Archive for the events category
ISME Roadshow featuring Connector
by Connector on September 3rd, 2010
The ISME (Irish Small Medium Enterprises) Roadshow featuring Connector is about to start and we can’t wait to get the show on the road! The idea behind it is to share our knowledge and try to connect with people all over the country!
We will be visiting between 10 locations over the next two months, driving there and taking part in business events hosted by ISME. We will be speaking on why social media and will be joined by 3 other speakers -
AGENDA
- Banking Issues for the SME – Eddie Fitzpatrick, BankCheck
- Online Marketing & Social Media = Better Business – Conor Lynch, Connector.ie
- Employment-Understand your responsibilities and avoid disputes & litigation – John Barry, MSS Ltd.
- Tendering for Government Business- Dos & Don’ts – OPW and Enterprise Ireland
You can see out route map below! If you would like to attend, please contact conor [@] connector.ie for details or click here to reserve a ticket.
CONNECTOR ISME ROADSHOW
21st Sept – Fairways Hotel, Dundalk (10am-1pm)
21st Sept – Stillorgan Park Hotel, Dublin South (5pm-8pm)
28th Sept – Clarion Hotel, Limerick (10am-1pm)
28th Sept – Silversprings Hotel, Cork (5pm-8pm)
5th Oct – Mount Errigal, Letterkenny (10am-1pm)
5th Oct – Clarion Hotel, Sligo (5pm-8pm)
6th Oct – Carlton Hotel, Galway (10am-1pm)
6th Oct – Prince of Wales Hotel, Athlone (5pm-8pm)
12th Oct – Newpark Hotel, Kilkenny (10am-1pm)
12th Oct – Clarion Hotel, Liffey Valley, Dublin West (5pm-8pm)
Thanks to Bernie Grogan for her great map design!
John Boyle from Boyle Sports on Connector.tv
by Connector on August 6th, 2010
I must say I really enjoyed the talk by John Boyle at ‘The Board‘ event last week in the Stillorgan Park Hotel. He told the story of how he battled from being a van driver fired from his job with alcohol problems to being a hugely successful businessman with 170+ betting offices with Boyle Sports.
He was a very humble man and as he said himself ‘I used to want to be John Wayne, now I just want to be John Boyle’. The main take away from his talk was how to achieve success and happiness with mind training combined with the correct work life balance.
You can find lots more notes here on ‘The Board and apologies for the poor lighting at the start of this clip. Thanks to The Board for arranging such a great event.
Connector Intern Event 2010 Review
by Shelsea Rawson on July 29th, 2010
When I plan events, it’s always more fun if it is planned for a good cause. There is something to be said for doing an event with the purpose to help another. With this intern event, Barnardos was our charity partner. Barnardos mission is to challenge and support families, communities, society and government to make Ireland the best place in the world to be a child.
To help this intern charity event come together we received sponsorship from The Church, Jameson and Shamrocker Tours. The Church allowed us to invade their club downstairs while providing us with welcome food and a free glass of wine or beer. Shamrocker donated a trip for three days around Ireland, a chance for an intern to see other parts of the country. Jameson graciously donated several bottles of their famous whiskey, along with a lunch for four, and an 18 year old bottle all for us to raffle off; along with providing our guest speakers a bottle of their gold whiskey.
Our speakers for the night were Orla Tighe and Neil Leyden.
Orla Tighe is the fundraising manager for Barnardos. She told a moving story about a little boy she had met that is in programs at Barnardos, she talked to the struggles that he has in his life and how Barnardos helped this boy and his family move towards a better life.
Neil Leyden is the project manager at Gateway Ireland. He spoke to what Gateway Ireland is striving to do. They are focusing on promoting Ireland to the world and harnessing the vast majority of people in the world with an Irish connection. He focused on people with an Irish connection around the world and how they can bring these people together for a common purpose through various social media outlets.
The event all in all was a success; we talked, mingled, danced, enjoyed ourselves, and most of all did it for a great cause. We learned about the cause and we learned about how vast the Irish culture is spread no matter where you are in the world.
We would like to give a big thank you to all of our sponsors and our speakers for coming out last night. It was a great time and we could not have done it without you.
And thanks also to Jason Roe from BTW who kindly helped us raise more money for Barnardos at his event also in The Church. Their collection brought in approx €250 which is brilliant for a meetup and much appreciated by us and Barnardos.
Connector Social Media Workshop @ PhotoIreland Festival
by Connector on July 15th, 2010
I was delighted to host as social media workshop and equally pleased with the positive feedback. Some of the slides are below if you want to check them out and contact me if you would like to invite Connector to talk to your business or organisation.
Connector Intern Dublin Event featuring Bobby Kerr from Dragons’ Den
by Andrew Sides on July 15th, 2010
There are many intern groups here in Dublin this summer and the interns here at Connector have been hard at work planning an intern event for all them. We wanted to create a night that brought everyone together, is fun, educational, and for a good cause. Check it out here on Facebook.
The intern event will be benefitting the not-for-profit Barnardos, a local Dublin charity that serves the people of Dublin. The event will be on July 28th from 6pm – 10pm at The Church. There is a suggested donation of €4 and every cent will go towards Barnardos. The Church has kindly donated a free welcome drink and finger food to all the interns that come and show their support for Barbardos.
We will also have several speakers for the night; a representative from Barnardos to talk about the work that they do, Bobby Kerr an entrepreneur that started the largest coffee company in Ireland, and Neil Leyden from the exciting new Irish global marketing project called Gateway Ireland.
We will be raffling off great prizes as well, including but not limited to a great 3 day trip around Ireland courtesy of Shamrocker Irish Adventures, 1 Bottle of Premium 18 year old Jameson Whiskey and much more! We hope to see all the interns that are here in Dublin out for this special night of fun, community, and excitement.
You will receive a raffle ticket for every €3 donation or two raffle tickets for €5.
Andrew and Shelsea will be the MCs of the event for the evening and can’t wait to see you all there.
Connector at the Dublin Web Summit 2010
by Mark Galvin on July 5th, 2010
Hundreds of social media and technology fans were at the ambient and stylish chartered accountants institute last Thursday for the Dublin web summit to hear insights, tips and predictions from top technology enthusiasts and business luminaries. Guests were treated to a 7-hour marathon of insightful speeches from not only Irish but also global presenters.
Hoping to become more savvy on social media and technology, I doubt they were disappointed! Looking at the line up for the speeches, I was undoubtedly impressed. Big hitters such as Michael Birch founder of Bebo, Mike Butcher Editor of TechCrunch Europe, Simon Cook CEO of DFJ Espirit, the worlds largest venture capital group, The charismatic Bill Liao an Australian tech entrepreneur and ex RTE political correspondent Mark Little, to name a few, all played their part in ensuring a high calibre and standard of presentations.
The event ran extremely smoothly and was well organised with a networking session taking place half way through the speeches to allow not only the members of the audience to indulge in a the eloquent food and drinks that were provided as a half time refresher but also to talk amongst themselves and offer their insights on not only the speeches but also how they could help and compliment each others services. All in all, the event was a huge success and a credit to everyone involved. The web summit was a great chance to see first hand how huge and paramount social media and online relations are becoming in Ireland and long may it continue.
Connector #Appy Hour
by Dave Dungan on July 2nd, 2010
Thanks a million to everyone who came along to the Connector #Appy Hour event last night at the Nokia Pop Up Shop on Grafton Street. Congratulations to Suzanne Sheridan and Ger Canning who were the worthy winners of our competition on the night and proud owners of two spanking new Nokia phones! (Facebook Photos)
There were some great speakers in Anthony Lawless, Device and Software Manager at Nokia, and Edward Conmy, joint owner of Digital Times and winner of the Appys Awards.
They talked about digital innovation in terms of new mobile phone applications and how useful they are to create content for the computing, media, publishing and advertising industries.
After the talks, there was a raffle with amazing prices to win from Nokia, Abbey Theatre, The New Theatre, Lighthouse Smithfield Cinema and Millets Camping.
Everyone seemed to enjoy the event and make new connections and friends. Although the guest speakers were very popular they didn’t quite go down as well as the free refreshments! Hope to see everyone at the next one!
Connector #Appy Hour @ Nokia Pop-Up Store
by Sarai Fernandez on June 22nd, 2010
Connector is organising another great networking event at the Nokia Pop-Up Shop in Grafton St. on Thursday, July 1st at 6.30pm. We’re calling it ‘Connector #Appy Hour’ as our 23rd monthly event will have guest speakers, including Anthony Lawless from Nokia, and Edward Conmy from the Appy Awards. These new awards are for the best mobile apps in Ireland & the judges will be announced at the event.
We will have a raffle to give away some great prizes amongst the attendees. There will be also some fun networking games, music entertainment, food and drink throughout the evening.
To come to this event you will need to sign up to our Facebook Event and we look forward to seeing you at Connector #Appy Hour!
Irish economic nationalism to take on the world!
by Connector on June 11th, 2010
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
Connector Weekly News 24-30 May
by Sarai Fernandez on May 25th, 2010
Last week we launch Connector Clinic, as part of the “Digitise the Nation Week” run by the IIA. We have also appeared on joe.ie, with the second part of our “Diary of a start-up“.
On Friday 28th Connector will be hosting another training course, the Digital & Social Media Workshop. It will be at the CFCP in Dublin 2. Click here to book a place!
The same day Connector is having its 22nd event: Connector Comedy Cabaret for Charity at The Good Bits. This time we’ll have an excellent comedy line-up. Unlike other events, there will be a 10€ entrance fee which will raise funds for Beautiful Gate.
Besides all our activities, this week you cannot miss the 3rd Bizcamp Dublin, on Saturday, May 29th in the Guinness Storehouse.
And on wednesday 26th at 18.30, the Science Gallery will organise a conference called Burn Calories Not Carbon: Gavin Harte on Climate Change, to encourage all of us to do more exercise while protecting the enviroment.
The same day the PRII will be organising a forum called “Igniting the Leinster Rugby Brand“ which will be examining the traditional and online strategies and tactics Leinster Rugby has put in place to build and connect with its supporter base including fans, sponsors and the local business community.
We’ll be back next week with more cool stuff!