Connector Weekly News
by Igor Walter on February 9th, 2011
The Connector Team has been incredibly busy in recent months and making lots of new connections and ideas we’d love to share with you!
We have lots of up-coming opportunities and are especially keen to talk to aspiring bloggers and event organizers around Ireland.
Connect with us via our Facebook page.
Connector News
- We have moved to new offices! Now you can find us at the Gateway House (133 Capel Street, Dublin), the former home of the famous dance group Riverdance.
- Did you miss Showcase Ireland? Well then you also missed Conor’s social media seminar “Meet Your Customers in the New Market Place”. You can take a look at it here.
- Check out some of the events our bloggers went to in the past couple of days! For example Annie went to have fun at RAM´s Pocket Radio´s concert while Megan attended the launch of Don Mullan´s new book.
Connector Training
- Social media can be useful for any business and they know that in the Digital Marketing Institute. That’s why they brought Conor in to lead workshops called “Social Media Marketing for Business”.
- We also launched a Social Media eBook which is based on a proven Connector 10 C´s Strategy Model and breaks down the utilization of social media into ten clear steps. Check it out!
Connector Consulting
- Conor is now a mentor of the Dublin City Enterprise Board.
- We have also acquired new clients from the field of interior design and personal transportation.
Connector Top 3 Connections
- John McColgan, Neil Leyden & the Gateway Ireland Team
- Eimear Dunne from Quirc & Dunn Design
- Quentin Ahern from Army of ID
Connector Team
- After months of great work our digital marketing executive Dave Dungan has decided to pursue a web development career in Jason Roe’s company. Thank you Dave for your great work in 2010! We’ll miss you!
- On the other hand new people are now partnering with us on projects – Igor Walter (PR), Graeme Hanna (planning), Greg Fry (training) and Shirleen Flynn (events).
Connector Meetup
- The Connector Team is going to meet up at the Dublin SoundCloud Meetup Day.
- Join us also at the Project Arts Centre where we plan on seeing the hilarious play called Connected. The tickets will be only 12 € so come and join us!
- The Facebook Garage event will be taking place at our new offices – the Gateway House – on Wednesday 9th @ 5pm. Check out more info here.
If you have any interesting news or know of any events taking place around Ireland share them with us via our Facebook page!
How to build your own Personal Brand using social media
by Connector on December 12th, 2010
The following is the presentation Conor Lynch made to the ITAA Skillsnet & the Digital Marketing Institute on Friday at DIT, Cathal Brugha. Facebook‘s Maggie McPartlin & Julien Muller were the other speakers in an interesting and lively conversation about the role of social media in personal branding.
And if you want to get your name out there and new social media skills, remember you can get blogging experience from the new blogger network @ connector.TV
Personal Branding & Social Media – connector.ie
Content Quality beats Content Quantity in building Social Media Influence
by malte on October 5th, 2010
Worried that you have to spend all day playing with Twitter and Facebook to get results from a quality Social Media Marketing Strategy ? According to this Marketing Profs report, studies show that quality content creates significantly more influence and reach through social media than quantity alone.
From the article :
Though most marketing executives (84%) agree there is a correlation between one’s ability to drive action (influence) and one’s reach, 90% draw a clear distinction between influence and popularity, and cite the quality of content as the most important factor in building influence online, according to a survey from Vocus and Brian Solis.
Fully one-half of surveyed marketing execs say creating, posting, and sharing compelling content is the single most important action people or brands can take to increase their influence online, followed by authenticity (31%), and depth of conversation (10%).
Continue reading at Marketing Profs : 
http://bit.ly/bhEthO
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’s 1st Social Media Survey Results
by Sarai Fernandez on May 26th, 2010
As you know, last week we were running an online survey to find out about social media use. Some of the results have been really surprising, for example 77% of those polled says they use social media to find out about events and organise their social life, and 67% access social media from their mobile.
Digital and Social Media Workshop- 8th april
by Sarai Fernandez on April 8th, 2010
Connectors’ first Digital and Social Media Workshop is taking place today at Cassidy’s Hotel. We are going to be learning how to develop a digital marketing strategy following 10 simple steps: Connector’s 10 C’s.
In the afternoon session we are looking at the differences between a Facebook Group and a Facebook Fan Page; the LinkedIn groups and Twitter to see how social media tools are very useful for marketing strategies if they’re used thoughtfully.
Guest speakers include Aaron Downes, Thomas O’Duffy and Greg Fry. Aaron will discuss creative development in social media, Thomas will be talking about the importance of peer inlfuence and Greg will be telling us about his top ten online tools for businesses.
Connect with NAMA
by Diarmuid ORiordan on March 11th, 2010
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.
Connector Tribal Love Invite
by Sarai Fernandez on February 25th, 2010
Connector Tribes Final Lineup
by Sarai Fernandez on February 23rd, 2010
Connector on Social Media in the Irish Independent
by Conor on January 28th, 2010
Connector made it into the Irish Independent today & thanks to John Kennedy for the opportunity. Read online version here >>
