Archive for May, 2012

Fluffy Links – Sunday May 27th 2012

Sunday, May 27th, 2012

The Holy Numbers. Tommie Kelly is back and having fun with this comic.

West Cork Development Partnership are doing a series of web workshops. I like the idea of the Responsive Design one.

Love this. All the Twitter accounts for the London Underground routes.

Make things people want rather than make people want your things.

Breaking bread. Nixon McInnes go over the social aspect of business, today and historically.

Guy hides away inside AOL building his startup. Totally ticks the box of every person that wants to build a startup on a shoestring. The truth is somewhere else I would think but that would be boring, right? I expect this story to be reused by some entreprenurial social startup hacker in Ireland in about 5, 4, 3 …

You may have heard of Jonny Ive, the guy that designs all the pretty Apple items. This guy is probably his strongest influence. Dieter Rams. You will know his work.

Social TV. James Whatley has some ideas. I agree. Not enough innovation even when the tech is brand spanking new. Not just about tech, is it.

Via Jim OTR

Posted in Fluffy, irishblogs | 1 Comment »

Punt Nua – Creative Economics

Saturday, May 26th, 2012

I’ve been dragged into an art exhibit called Punt Nua – Creative Economics that’s happening next week in Dublin. The launch is on Tuesday if you want to head along.

PuntNuaInvite

It’s in Darc Space in North Great George’s Street. Facebook invite is here. My “art” of #mulleybucks will be there along with genuine pieces of art too.

MulleyBucksArt2

Can I get tax relief now?

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Chugging

Sunday, May 20th, 2012

I was asked to write 350 words on chugging for Le Chéile magazine, which is part of The Wheel. The question asked was: “Should charities use chuggers?”.

Full submitted piece:

If you want to be crass, lazy and think only of the short term for your organisation, I have a suggestion for you. If you want to extract money quickly from people and let a private organisation get handsome fees from you, I have a suggestion for you. If this were the Simpsons I’d start singing about a Monorail about now.

Chugging is the fracking of the charity world. It does get you back something of worth but it is controversial, it angers many people and there can be a poisonous fallout over it. If you want to see how the general public feels about chuggers, do a search on Twitter for the phrase or look at the Twitter account @chuggerwatch (I have no affiliation with them, it’s obvious as they are nice to charities)

When I met an organisation that employed chuggers a few years ago they told me if I can find an easier way to get money as quickly, they’ll do it. Shortcuts have gotten this country and our society into trouble in the long term and the quick buck means chuggers blocking you, making you shake their hand, asking for high-fives or hugging you. It will make you first disliked and in time despised by the general public. Don’t forget the massive data protection issues too as these strangers gather banking details in your name.

The organisation I met told myself and other active Twitter users that they would never employ the tactics of asking for handshakes to stop people. Now they do. As people become immune to the usual chugging tactics, stronger more intrusive tactics are needed. Fracking came from the oil industries that drained mother earth dry. What next for chuggers?

The fallout of an industry ignoring more aggressive chugging is that all organisations may be mistrusted and all forms of on-street collections could end up being banned. Politicians in this country will always use a sledgehammer to crack a nut, it is their nature to over-react. If you want to be the BP of the charity sector, I have a suggestion for you…

===

Posted in business, irishblogs | 10 Comments »

Fluffy Links – Wednesday May 9th 2012

Wednesday, May 9th, 2012

IRISSCERT are running a campaign aimed at teenagers and young adults in getting them to use secure passwords when online. They’re giving away 20,000 free toothbrushes with the message “treat your password like you would your toothbrush – Use it often, change it regularly and never share it with anyone”. See the campaign page on Facebook.

If it can be measured, measure it, but use it well. Restaurants copping on to big data. And medium data.

Twitter gives away Obama’s location! Hand wringing about security. Think terrorists in Afghanistan rely on Twitter to give them local info?

Another day, another Apple post but it also shows the depth to the company. More insights for any business about how to inch into a market before taking over a lot of it.

Trust in advertising, thanks Pat.

Zynga making ther money back quickly with Draw Something, even if usage is plummeting.

Via New Aesthetic (RIP) is the Descriptive Camera. You take a picture and it is turned into a textual description thanks to Amazon Turk.

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A Joyful Slog

Monday, May 7th, 2012

via Richie Egan – Music documentary about DIY Music in Ireland

Posted in irishblogs, music | Comments Off on A Joyful Slog

State Agencies give €250k+ to F.ounders, Dublin Web Summit

Friday, May 4th, 2012

I recently asked Enterprise Ireland and the IDA about their financial and otherwise involvement with the F.ounders and Dublin Web Summit events in the past few years. F.ounders brings all the tech boys to the yard and they’re like: it’s better than (London, Berlin, elsewhere). Davos for geeks is right.

I really like the idea of F.ounders, bringing a buzz to Ireland and hopefully getting some of those tech boys setting up shop. It’s a juggernaut of tech meetings. It’s a private affair though. Dublin Web Summit then commercialises this very well by introducing the F.ounders types to the public. Is it value for money? F.ounders, I think is. Getting some of the most brilliant people in tech together in Dublin for any event is worth a lot. What happens though when these leads are generated and delivered? Who converts them?

So what did EI and IDA give to the F.ounders and Dublin Web Summit events over the past while?

F.ounders 2010
IDA gave €30,000
Enterprise Ireland gave €10,000

F.ounders 2011
In 2011 a consortium of Irish state agencies gave €170,000 to F.ounders/Dublin Web Summit
Enterprise Ireland gave €50,000
IDA gave €60,000
Other agencies contributed the rest.

EI’s Cloud sub-event
However they also gave money towards Enterprise Ireland’s “Beyond the Cloud” event as part of Dublin Web Summit 2011.

€54,450 was paid to Dublin Web Summit Ltd. by the state agencies
IDA gave €10,000
Science Foundation Ireland gave €10,000
Enterprise Ireland gave €34.450

London Web Summit 2012
Enterprise Ireland gave £10,000 to the event (Press Room Sponsorship)

Here are the original emails from EI and IDA on this (names removed)

IDA:

Damien

Further to your recent query, in 2010 IDA sponsored the F.Ounders part of the event to the amount of €30,000 following an approach by Paddy Cosgrave.

IDA sponsored the F.Ounders event again in 2011 as part of the Ireland team overall sponsorship package. IDA invested €60,000 in the event in 2011. In addition, IDA contributed €10,000 towards the running of the Beyond the Cloud event at the Dublin Web Summit in 2011, in conjunction with EI and SFI.

IDA Ireland can confirm that at no time was it asked by the Department of An Taoiseach or any other Government Department to support these events.

EI:

Dear Damien,
In response to your recent FOI request, I have gathered the following information.

Enterprise Ireland provided €10,000 in sponsorship for the Founders event in 2010 following an approach by Paddy Cosgrave.

Enterprise Ireland decided to sponsor the event as it represented an unprecedented opportunity for positive global publicity for Ireland as a top business location.

On foot of the success of the 2010 event, and a sponsorship request by Paddy Cosgrave, Enterprise Ireland in partnership with other relevant stage agencies negotiated a joint inter-agency sponsorship package for Founders and Dublin Web Summit in 2011. The agencies jointly provided a package of €170,000 in sponsorship of which Enterprise Ireland provided €50,000.

In addition, Enterprise Ireland ran the “Beyond the Cloud” event as part of Dublin Web Summit. This event cost approximately €74,500 of which €54,450 was paid to Dublin Web Summit Ltd. IDA and SFI each contributed €10,000 towards the total cost of this event. The rest was covered by Enterprise Ireland.

In 2012, Enterprise Ireland, through its London office, provided £10,000 (Sterling) of sponsorship for the London Web Summit.

Enterprise Ireland can confirm that at no time was it asked by the Department of an Taoiseach or any other Government Department to support these events.

I trust this covers your information requirements,

Posted in business, irishblogs, technology | 8 Comments »