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 28^th 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 #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!

Entrepreneur Marketing Workshop with Marie O’Riordan in Dublin

by Connector on June 16th, 2010

This morning I had a very pleasant and interesting morning tea with Marie O’Riordan who is a self-styled international communications & media expert.  Marie has been doing really well of late and carries our speaking and consulting engagements for international clients.

She introduces herself in the video and is a serious connector who was the last interviewer of Mother Teresa.  Marie O’Riordan has also been interviewing & building instant rapport with Hollywood’s Elite & scores of Academy Award winners face to face for many years such as Paul Newman, Michael Caine, Quentin Tarantino, Charlize Theron, Cate Blanchett, Renee Zellweger & many, many more “A list” legends. Marie travels the globe as a Worldwide Communications Excellence Specialistâ„¢ & is the Author of ’66 Secrets To Nailing Any Media Interview.’â„¢

Her next event in Dublin is as follows called the Entrepreneur Marketing Workshop and features the thrilling trilogy of with Debbie Allen (USA), Tracy Repchuk (USA) & Marie O’Riordan (IRL) ;-0

It is on Friday, June 25, 2010 from 8:30 AM – 7:00 PM (GMT) and I hope to check it out.

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

Bridging the gap between Irish business and advances in digital marketing

by Diarmuid ORiordan on June 10th, 2010

Irish companies feel like they are falling increasingly behind the times in terms of advances in digital marketing. While the digital community prepares itself for advances in areas such as location based marketing, the SME community is still unsure as to whether Internet marketing actually works. We need to further establish both positions and how we can bridge the gap between the two.

Mr. Bill Thompson was part of an open discussion at the IIA conference in Dublin recently. In a conversation with Jim Power on the use of social media in business, he was of of the view that companies not embracing social media would cease to exist in a few years. He also added that this may not be a bad thing, as companies who do embrace it will be offering a superior service to their customers.

Mr. Jim Power, prominent economist with Friends First held a conflicting opinion. Jim also runs an economic consultancy practice and has a lot of contact with SMEs. His view was that SMEs on the ground were largely untouched by the advances in digital marketing. He added that SMEs didn’t understand many of the platforms, were wary of privacy issues and were not convinced “social media actually works, and that its not just something fluffy and useless!”

So having established these hugely different viewpoints, who can we say is correct?

Both are correct in my opinion, and bridging the gap between the two is where the way forward lies. Jim is right in terms of SMEs on the ground, they still have a large customer base which is not using social media. Among SMEs who do use social media, their is a misconception that all a company has to do is set up a Facebook and Twitter page and watch the market come flocking. These users are only moderately succesful in their attempts and a general feeling of social media marketing being ‘fluff’ has been created.

Bill Thompson’s viewpoint can be easily backed up using Internet usage statistics and how people are using social search to find products and services. Business in Ireland must follow consumers onto social media.

There are innovative online marketing solutions being devised here in Ireland. However there is a danger if SMEs are not informed and trained, revenue streams will dry up and this could impair the advancement of these solutions and Irish business in the next number of years.

Mutual dialogue must be initiated between the two groups and the government must also be involved in the roll-out of broadband. Marketing through social media is all about listening to the conversation of customers, the digital community must listen to its customers for the benefit of all Irish business in the coming years.

The Connector 10C’s Model for online marketing strategies

by Dave Dungan on May 26th, 2010

The Connector 10C’s is a strategy model to devise, implement and evaluate any digital and social media marketing plan. Aimed at businesses and organisations of all sizes and industry sectors, it can help executives and entrepreneurs to combine their website, social media and email marketing to attract and retain more customers and to gain the best return on investment possible.

The video below discusses the Connector 10C’s model in more detail.

Connecting Italian flavours with a dollop of DCU & Media 2020 …

by Connector on April 30th, 2010

This week I connected with a bunch of great people and somethat I have not mentioned yet are here for you to check out.  The first photos is the Flavour of Italy team in Pinocchios Ranelagh who treated me to a fantastic Italian meal while we chatted about their great Italian food and travel businesses … grazie! ciao! grazie!

Then I was interviewed by Sheena O’Dowd & Damien O’Ceallaigh as part of their Masters project in New Media in DCU.  And finally at the bottom, I was at the Media 2020 conference at Croke Park where my housemate Ronan Higgins had his head beamed onto the big screen while answering questions about mobile apps.  Coincidentally, speaking about mobiles, apologies for the grainy photos which are a bit iPixelated.

Lots of new connections and lots of new ideas cos you can’t beat having your finger of the pulse! ;-0

Connecting with Enterprise Ireland

by Connector on April 29th, 2010

Yesterday Conor took part in an Enterprise Ireland podcast about Micro-Blogging, i.e. Twitter etc.  This was for Irish SMEs and we will link to the podcast shortly.   Pictured are Conor with Ralph Averbach from ENN‘s and Andrew Townley from Archistry in the studio off Mount Street. Thanks to David Scanlon from EI for the invitation and the very nice lunch!

Connector Top Tips
- Use a downloadable application like Tweetdeck or Hootsuite if you want to use Twitter to its full potential
- Use Twitter as a great social media listening tool even if you don’t want to join the conversation
- Why not follow these guys on Twitter? @connector_ie / @dscanlon / @ralphenn / @atownley

Connector @ The Entrepreneur Show

by Nicola OReilly on April 27th, 2010

Connector showcased its new training courses and connecting philosophy at this year’s Entrepreneur Event, Friday 23^rd to Saturday 24^th April.

Connector’s team helped man the stand for the weekend, making loads of new connections and spreading knowledge of the 10 C’s.

A huge part of the show this year were the bright and lively discussions that took place in the “Think Tank” and “Invest Test”  auditoriums which Conor helped chair as well as take part in.

One of the highlights of the show was hearing some of the Irish and UK dragons take part in these discussions. The connector team also had the pleasure of meeting Sean Gallagher who had his photo taken with them at the Connector stand.

Connector’s bright and inviting stand design, along with its engaging video content was down to the planning and hard work of new recruit David Dungan who has taken to his role with enthusiasm and gusto, as well as Sarai Fernández hard work managing the connector team and Connector’s Entrepeneur Networking Event at Lillies on Friday night.

Overall it was a busy but rewarding weekend at the stand for the Connector team and it will be a busy week again following the amount of interest shown at the show.

Review of iia Audio Video Culture Event

by Nicola OReilly on April 27th, 2010

On the 22^nd April 2010 the IIAs Social Media Working Group held an event entitled Audio Video Culture: Behind the scenes of audio & video content online.  Conor the current Chair of Social Media Working Group at the IIA was the chariman for this event.

Speakers from RTE, RaboDirect, Channelship, Mason Hayes and Curran, CEUD NDA, Google Ireland and YouTube all spoke at the event and helped to make it a great success.  Pictured is Sebastian Missoffe from YouTube in action from Conor at the top table!

There was very positive feedback with most feeling they learned a great deal about  audio and video content online.