More data lost, this time in NI. This is only the stuff that’s disclosed.
Giz Conor a job. Please.
One of the first bloggers I interacted with outside of Ireland was Anita Rowland. RIP Anita.
Tado gear. Yum.
It seems we’ve been waiting years for the return.
For legal nerds, Daithi links to cases with odd and over-the-top judgements. The Times gives a good writeup on the cases.
Last week in Palo Alto it seemed the bus drivers relied heavily on GPS. It ain’t perfect though.
I’m not sure how to summarise Paddy’s Valley so I’ll write a few posts instead of one long one. This one being on those who went.
What a bunch of … really fun, interesting and intelligent people. I can barely not kill my friends after a week’s holiday yet I’d happily spend two or three weeks with some of the crew that went over. There’s a lot of raw talent in the group and a seriously amount of talented people all round. It’s a pity that not everyone that did the pitch training got to pitch on the Tuesday night but hopefully the pitching at Yahoo! Brickhouse made up for it. I make a yearly (I only actually started this last year) “ones to watch” list and I’m thinking a lot who I met last week should go on it. It’s like this, were the crew stationed in Palo Alto and not Ireland, I have no doubt they’d be very successful so it will just take a little longer on this side of the world.
It was a pleasure to spend my week with them and I really hope that they make Paddy’s Valley redundant by doing their own versions and dragging people over. I hope they evangelise how people in the Valley operate and maybe inject their enthusiasm into Irish culture. Wouldn’t it be nice if the Paddy’s Valley idea wasn’t in anyway special and something that happens a lot?
In terms of brain power, I was chatting to some of the Irish CEOs that were attending the Leadership 4 Growth (their use of a number, not mine) in Stanford and I was saying that the PV group as a whole would make a great sounding board for any company.
There’s talk of a meetup in January where the PV crew will talk about their experiences. Anyone interested in coming along and picking the brains of everyone?
Thanks to everyone that came to Paddy’s Valley, we all rocked. 🙂
Some pictures from the ground-breaking, historical, game-changing, buzztastic Paddy’s Valley.
John Gormley is blogging from Bali. Loving the sandals. He always wore them though, right?
Self Notes, a new sevice from Sxoop.
Well, you had the chance to win Wii’s now you have a chance to win three Skype Phones from Three via 3 Mobile Buzz. Just write a blog post or do a video or something creative as to why you should win them.
Get Tom Waits’ “Christmas Card from a Hooker … ” to number one for Christmas in Ireland.
The eircom innovation fund application form is now online. (Link to word doc.)
Oh god. Fine Gael kids want an Enda song to get into the charts.
Another one of those truth in advertising videos:
[youtube j50Xd40EfJg]
For all of those who still live in fear of Enterprise Ireland, you better stop associating with me now because in the near future I’ll become a lot more critical of this useless state body and if you think you’ll be tarred with the same brush, then stay away, starting now. What am I on about? It seems that article from the Tribune that quoted my thoughts on EI has gotten some attention that others surrounding the Paddy’s Valley tour wish to distance themselves from. Fair enough. No really. I don’t and will not take the EI soup so I can be brutally blunt about them while many can’t. This is the relationship many people have with Enterprise Ireland, one which I consider to be an abusive one where people alter their behaviour for fear of being punished. That’s how many voluntary orgs get controled by the Government when they give them funding and they rely on it.
Consider this my Geneva Convention style declaration though. Trouble is coming. Abandon all association with me from here onwards if you worry about grants and feasibility studies and them being affected somehow via me.
I won’t comment any more in public of my experience of EI during Paddy’s Valley (I will talk about it in private though) but in future I won’t be staying quiet for anyone else’s sake. So if any company interacts with me via the Blog Awards, Web Awards or other events I organise, accept any potential fallout or stay the fuck away.
This. Left side all pins and needles and numbness. Hmm.
Nothing will be bigger than the first trip. For years people will be talking about this. Full writeup on this trip when I get back but as well as the impressive Valley people, those that came from Ireland are bloody impressive too. Some very clever people who if given the right opportunities could make Ireland a better place by building great companies. Were I a businessperson I’d be watching all of them with interest.
Value Ireland points out some of their blog posts and some articles from the Indo. Interesting out.
Fuck off. Seriously guys, go fuck yourselves.
As has been noted elsewhere, the Indo have had a nice aul go at bloggers for the past while, even making up stuff about Beaut.ie yet at the same time they’ve been approaching people to blog on their site. For free. First of all, for free? I’d blog for free for the Irish Times (only if they paid me to do something else for a lot) but not for anyone else and my god would you honestly associate yourself with that lot. I don’t want the readership of the Indo as my personal audience, I’m quite happy with the better though smaller crowd that hang around here.
From the Beeb it’s Perl on rails.
Another cool multi-use linux device.
The Golden Pages is a bit elitist.
Want to turn ideas into reality and be a tech evangelist? Talk to WIT.
Join the eircom web innovation Facebook group.
700k visitors to this blog since the counter got going. 100,000 visitors since September this year.
Only had time to write this now. Things have been a bit mad. So the Pitch Forum organised by EI on Tuesday went very well despite some annoying things which will be discussed properly in a future post. Enterprise Ireland really pulled out the stops and some very heavy hitters in Silicon Valley and American business turned up. The new Irish ambassador also was present and gave a speech.
Conrad Burke of Innovalight moderated the event which included a 45 min panel discussion on all things VC and business. The panellists were Richard Irving, Tim Danford, Patrick Ennis and Dino Vendetti with a guest appearance from Aidan Connolly of Idiro. Aidan then went back into the audience while the remaining panel listened to pitches from Jan Blanchard, Hélène Haughney, Alan O’Rourke, Marcus Mac Innes and Joe Drumgoole.
I’ve done some videos of the event, please forgive the quality.
First is Jan Blanchard doing his pitch:
[youtube WjQNAMYmZVU]
Jan doing Q&A
[youtube dcques9mi7M]
Marcus Mac Innes from Pix.ie
[youtube PvfkDBG4oZ4]
Hélène Haughney from Nubiq
[youtube FsXq-hlOi6k]
Alan O’Rourke from Toddle
[youtube LKGj51yeETs]
Joe Drumgoole from Putplace – Pitching
[youtube zidYOvs7DeA]
Joe Drumgoole from Putplace – Q&A
[youtube mCf3RHaeyVQ]