Damien Mulley

So here’s my list of ones to watch in 2008. Here are the ones from 2007.

In no particular order:

Robin Blandford.
Robin’s a genius. I could stop there but his energy and his drive and his creativity mark him out from the pack. He’s currently at Reuters and he’s doing some interesting things there and they’re sending him off to Singapore in the next while. I’m sure he might spend a little longer in the company but one day he’ll probably have a startup or two or three. Maybe one day two he’ll come back to Ireland and work here when the environment can handle multi-talented people like Robin without them getting bored.

Fergus Burns
I’m having more and more chats with Fergus this year and more and more email chats with him and the folks in Nooked. Hardest working man in tech? He’s certainly in the running. Known all over the world, not just Ireland and the UK, he’s a networking machine. Many doors in Silicon Valley for the Paddy’s Valley group were opened up to us because of Fergus. Towards the end of 2007 Fergus deservedly won the Netvisionary of the Year and bloody right too. I have a huge amount of time for Fergus because he has a huge amount of time for everyone and unlike our own Government organisations, he opens up his rolodex and makes connections.

The Paddy’s Valley 20
Or at least a small amount from the group. There are some very intelligent and creative people that headed to Paddy’s Valley and I think over the next few years we’ll see some shining stars appear from that crew. More work, more graft and more scars and we’ll see success from this group.

Patrick Collison, John Collison and all at Auctomatic
They’ve already done what most Irish startups are talking about. Good idea, good product and good backers. All before lunchtime. Keep watching them in 2008.

Richard Hearne
He’s the S.E.O. God in Ireland but he’s changing direction slightly in 2008. I’ve met Richard a good few times now and the man isn’t afraid to call a spade a spade yet he’s not a crank. Richard doesn’t suffer fools gladly so couple that with his great talent and intelligence and how understands the web and how humans work with websites and viceversa and you know why I think he’s one to watch. Sub to his blog, see what he’s up to and try and work with Richard in 2008 if you can.

Conor O’Neill
Argolon, LouderVoice, OpenCoffees, originator of the Paddy’s Valley idea and planner who couldn’t make it in the end which was a bloody shame. His balls got him a lot of attention in 2007 but lets hope it’s his community spirit and his great products that get him attention in 2008.

Alexia Golez
My partner in crime when it comes to fights over on Twitter. We have frank, personal but not too abusive disagreements about disagreements on Twitter. She’s the Ken Starr to my Bill Clinton indescretions. Another person that doesn’t suffer fools gladly. No happy happy clap clap from her. If you want someone to deconstruct your web application or IT Project, this is the person for you. I didn’t make it to the FOWA event in Dublin in 2007 but I heard from a few people that she made a few presenters sweat. She’s currently working in Microsoft and I do wonder whether she’d be better suited in a smaller company that appreciates her talent more. Hire her for some nixers. Ahhh, enough of that bullshit, she’s only on this list cos she’s the token female.

Martha Rotter
I’m sure the Microsoft haters will once again talk about conspiracies here as I point to a second Microsoft person in my list. Good, I love baiting losers. Martha is an evangelist, a proper evangelist that you don’t see much on this side of the Atlantic. She shows a passion and understanding of the products she shows off, can engage you in a very techy discussion about whatever, knows how to network and will go to the ends of the earth to follow up on any queries you have, even when it’s barely linked to the area she works in. I really do think that Irish people should see how Martha does her work and then just rip it off. 🙂 Check when the next Microsoft roadshow is and then book a place to see Martha present. It’ll be worth it.

Marcus Mac Innes
One of the Paddy’s Valley groupies. I knew a little about him and his Pix.ie project (Pixie, pronounce it Pixie, he get’s slightly violent if you say Pix dot ie) before the event but knew nothing of the guy himself. Marcus has this great laid back attitude, good business sense and is a mischief maker too. Nice mix. Looking forward to seeing what Marcus and Pix.ie does in 2008.

Pat Phelan
Fuck’s sake, Pat, get out of my lists will ya! Pat is here again because I have a strong belief that he’s going to make 2008 interesting for himself and all the rest of us. See what I already said about him in 2007.

Cian O’Flaherty
Another chap from the 2007 list. Expect more to come from Cian in 2008.

Paul Fabretti
He only got into this list because of the grandmother rule, you the one that the soccer team uses, if your gran was Irish she can get a soccer jersey. Or something like that. He moved jobs in 2007 and it was through Facebook that he got his job. Impressive. As social media takes off so then we hope Paul’s career will too. Still, he needs to work on the Paul Fabretti global microbrand a little bit. 🙂 No pressure now with all of us watching him.

Paul Walsh
The most connected man in the digital and web media in the UK. And Irish. Paul Walsh and I have our ups and downs on issues. *cough* Sheriff badge *cough* and he never fails to cause a stir and polarise people, however Paul is another man generous with his time and his rolodex and always seems to want to help others. How come most of the Irish that do that are NOT in Ireland? Anyway, hopefully we’ll see Paul being a little more selfish in 2008 and putting Segala first. I’ve tested out the content labels product from Segala and I think maybe with a different spin it could take off. It certainlu makes the web a lot cleaner and easier to use. It could be used to turn Google into a spam free resource.

So this writers strike in Hollywood/America. No shows can be made if they don’t have writers. Heroes, Lost and loads more are going to be delayed. While Letterman has done a deal with his writers, the main strike is going to go on and on. Where is the IDA on this? Why are they not showing ABC, NBC and CBS what we can offer them. Let’s export all the quality shows we have out there and even create spinoffs.

Fair City L.A.

Bella, Leo, Jimmeeeeeeh and whoeverthefuckelse is on that show take a trip out there. And fit in. But all written and filmed in Ireland. The setmakers already make it seem like Carrigstown is realer than real so L.A. should be just as easy to copy on to shaky wooden frames.

But there’s more!
But hell, with P.S., I’m an eejit doing so well and Irish accents being all hot again, let’s give them quality stuff. Glenroe. Dinny and Miley and Fanny and Biddie and endsinYie and their Billy Barry kids with D4 accents.
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Then to feed their habit, let’s unleash Bracken on them. No, not the fella, the show.

And the game shows
Where in the World (book still available for 200 sterling) and Head 2Toe should be exported out to Lala land too. (Aside: I would have thought Fustar had some Theresa Lowe stuff but alas no.)

We have tonnes of stuff that we could ship over. What else could we send over? We’ve not even started on the quality from TV Three.

Start your engines.

New nomination system, new judging system and a restriction on the number of categories you can be nominated in. This means there’s more chance for smaller blogs to get through and combined with no public vote this year, it means it’s not a popularity contest that gets you to the second round. So, to be clear, all nominated blogs will get judged in round 1 and whittled down and some will go forward to round 2 where the judging gets a lot tougher. Good luck!

As a Christmas treat I bought Thank you for Smoking:
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And then I read this on the tobacco industry going all social-networky and deliciously evil too. They’re making videos of celebrities talking about why smoking is great and building a social network so employees all around the world can exchange ideas on how to market cigarettes.

The first video shows a series of photos of celebrity smokers before posing a blunt question: “And your thoughts on the smoking ban?” A young woman with wispy blond hair gazes back solemnly toward the camera: “It’s brilliant because people will stop smoking as a habit.”

Seconds later, she appears again. “If you smoke,” she adds with a faint smile, pressing a cigarette to her lips, “it’s for pleasure.”

Le Lab, an internal Web site at Altadis, is meant to be part social networking site, part data resource, part virtual pep rally. The intended audience for the site — which started in the fall — is several hundred Altadis brand managers who could use a little inspiration as cafes and restaurants around the world continue to push users of the company’s products out the door.

“The cigarette market is very difficult to work with all the legal restrictions, and we have very few tools to communicate with our brands,” said Karine Boure, the marketing manager for Altadis. “One objective of our project was to bring more insight to our marketing team so that they could be more effective, and we saw the lab as a way to pick up more ideas. That’s why it’s important to find innovative ways of working.”

Read the full article.

The Learner Driver’s Facebook group I set up now has 613 members. Let’s see can we get it to 1000.