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

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

This is a bit Irish.  The Facebook group “No to NAMA” has 11,369 members. I want John Joe from the late late toy show to fix my clock group has 47,415! In my opinion, Ireland needs to connect online to have a discussion about the most important piece of legislation in the history of the state.
Lets use social media to voice our opinions and lets get interested in what could potentially make or break our state. Why?

NAMA is purchasing loans at only a 30% discount from the banks. The lands these loans are based on are now priced back at agricultural value. Unless the farmers strike oil on this land, the actual underlying value will remain as low as 10% of the loan value. We’re screwed!
David McWilliams sums up the figures as “we see that there will be €51.5bn of land and development assets and associated loans transferred, based on what he has seen so far, we are looking at a hole of possibly €40bn, where we will borrow €51.5bn from the ECB, for assets worth a little over €10bn”.
A loss of €40 billion ladies and gentleman, puts Ireland in the red for generations to come.
Ireland should prepare for even higher increases in taxes to pay for the debt, unemployment and emigration should this happen. 
Social Media was used as a primary method of communication among opposition supporters in the Iran 2009 elections. Tight state control of traditional media drove the opposition online to spread their message. In the USA, Barack Obama’s presidential campaign generated $60m dollars from social media channels.

Users of social media in Iran and the USA were able to establish a voice in important moments in their history.

Whether NAMA is a success or failure will decide the fate of the Irish economy for a generation.

This is an important moment in our history, and we can use social media to establish our voice and contribute.

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

This is a cool idea from Phillipe which seems to be going very well judging by the qualityof the video entries to the competition.  I’d like people to check out these great videos from good friends of Connector Martin Moylan & Dan Dalton who came first & second respectively in the recent Canon Digital Video Contest we ran.

The Proposition …  Make a short film, inspired by the notion of Democracy & Dialogue. Go on… It doesn’t matter if you record it on your mobile phone, a state of the art digital video camera, or create your own DIY animation – the idea’s the thing. Make it a comedy, a tragedy, a documentary, an animation – whatever takes your fancy. It’s about self-expression. And if it gets people thinking, even better.

The Prize … The winning entry will win a state of the art HD Digital camera worth €1400 and have their work screened this October at the 2009 Darklight Film Festival. There are also runners up prizes for highly commended entries.

Here are the videos from the lads and give please them your support by viewing it, rating it & passing it on if you like their work.

Just 1 Vote – Martin Moylan

Green People – Dan Dalton

Be Heard – Martin Moylan

Finally I made it down to the Galway Races after years of hearing about the Fianna Fail tent in Ballybrit !  And bejaysus when I got down there was no Builders & Developers Tent anywhere to be seen … very mysterious – might have been trimmed back by An Bord Snip Nua … hmmm ?   Well at least the Owners & Trainers still could have their own private VIP area so with a bit of luck I’ll have connections in there next year ! ;-0

I just had a couple of hours looking around on the Sunday afternoon as it would normally not be my scene but I am always open to trying something new.  My last horse racing day out was in sunny Sydney & a Galway downpour was what we got on Sunday.  Plus I think most of the fillies from Ladies Day on the Thursday had long since departed with their hats & feathers and left the equine variety commanding the attention.

While there I chanced upon the Mad Hatter winner (annual crazy hat contest) & some runners up plus the highly talented young Mulkerrin Brothers who played trad music for a group of rain soaked young fans.  Well done to the lads !

Overall it looked like a very well organised event and I willtry and get to see more of it next year.  And here is my first photo of a horse connection whose name I do not know in case you’re wondering.  And the rest of the weekend was spent with lot of old & new friends in Salthill & Shop Street sampling the wonderful atmosphere that is Galway in the summer.

Last week the connector team was in a meeting at The Church in the upstairs part of the balcony. It was brought to our attention that the entire cast of Ireland’s The Apprentice had taken a break from shooting to enjoy lunch on the balcony of the restaurant.

At first I had no idea who this party was until Eugenia from Shinawil approached Conor at our table. She was a producer for the company that also produced the show Dragon’s Den. She actually recognized Conor from his appearance on the show.  It was pretty cool that I ate lunch with the whole cast of The Apprentice right here at The Church.

I am a fan of the American apprentice show with Donald Trump; however I have still yet to see the Irish version. I hope to look into it now that I have witnessed all of the contestants eating lunch in person.

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