I had a great evening last week at the Social Entrepreneur Awards organised by SocialEntrepreneurs.ie. The Taoiseach was on hand to salute the best of Irish social entrepreneurs and it was great to see so many people I knew there.  The merging of social media and social good is a real area of interest for me.

To see the award winners are click here >>

Social Entrepreneurs Awards is a post from: Connector

The Connector Team has been incredibly busy in recent months and making lots of new connections and ideas we’d love to share with you!

We have lots of up-coming opportunities and are especially keen to talk to aspiring bloggers and event organizers around Ireland.

Connect with us via our Facebook page.

Connector News

• We have moved to new offices! Now you can find us at the Gateway House (133 Capel Street, Dublin), the former home of the famous dance group Riverdance.
• Did you miss Showcase Ireland? Well then you also missed Conor’s social media seminar “Meet Your Customers in the New Market Place”. You can take a look at it here.
• Check out some of the events our bloggers went to in the past couple of days! For example Annie went to have fun at RAM´s Pocket Radio´s concert while Megan attended the launch of Don Mullan´s new book.

Connector Training

• Social media can be useful for any business and they know that in the Digital Marketing Institute. That’s why they brought Conor in to lead workshops called “Social Media Marketing for Business”.
• We also launched a Social Media eBook which is based on a proven Connector 10 C´s Strategy Model and breaks down the utilization of social media into ten clear steps. Check it out!

Connector Consulting

• Conor is now a mentor of the Dublin City Enterprise Board.
• We have also acquired new clients from the field of interior design and personal transportation.

Connector Top 3 Connections

• John McColgan, Neil Leyden & the Gateway Ireland Team
• Eimear Dunne from Quirc & Dunn Design
• Quentin Ahern from Army of ID

Connector Team

• After months of great work our digital marketing executive Dave Dungan has decided to pursue a web development career in Jason Roe’s company. Thank you Dave for your great work in 2010! We’ll miss you!
• On the other hand new people are now partnering with us on projects – Igor Walter (PR), Graeme Hanna (planning), Greg Fry (training) and Shirleen Flynn (events).

Connector Meetup

• The Connector Team is going to meet up at the Dublin SoundCloud Meetup Day.
• Join us also at the Project Arts Centre where we plan on seeing the hilarious play called Connected. The tickets will be only 12 € so come and join us!
• The Facebook Garage event will be taking place at our new offices – the Gateway House – on Wednesday 9th @ 5pm. Check out more info here.

If you have any interesting news or know of any events taking place around Ireland share them with us via our Facebook page!

Connector Weekly News is a post from: Connector

The Long Debate is at hand:

Check out now the next three scholars, that will bring their expertise to the exciting debate on 11. Nov. We strongly recommend to register now, click here

Did you know: The “Long Debate” is an evening full of lively discussion and networking. Inventorium has devised a special debate format, 18 of Ireland’s key contributors and commentators have been invited to give their views and opinions. Each speaker will present his or her viewpoint for five minutes, the emerging conversations will be documented and presented on the Inventorium website.

Ron Immink

Ron is a serial entrepreneur and author of a number of best selling business books. He has started several, grown a few and sold one company. Ron has worked in entrepreneurship, training, consultancy, publishing, education, innovation and tech transfer.

In 2007, following his passion for books, new learning and entrepreneurship he started Bookbuzz™, a company that has developed an innovative, proven and highly effective learning and consultancy methodology that harnesses the collective wisdom of the organisation, using inspiring business books to stimulate ideas, design innovative strategies, improve decision making and boost fresh thinking. Clients of Bookbuzz include some leading multinationals in Europe and the USA.

At the same time he co-founded www.smallbusinesscan.com in partnership with Ulster Bank. A free and open platform where owner managers can create and share the business knowledge, the insights, the experience and the contact networks needed to generate new growth for their own business and create a new beginning for the economy. Smallbusinesscan is now the fastes growing business support website in the UK and Ireland.

His expertise is around entrepreneurship, story telling, narrative, dialogue learning, social learning, social media and collective wisdom.

Ron Immink

John Collins

John Collins is assistant business editor with The Irish Times. A journalist for 16 years he specialises in technology, business and internet issues. He has been contributing to the paper’s popular technology pages since 2005 and has been on staff since early 2007.
He was the Irish Internet Association’s Net Visionary Technology Journalist of the Year in 2006. Prior to joining The Irish Times he was a freelance journalist contributing to publications including The Sunday Business Post, Computerscope, Business Plus, Ireland.com and Smart Company.

John was editor of PC Live! Ireland’s best selling computer and Internet magazine for five years. He has been online since 1995, and has written for a range of Irish and international publications including The Irish Independent, Silicon Republic, Business & Finance, TVB Europe, The Web Magazine, i-D, Hot Press and Apple Report.
John has commented on technology and business issues for a range of radio and TV programmes for both RTÉ and independent stations, as well as co-presenting the RTÉ2 series, TechTV.

John Collins

Theo Lynn

Theo Lynn is a lecturer in Management in the Dublin City University Business School where he teaches at postgraduate level on Strategic Management. Theo holds a Ph.D. in Law from University College Dublin and the title of his thesis was “The Irish Corporate Governance System and the Role of Irish Occupational Pension Funds as Institutional Monitors”. He is the Programme Chairperson for the MSc in Business Management, is Deputy Director (Technology) of the Learning, Innovation and Knowledge Research Centre (www.link.dcu.ie) and is Principal Investigator on the Global Grid for Learning project (www.globalgridforlearning.org).

Theo Lynn

A unique format and networking opportunity: We invite you to this very special discussion The Long Debate which will take place as part of the Inventorium project, during Dublin Innovation Festival. Make The Long Debate your key event in Dublin Innovation Festival

When?

The Long Debate, Inventorium,

part of Dublin Innovation Festival

11 Nov

Doors open 18.00

Debate: 19.00-22.00

NDRC, Crane St, Digital Hub, Dublin 8

Registration for this event is essential

The Long Debate: Speakers (13-15) out now – expertise at hand! – Ron Immink, Theo Lynn & John Collins is a post from: Connector

A unique format and networking opportunity

As part of the Inventorium project, The Long Debate will take place on the 11 Nov during the festival, at NDRC. An evening of lively discussion and networking, Inventorium have devised a special debate format, 18 of Ireland’s key contributors and commentators have been invited to give their views and opinions. Each speaker will present his or her viewpoint for five minutes, the emerging conversations will be documented and presented on the Inventorium website.

Make The Long Debate your key event in Dublin Innovation Festival

When?

The Long Debate, Inventorium,

part of Dublin Innovation Festival

11 Nov

Doors open 18.00

Debate: 19.00-22.00

NDRC, Crane St, Digital Hub, Dublin 8

Registration for this event is essential

The Long Debate – get involved now: A unique format and networking opportunity. is a post from: Connector

Dear Friend, enjoy this great clip. The next Connector Event is around the corner.

WHERE GOOD IDEAS COME FROM is a post from: Connector

Connector Social Media Workshop @ PhotoIreland Festival is a post from: Connector

The design work I have done for Connector has been an interesting experience. I am caught between the styles and branding that was developed for Connector and my own design and style.  In my design work I like to keep things clean and simple, because I think that is the most effective type of design. Simple design allows for the strongest creativity and at the same time allows for a very straightforward clean message. I guess that’s my design weak point. I need to start developing more complex and interesting design, so that way I have a lot in my design arsenal to use.

Every time I go into creating a design for Conor, I try and do two or three different designs. The first I try to create something consistent with the Connector’s current style. The second I make something I like and I think is cool, and third I make a hybrid of the design I like and the design consistent with the brand. It’s hard at times to create something I like. Time constraints often leave me feeling like there is something left to be desired out of some of my designs. I guess college has spoiled me with a plethora of time to create and refine my designs. Now I am working under short deadlines and desire for high quality. It’s been a bit of an adjustment to this kind of working environment, but I am getting used to it and I am learning where I to focus to save time but still produce decent quality.

Overall the adjustment to office life has been good and interesting. I am still getting used to the fact that my designs are actually being used for the web, proposals, etc instead of for just portfolio development. I hope by the end of this internship I will be doing work on a fast paced basis, I will be able to create a piece that is high in quality but only takes a short amount of time.

Here are a few examples of the work I have created for Connector. Please share what you think about them. Any feed back I can get would be great!

Designing at Connector Academy is a post from: Connector

In recent times I have been lucky enough to meet lots of new people in whole new areas for Connector.  I have found myself miles from my digital marketing homeland and over in what could be best described as an interesting but alien socio-political-economic landscape.  On my travels I have been connecting with an assortment of non-techies, technophobes and luddites which is nice for a change and makes me feel oh-so nerdy!

In 2009, I am sure I was not the only one to be utterly depressed at the sorry turn of global events and the international pounding our once proud celtic tiger economy was taking.  This was in the back of my mind as I set out to become a full time connector in the midst of a recession in February.  I wanted to travel a new road and see where it took me and here are some of the connections along the way as I have ben a very lazy blogger lately!

As a recent graduate of the 6 month long (part-time) Common Purpose Meridian Programme, for the first time I encountered many senior civil servants and politicians and visited several ministeries and even Mountjoy Prison.  Only yesterday at an alumni event we were presented to by the most senior civil servant of them all, Dermot McCarthy, Secretary General to the Government & the Taoiseach.

I was also recently chatting to the Minister for Science, Technology & Innovation, Conor Lenihan TD at the annual showcase for the excellent Computer Clubhouse project in the Liberties (pictured above).  Conor had great craic with the kids and remarked that they were better hecklers than the guys in the Dail!  I was then very happy to be involved in a small way with helping Padraig McKeown promote the Martin McAleese brainchild ‘Your Country Your Call‘ campaign at a Connector Event in the Science gallery – this competition is now at the exciting judging phase.

And now I see I missed the recent launch of Gateway Ireland and on the same day I assume, I walked by Gabriel Byrne and regretfully not running after him to say hello!  This project looks quite exciting too and a welcome offspring of the Farmleigh conference of 2009. I see from their web site & video they are also about connecting the Irish dots … ah now lads, shor I’ve been doing that with Connector for over 2 years now! ;-0  I wish them all the best in their endeavours to promote Irish business, tourism, culture & education and the team of advisors they have assembled is first class.

As another 2009 connection, Colm Long from Facebook, said on the RTE News site, “the company has been working with John McColgan since shortly after the Farmleigh event nine months ago. He says that Facebook got involved because connecting people all around the world is its business. He says that connecting with the country’s diaspora will be key to the success of the site.”

Gateway Ireland – An Introduction from Fountainhead on Vimeo.

So what is it with this sudden burst of  economic nationalism?  While the dire state of the state’s finances is well known, there is a  fight back coming on strong.  There is a very exciting turning of the tide underway and I hope it hits the country’s shores in 2010.

With all my talks to small businesses recently including at the Entrepreneur Show, I see a realisation that the time to energize and digitize the nation is now, as Joan Mulvihill iia CEO championed  so well recently.  People are fighting back and connecting with each other at networking events the length & breadth of the country.  However thankfully the country’s heavyweights seem to be up for the fight and are grouping together to collaborate.  The international connections with the Irish diaspora hold the key but it is us at home who must do the hard work.

A final new connection this week was a really enjoyable conversation with Andrew McLaughlin who is the Director of the Masters in Organisational Behaviour in the IMI.  On Thursday he just published a very timely and fascinating research report for the IDA called ‘Innovation & the Irish Mind.’  As Steve Jobs from Apple said, “creativity is just connecting things” and Andrew has found that the Irish executives and entrepreneurs have a unique mindset that could be just perfect for the ‘conceptual age’.

In a great supporting article in Decision magazine, Andrew writes that the ‘conceptual age’, from Daniel Pink’s book ‘A Whole New Mind‘, will require new skills of which Ireland might be perfectly equipped to prosper once more.  The Irish entrepreneurs have a preference for social connections and associating with others who have larger social networks.  They also have a tolerance for ambiguity which indicates independent idiosyncratic innovative minds!

I am doing a disservice to this vast subject area and 80 page report by summarising it into a paragraph via a 2 page article, but the full report was co-written by Megan Burgdorf and can be found at ‘Innovation & the Irish Mind.’ However as the government has also produced an several ‘knowledge economy’ style reports, it is the actual implementation of good ideas that will get us back to our rightful place punching above our weight on the global stage.

The fact that this community of Irish economic nationalists has formed is very encouraging and will it have the desired impact?  If you have any comments or messages of support for these initiatives, please leave a comment below.

Words by Conor Lynch / Photo by Pavla K Smidova

Irish economic nationalism to take on the world! is a post from: Connector

Yesterday our 10 contest winners, Conor and I went to see Des Bishop at The Button Factory, sponsored by ESB Customer Supply. The gig was excellent, where Des Bishop talked about many things, among others his father’s illness, with his unique style making hilarious things that other people could find uncomfortable to talk about.

After the gig we have the opportunity to do a short interview to Des, who told us some tips for young comedians on why they should engage in social media. The video of the interview is coming soon, but for the moment here are the photographs we took with him.

This event was the final point in the campaign Des Bishop and Jim have run to encourage people to save energy during the last 6 months. We want to thank Des for his time which we enjoyed, to ESB Customer Supply and McConnells for the tickets and Eleanor for a wonderful warm-up at the event.

Connecting with Des Bishop is a post from: Connector

One year more Tradfest is taking over the Temple Bar streets’ to bring the best of Irish tradition to the city centre. The fifth edition of this festival, organised by TASCQ (Traders in the Area Supporting the Cultural Quarter Limited), will run from 27th to 31st of January.

During 5 days Temple Bar will be full of activities suitable for all publics and some of them will be free! Tere will be workshops, concerts, film screenings, a photo exhibition and even a market.  But the most of the activities will be concerts, as this is originally a music festival, where the irish traditional music is the star.

Here it is a little advance… The Kilfenora Céilí Band, who performed at the launch of the Tradfest days ago at The Clarence Hotel.

Tradfest connects you with Irish culture is a post from: Connector