis of his LouderVoice, O'Neill stated "We are all frustrated with being unable to find specific types of high quality structured information on the web since it is buried in between spam, misinformation and dross. At the same time, many of the millions of bloggers who write valuable opinions based on their knowledge and experience are shouting to themselves in the garden shed with no audience and no reputation.

Our community moderated web-site builds readership and reputation for those high quality bloggers by enabling readers to find, use and rate
the information they need."

In regard to getting to show his application to such an experienced group of developers and business people, O'Neill stated "Le Web is the premier event in Europe for Internet businesses and provides us with an unmissable opportunity to meet and share with our peers and the wider investment community."

Le Web is an international conference in Paris where the rising stars of the web gather together with already very successful web entrepreneurs and talk about technologies and products that excite them. This year over 1000 people from 36 countries will attend the conference. The Le Web website is at http://www.leweb3.com/

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Contact details:

Walter Higgins, Sxoop, 086 8511 600
Joe Drumgoole, PutPlace, 087 299 5547
Conor O'Neill, LouderVoice, 087 979 0297

Santastic use of video

Conn Ó Muíneacháin points to a new Irish company - SantasVideos - who've joined forces with the jolly fat man to transmit personalized greetings to every boy and girl in the land. What a wonderful use of web video.


Technorati Tags: santa, video