Connect with sunglasses.ie

by Andrew Sigle on July 22nd, 2009

I met sunglasses.ie recently and they were generous enough to let Connector borrow novelty sunglasses for photos at a Connector events.   Watch out next week for the photos from Connector BBQ (No.12.)

The owner of the company, Niall McCrudden, along with Jon Hanlon are pictured above with a company t-shirt.  This company sells all different types of sunglasses over the Internet.  Sunglasses.ie is  known for great deals as well as reasonable prices.

Coincidently enough, Niall is really involved in social media and connecting with other bloggers as well.  He played a part in connecting Jonathan from Canon with actor Liam Cunningham for the Digital Film Awards.  It’s all about the connections !!!

Check them out @ Sunglasses.ie

Connect with top new Irish designers in Smithfield

by connector on June 9th, 2009

I met the enterprising DIT graduate Domnhall McLaughlin recently at the Connector No.10 event and he has just finished a course in Design from DIT.  He asked me to invite people down to their final year show in Smithfield which promises to be a special occasion.  I hope to go down on Thursday evening for a while and it runs all week from Tuesday on.

They were also on TV3 so check it out as it features one of their special guests Barry Sheehan.  Please connect with them and give them your support as it is a great initiative and they are all looking for work !  Anyone curious about interior design, product  design & furniture design should ghead on down and it is free in and maybe even some refreshments …

Checkout the Designroom Web Site.

Connect with Energy Guy

by Conor on May 10th, 2009

Thanks to Cliodhna from WHPR for the invite to the Science Gallery for a lunchtime workshop on Saturday with the makers of their new Energy Guy comic strip commercials.  It was very interesting and the sandwiches & Lucozade was very tasty indeed !

Connect with Pieter & Ronan from locle.com

by connector on May 5th, 2009

Nice guys, nice idea and we wish them the best of luck with locle.com and well done to Pieter especially for making such an interesting presentation @ Connector No.9

Canon Connections

by connector on April 28th, 2009

More details from Jonothan Sultan from Canon on the ‘Lights Canon Action’ contest for our digital video enthusiasts … enter here >>

Connector @ Barcamp Belfast

by connector on April 26th, 2009

Now that Connector is going well in Dublin and heading for Connector No.10, I feel it is time to also connect with the fine people of Belfast, Cork & Galway.  If you like what we are doing and would like to do similar in your areas, please contact conor [@] connector.ie as any help on the ground is appreciated.  We will also be able to promote your *stuff* in Dublin.

So with BarCamp Belfast on yesterday in Belfast I hopped on the Dublin – Belfast train and went to the event organised by Andy McMillan ….. There was 350 registered to attend but it is hard to estimate how many turned up as there were talks in 4 different rooms.  Well done to all the organisers and the speakers too – there was some great stuff and I enojyed the ‘unconference’ format a lot.

I knew a few people from before including the good guys from Contrast but it was great to make a bunch of new connections in Norn Iron.  I gave a 30 minute session on ‘Digital & Social Media Marketing’ and I had quite an interested audience of about 50 people.  Thanks to this un-conference format, anyone can volunteer to speak on a chosen topic and hope people wil turn up … listen … and stay !

Paul from contrast.ie even gave us a beer as a bribe encouragement for us to listen to his talk late on Saturday afternoon … nice idea, sweet !  And we end us hanging outside the Conor Lecture Hall …  which defintely deserved a photo … thanks to Philip Wilson for the photos & Mark from iddictive who is also pictured.

I was most interested in my chats to possible partners in the Belfast web community for Connector and there have been 2 new offers to speak after yesterday which is great -

Philip Wilson – Internetsense.co.uk
Alyson McElroy Jones – thechangingroomni.com
Darren Doyle – Microsoft
Mark Nagurski – twitter.com/iddictive
Gita Malinovska – Agile Technologies
Ken McGuire – Ken McGuire Inc.
Michelle Gallen – TalkIrish.com
Tracy Dempsey – soulambition.co.uk
Barry Lynch – NifyNosh.com
Emma Parkins – 360production.com
Evelyn McGrath – Flickerpix.com
Davy McDonald – davymac.com

Nokia – Connecting People

by connector on April 22nd, 2009

Ok, so Nokia started connecting people first … I give that to them ;-0

However, I must also say they put on a good event too and one such event was on this evening in Gallery One in Dublin.   It was to launch the world’s first mobile phone photography exhibition featuring the inspirational photos of Don Mullan all taken with his Nokia phone.  The exhibition was opened by the FAI CEO John Delaney who generously gave a ticket to the Ireland v Italy World Cup match in October to everyone in the audience … what a great result !!

Well done to Aoife & the Nokia team for such as well organised and attended event. The photos are on view to at the Gallery One until the 28th April & I helped promote the event on Pix.ie (with Marcus MacInnes in attendance tonight too) & Facebook with Eighty:Twenty.   I am pictured with Don & Aoife & some of the amazing mobile phone photos.

Connector No.9 – More Details

by connector on April 15th, 2009

Connecting with Monster Truck Gallery

by connector on April 11th, 2009

On Good Friday I went down to Monster Truck Gallery for the first time to see an exhibition.  I met the organisers Pete & Michelle and there was a big crowd for the first part of the ‘Town & Country’ event.  This interesting twin event was based in two galleries where they swopped each others work and it also involved going out to ‘Across the Way’ Gallery in Kinsealy.

Monster Truck is a vibrant and large artisitic community and I hope Pete will be coming down to Connector No.10 in May for the ‘Connecting Communities’ Event.  Check out their web site to find out details of their fortnightly events.

Monster Truck Selected Artists:

Sara Baume,Mark Beatty,Rayne Booth,Alan Butler,Fiona Chambers,Sam Clarke,Johnny Fitzsimons,Niall Flaherty,Aisling Glynn,The Good Hatchery,Imelda Healy,Tom Ireland,Atsushi Kaga,K Bear Koss,Colm MacAthlaoich,Julia MacConville,Sabina MacMahon,Jonathan Mayhew,Yvette Monahan,Aileen Murphy,Sean Naftel,Doireann Ní Ghrioghair,Magnhild Opdöl,Sharon Phelan,Garrett Power,Peter Prendergast,Bennie Reilly,Sheila Rennick,Lucy Sheridan,SoftBlondeMoustache,Nina Tanis & Louise Ward

Across the Way Selected Artists:

Mark Beatty,Clare Louise Bligh, Deirdre Byrne, Yvonne Byrne,Brian Coldrick,Anita Delaney,John Dunn,Francesca Dwane,Richie Gilligan,Clare Henderson,Eoin Holland,James Kirwan,Ailbhe Large,Marie Le Men,Kate Minnock,Peter O’ Gara & John O’ Reilly

Connecting with @jasonroe & @niamhsmith

by connector on April 8th, 2009

Yesterday I had the pleasure of meeting Jason Roe for the second time – the first & last time I met Jason was after the BTW Meetup last Thursday.  This was a great networking event for bloggers & twitterers & whatever and was organisedby Jason so well done !  He was one of the crew who came up to Le Cirk to watch the Dragons’ Den and there is such a great community spirit among this group.

Jason is also a Freelance Developer, Project Manager & all round SEO Expert.  He is possibly going to do something for Connector but lets see if we can work out a deal.  He specialises in web development, project management and SEO. He’s based in Dublin, Ireland and has a strong background in:

+ Software / Web Development
+ Project Management
+ Online Marketing / Search Engine Optimisation
+ Online Publishing & Integration (traditional media, print-to-web & web-to-print)
+ Online billing systems, E-commerce and Realex Integration

Niamh Smith is a great friend of the one and only Darragh Doyle and that is enough recommendation for me !  Niamh has started to help me with Connector recently as I am trying to sort out the email list for invites and email updates once and for all.  Niamh is a great help at community management & is working on several part time marketing & events projects. One of them coming up for her is Oscailt.com, another client of mine who needs skills like Niamh has to offer to SMEs & others.  More soon when we complete this little project using MailChimp.com

Previously Niamh was the marketing executive (among other roles) for a company called Brandwell for almost 7 years. It was a small company so I gained a lot of experience in various areas of the business.  She left Brandwell in January 2008 to go travelling and have been working with Darragh Doyle on some projects since she came back, the most recent being the Irish Blog Awards videos.