Connecting 7up, Ash & The Republic of Loose for St. Patrick’s Day

by Sarai Fernandez on March 3rd, 2010

We’re pretty sure you all have heard about  7Up Free ”Bring them back for the Craic” competition, which will gather back in Dublin a group of 7 irish friends for St.Patrick’s day. 7 groups of friends have been pre-selected and they’re now facing a weekly challenge to gain points. You can vote for one of them and that way y0u’ll have the chance to win tickets to the exclusive party that 7Up Free is hosting on March 20th to celebrate the winners.

Check out the last news about the contest in the 7Up Bring Them Back For The Craic  Facebook Page.

At Connector we have 3 pairs of tickets to give away for this invitation only gig, which will be headlined by Ash and the excellent Republic of Loose playing support.

If you want to be one of the lucky winners just  leave us a comment below or in our Facebook Group tell us: how would you like to drink your 7Up? The deadline for participating is March 15th, so hurry up!

Connector at launch of ‘Your Country, Your Call’

by Sarai Fernandez on February 17th, 2010

Conor met the President of Ireland, Mary McAleese & her husband Martin, at the presentation of  “Your Country, Your Call’. This is Martin’s initiative to help Ireland come out of a period of economic depression in 2009.  The event was help in the National Library & was hosted by MC Mark Little who made the big announcement.

‘Your Country, Your Call’ is a national competition which aims to find two transformational proposals that will enable the Irish economy to grow. There is a broad range of categories from sports and arts to communications and technology, and the best part:  a prize fund of €200,000.

I was invited to the blogger review event on Monday evening in the Guinness Storehouse & hear about the exciting plans for YCYC.  Some of the team are also coming to the Connector Tribes event next week to tell us more about this great contest.  Please check it out at www.yourcountryyourcall.com

Connecting with Des Bishop

by Sarai Fernandez on February 4th, 2010

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.

And the Des Bishop tickets winners are …

by Sarai Fernandez on February 3rd, 2010

Tonight we’re going to ESB Des Bishop gig at The Button Factory with 5 funny guys, who posted a great comment on our blog, and their companions. And the winners are:

Cat Egan
Will Lynch
Alan Kennedy
Colin Egan
Mark Condron

Congratulations guys! See you at 7.oo at The Button Factory! And for the others, thank you very much for taking part in the contest.

After the gig, Conor will interview Des Bishop, so if there’s anything you want to know send us your questions!

Weekly Connector – 25 Jan 2010

by Conor on January 25th, 2010

By Conor Lynch & Sarai Fernandez

It’s not easy being a Connector and last week was particularly busy with long group meetings & training.  I had seperate  meetings with ‘The Board’ in NCIRL, an  ‘Anonymous Group’ in Ranelagh & the annual meeting of the Chairs of the iia Working Groups in the Digital Hub.

I received a card from the Guinness Storehouse ‘honouring’ me with the title of ‘Ambassador’ for their 10th birthday year. I can get in free only if I bring down friends who can then get 10% off the entry ticket. That’s not very much at all for an ‘Ambassador’ to SHOUT about – a better idea might have been to invite down the Connector group for one of our monthly events & generate conversation that way ?

Events Calendar

Every week Dublin hosts so many events that it can be hard to choose. And at Connector we want all you to keep connected with the coolest events, conferences, seminars, workshops and more that are being held in the city. That’s why we will now start to issue a weekly blogpost including all the interesting stuff we have been connected with, so keep an eye out for them every week.

Dublin Midweek Movie Club

The Dublin Midweek Movie Club will be meeting on wednesday 27th to watch “Brothers”  by Irish director Jim Sheridan and starring Tobey Maguire, Jake Gyllenhaal, and Natalie Portman. After the film the group will go to The Church to discuss the movie over a drink.

As you know, we are hosting our Connector Nº 18 at Ron Blacks next Thursday January 28th. For those interested, you can take part in our second time to have ‘Speed Connector’. This is like speed dating or speed networking & you’ll have 3 minutes to connect with somebody else and then … move on! Don’t forget to bring your business cards and prepare your elevator pitch … there’s no time to waste. we will also have a ‘Connect 4 Contest’. You can register here.

Dublin Facebook Megaparty

Fun will continue on the 30th during the Second Dublin Facebook Megaparty, at the Purty Kitchen from 7.00. For more details, join the Facebook Group!

February Events

Those are the must-be in January, but you can start booking some events for February now – Connector ‘Tribal Love’ is on the 25th & is in the Science Gallery.  The Dublin Web Summit is on the 4th or the Brainfood Store the 24th. Both are conferences for the digital sector and both of them will have a very interesting networking after-party with Connector.

March Events

Want more? On March 4th the Irish Internet Association Social Media Group will have a half day event. Keep an eye in our blog for future details … have you any ideas for Connector Events? We’d love to hear from you!

Connector Christmas Awards 2009 @ Lillies Bordello

by Conor on December 13th, 2009

Last night Connector presented the Connector of the Year Awards at Lillie’s Bordello at our second annual Christmas Party. We wanted to applaud the great work of Dublin tribes / online communities plus a guy and a girl who have done really well in the last year.

The prizes were presented by TV Presenter Michael Hayes & each winner received a framed certificate and a brand new mobile phone kindly sponsored by Nokia, Sony Ericsson & 3 Mobile.

The winners for ‘Tribe of the Year’ was Culch.ie, a community formed by Darren Byrne (pictured below).  He has rounded up team of talented volunteer bloggers who write about all things pop culture & attend many arts & cultural events around Ireland.

In the Connector Male category David Mooney was the winner for his amazing work with Funky Seomra while the Connector Female award went to Natalia Kostrzewa, who couldn’t attend as she was out of the country.

 Besides that, we have made some predictions for the Top 10 to watch in 2010. Have a look to their names (in slideshare below) and keep an eye on them, they’re doing interesting work and we wish them all the best in 2010!

Approximately 170 people came to the event & we raised approx. €850 TBC for Temple Street Children’s Hospital so thanks for all donations.  The event was kindly sponsored by Peroni & RealexPayments and thanks also to Applied Signs & Display.

We were entertained & enjoyed a fantastic night where we had Apollina tribal belly dancer and also comedy performances from Will Lynch, Ronan Grace, Paudy Byrne & Mark Hanratty.

Last but not least, I would like to thank the Connector team who helped organise this and all the events during 2009.

Connector Awards 2009

by Conor on November 30th, 2009

Here at Connector, we’re all about connecting individuals but we’re equally fascinated with connecting Tribes, which are communities with shared interests.  Back in May, we held our Connector Tribes event, and at Connector Launches we saw some new Tribes such as The Digital Times and Bloggertone launch themselves to the Digital Public.

At our Christmas Party we’d like to reward the ‘Tribes of the Year’ and today we’re delighted to announce our shortlist for Tribe of the year, congrats to:

Culch.ie
Dartmouth Square
D Light Studios
Synth Eastwood
Funky Seomra

RSVP – Register for this event on Facebook Events (or if you don’t have a Facebook account, Register Here >>)

We will also be announcing 2 Connector ‘Person of the Year’ Awards (Male & Female) on the night. The awards are for friends of Connector who have had a successful year worthy of some peer recognition.  So why not come along to our Christmas Party with some friends and see who has been crowned with one of these new awards.  We’ll also be giving our predictions for the people & tribes to watch in 2010, same as we did with our ‘Top 10 to watch in 2009‘.

The night is sponsored by Peroni and we can’t wait to celebrate our great year with you. We hope to see you there & before then, next week is Tribes Week and we’ve written about each of our five shortlisted Tribes. Check back here to see if you can spot your Tribe and you can check out our Tribes page for more info.

Connector will be giving a Tribes workshop in the new year which will include some really important advice on getting sponsorship, utilising social media to it’s full potential, community management and content creation including podcasts, webTV and blogging. Email conor or rob [at] connector [dot] ie for more information about this event.

Diary of a Meteor Apprentice

by Rob Cumiskey on November 18th, 2009

Last week, we were proud to announce that one of our own, Izabela Zelazna, was chosen to compete in the Meteor Apprentice competition. Izabela has written a diary entry about her first task in the competition:

My first task in the Meteor Apprentice competition was all about social media. We were given a week to get as many fans as we could for Facebook fan page.

‘Use all possible social media and scream about your case’, my friend told me. Scream is good, I thought, however I didn’t want to create too much noise. I think that people are usually reluctant and slow to join Facebook Fan Pages these days, not wanting their News feed to be spammed.

First of all, I decided to record nice and friendly videos and post them on my Facebook page and YouTube channel. I wanted to spread the word through the networks and personal contacts that I have made so far. Knowing that Meteor is about entertainment, engagement and humour, I wanted to incorporate it all, and make people interact and smile.

The number of people signing in was not impressive though. Facebook may have had spectacular results in reaching 100mln users in 9 months but it was essential for me to understand that my audience is dispersed and the key is to have an interesting twist and share worthwhile content.

With that in mind, half way through the task, I decided to use another angle –to position myself as a foreigner, who aspires to succeeed and boldly goes for a high profile job. I sent this positive release to the press and it worked perfectly. My press release got coverage in two Polish newspapers in Ireland (Gazeta.ie, Polski Express) as well as Polish newspaper in Poland – Gazeta Krakowska. I also asked my international friends from Amsterdam for support.

So after all the effort and campaigning, I ended up with nearly 780 of the most diverse and multinational fans in the whole competition.

This has great potential. What should the next step be?

Magners seeking a new TV Presenter

by Conor on November 3rd, 2009

The Search is on!  WANTED: Magners League Professional Fan
Magners League announces search for Ireland’s first ever spokesfan.

Magners League is offering the opportunity of a lifetime to one lucky
job-seeker to become the ‘Magners League Professional Fan’ for this
current season 2009-10.  This unique position is diverse, fast paced and
demanding.  The many benefits include seats at Magners League games,
meeting rugby stars, getting to know team managers and trainers, travel,
(some) fame and the appreciation of  new-found fans.

The ideal candidate will be available to attend Magners League matches on
each match weekend from December through to the ML Grand Final next May.
Developing relationships with key personnel and media from each of the
provinces, the successful candidate will work with the Setanta Sports
production team in interviewing players and fans and providing in-match
summaries, in addition to maintaining their own blog and continuously
looking for opportunities to drive the profile of the League.

The chosen candidate will have strong communication and interpersonal
skills and be able to build relationships with all Magners League
partners.  He/She will have strong presentation skills, will enjoy working
with people and will be innovative and creative with a can do attitude.

Orlaith Fortune, Marketing Manager Bulmers said, “If you think you have
what it takes and you want to be part of the League’s most exciting season
ever, then all you have to do is apply… If you are passionate about sport,
hard-working and not shy in front of a camera, then this is the job for
you!”

The 2009/10 Magners League has all the makings of another all-action
tournament brimming with clashes high in both intensity and quality
between teams from Ireland, Scotland and Wales.  With the introduction of
play-offs for the four leading sides, this season promises to be one of
the most thrilling ever.

For details on how to apply before November 24th 2009, click here >>

Connecting 48 hour filmmakers

by Conor on October 2nd, 2009

Do you have a burning desire to create a film? How about a burning desire to create one in 48hours?  This weekend Studio Rua  and Crewger.ie are running a 48hour film competition in conjunction with the Darklight Film festival, and we want you to join us!

The rules are simple, make a film within 48 hours, but I think that might have been obvious… Its a great opportunity for groups of film makers to really push themselves as teams and individuals, go through the whole film making process and learn some amazing things along the way. There are some great prizes, and the judges will be a line up of Irish film celebrities featuring Kirsten Sheridan, Lenny Abrahamson , and Vanessa Gildea

Time is running out though, so if your interested send an email to info_at_studiorua_dot_ie. The closing date for registration has already passed, but there’s a few spot left, first come first serve!

The Competition takes place this weekend, from 10:00 on saturday morning until 10:00 on monday morning and there is a registration fee of €50.