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!

Irish culture is very rich in their sporting activities, as are many cultures. But when it comes to addressing these sporting events, the difference can be a bit confusing. In the US we have football, or as the rest of the world would address it, American football. Then we have soccer or what the rest of the world calls fútbol. But in Ireland, they have Gaelic football, so they call ‘fútbol’ soccer, like we do in the states.

When arriving here we were a bit naïve in assuming that everyone in Europe called soccer, fútbol. In the almost two weeks we have been here in Ireland we have noticed that fútbol is not the term for soccer in Ireland, it is soccer. We were going around the city saying ‘We can’t wait for the fútbol match today!’ The Irish people just smile and nod. It wasn’t until recently we figured out it was actually called soccer by the Irish. And all this time we were trying to not look like the ignorant Americans and it back fired.

Americans are known for having a distance from the largest sporting event in the world, but we the interns do not know what that is like. We are avid soccer fans, so we decided to ask Conor if we could leave early from work to go enjoy the game at a local pub in Temple Bar. He was excited to see that we enjoyed soccer (as if he couldn’t tell from the USA jersey Andy was wearing) and let us excuse ourselves. We wandered down to the Hard Rock Café where we met some of Andy’s friends, grabbed a few Guinness’ and attempted to find seats.

Since Shelsea is not as avid of a US fan as Andy, she gave up looking for seats and decided to go home. Andy, like a true fan, stood around for all ninety plus minutes hanging on every moment (and watching another disallowed goal that was perfectly legit). Finally when almost all hope was lost, Landon Donovan scored in the 91+ minute. It was a special moment of pure joy watching the US win the game and their group in the World Cup in a foreign country.

We have heard news from back in the United States and it sounds like soccer is gaining a good foothold with all the great news of the US doing well in South Africa. We can only hope that eventually people in the United States will become as passionate about soccer as we do. But for now, we will settle with living in a country that loves the beautiful game like we do.

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.

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.

Connector Meetup No. 21 will be held at Lillie’s Bordello on Friday April 23rd from 7pm-11pm. We are partnering up with The Entrepreneur show to offer the delegates a social networking night out in one of the best clubs in Dublin.

Check out & register for the event on Facebook!

I’m a little scared.  I have been receiving messages on Facebook from lots of really nice scary people asking me to vote for Mariana on RTE Storyland.   As I am from the Lynch family which has notoriously tasty blood, I’m gonna do what they say! And I advise you to do so too if you are afraid of vampires!

Well done to the team especially Steven and our good friend Natalia plus other talented Facebook connections including RTE’s Leigh Arnold, Chris Newman, Aoibheann McCaul, Vanessa Fahy & Kellie Baise. 

Pease VOTE MARIANA!

Here they go the Connector news for the week

Tuesday 9th is the Safe Internet Day, an European initiative with more than 60 countries involved, which focus theme this year is “Think before you post”

On Wednesday the PRII will organise a forum called “The Measure of PR” presented by Gerard O’Neill, Chairman of Amárach Research.

At the same time, the Small Firms Association in partnership with Vodafone will organise a Speed Networking Event, which by the way it’s already fully booked.

To finish the week, Conor will be speaking at 10 am at  The Job Club which provides networking and worksearch for executives, professionals, managers, portfolio career seekers,contractors and freelancersat in a  weekly meeting.

With just two days to go till Connector Launches, things are coming together nicely with the event plans.  I am delighted to announce that Damian Ryan of Results International Group, digital marketing author & serial entrepreneur is joining Connector again to chair this event.  He did a great job in Connector Startup in April and it is good to have him back again.

The biggest launch at Connector Launches is ‘Digital Times’ who have invited a lot of their own contacts to the official launch of their exciting new magazine for digital Ireland.  Here’s an important update with the full list of exciting companies presenting on the night:

Stephen Conmy – Digital Times
Fred Caballero – Bloggertone
Iarflaith Kelly – WebStrong
Andy Noonan – Event Elephant
Michelle Jones – Style Tonic
Angel Luis Gonzalez – Photo Ireland
Martin Osborne – Progressive Productions
Stephen O’Leary – O’Leary Analytics
Fiona Kinsella – Jumper Productions
Shane Diffily – Like Place

We hope to see you there on the night. Please see sideshow below for more details and keep an eye out here for more updates.  You can register for the event on Event Elephant or Facebook.

This evening Izabela, Mallory & I went down to the Odessa Club as guests of Emma Brereton to see Waterford band ‘O Emperor’.  Thanks Emma for the invite & here is their current cracking single called ‘Po’.