Connector Brainstorm @ Science Gallery, 6pm, Thurs 25th Nov
by graeme on November 7th, 2010
WHO : www.connector.ie – organising “social networking social events” where we bring together diverse on-line & off-line communities to make new social, commercial & business connections.
WHAT : Four great opportunities for you to participate in our NEW event format called Connector Brainstorm :
1. BRAINSTORM : REGISTER TODAY to join in the Connector Brainstorm which is for members of Connector.
6 tables, 6 topics, 8 to 10 participants per table
3 brainstorming sessions lasting 40 minutes per session
With each table chaired by a moderator, using different brainstorming techniques
Awards for each moderator’s selected “Most Valuable Ideas” and for the Brainstorm’s “Most Valued Players” of the evening
2. CONNECT : Meet & make new business & social contacts across a diverse range of businesses and services in Dublin.
3. LEARN : We have draft outline of 6 topics for discussion but you have the opportunity to sponsor your own topic of discussion. Use the Connector Brainstorm event to make new connections & generate new ideas for your chosen topic.
4. SHOWCASE : Promote, advertise, market and sell your new business idea, product or service by sponsoring one of our 6 tables and brainstorm a topic specific to your business.
WHY : an excellent, cost-effective opportunity to promote & leverage your brand, product or service during & after the Connector Brainstorm event. It’s not always what you know, but rather who you know that will open new doors of opportunity.
WHEN : Thursday 25th November at 6pm
WHERE : Science Gallery, The Naughton Institute, Trinity College Dublin, Pearse Street, Dublin 2
HOW : To participate in the Connector Brainstorm event, REGISTER NOW to secure your place.
For more information on sponsoring a topic or table at this event, please contact Conor Lynch at 86 8118833 or via email at conor@connector.ie
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 @ 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!
Connector Nº21- The Entrepreneur Show After-Party
by Sarai Fernandez on April 23rd, 2010
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!
Connector @ The Entrepreneur Show
by Connector on April 23rd, 2010
This is the cool background that our friend Alvin from Fresh Design has designed for the stand Connector at The Entrepreneur Show this weekend April 23rd and 24th at the RDS in Dublin.
If you’re going to The Entrepreneur show, come down to visit the Connector stand, which will have a networking area and where the staff will give you all the information you need about the new training courses and other Connector activities.
Connect with Dragons Den @ The Entrepreneur Show
by Laura Goucher on April 10th, 2010
Things are beginning to warm up for The Entrepreneur Show which will be held in the RDS Dublin on April 23rd and 24th. It is set to be two days of the biggest networking and business knowledge gathering event ever seen in the country. Connector will be present at the event with a stand and with Mr. Networker himself Conor will be taking part in some of the panels and discussions about building new connections.
The Entrepreneur Show is designed to inspire visitors to do new and better business. It will host an array of speakers from all sectors of business, to inspire you in your business development. It will give the opportunity to learn and develop new business ideas and the necessary skills to put them into practice.
Not only does it give guests an opportunity to do some serious networking, it will also feature over 80 guest speakers from some of the most knowledgeable business minds like the UK’s Dragons Richard Farleigh and Rachel Elnaugh, the Irish Dragons Sean Gallagher, Bobby Kerr and Gavin Duffy and the Entrepreneur of the Year Terry Clune.
The show is made up of five different areas,the Inspiration Chamber will host an inspiring group of Entrepreneurs speaking about their journeys through their business life. The “New Ventures” Arena will feature recently developed companies sharing their journey through the early stage of their business, this will educate visitors on how beneficial mentors and investors are to a new business and also tips on what qualities to look for when investing.
The “Think Tank” Auditorium is a new feature to the show which involves different business sectors participating in the show and a live audience of entrepreneurs, enaging in panel discussion and audience interaction. One of the most exciting areas for visitors to the show is the “Invest test” Sessions which will feature businesses looking for investment and will be judged by a live panel of experts including the UK Dragons. The Exhibitor’s Area will demonstrate the tools and services needed to develop your business development these demonstations will over vast areas including mentoring, life coaching and design services.
Two day tickets to the event are priced €35. Proud sponsors Google are giving the first 10,000 visitors who purchase tickets online €75 worth of free Google ad words to kick start marketing their business online.
Those who purchase tickets online before midnight on Monday the 12th of April, will enter into prize draws for Entrepreneur show hampers sponsored by companies such as henparty.ie, hairybaby.com and many more. For more details, click here>>
Connect with The Board
by Conor on April 9th, 2010
Since I am now working at Connector full time since February, I have been looking at ways to get the support & advice I need from mentors and peers. Invited originally by my mate Iarfhlaith Kelly, I have now been at 2 meetings of The Board and it is worth checking out for any business owners out there. Here’s how they describe it in their own words, see what you think -
The Board is an exclusive support structure for your business delivered in the form of monthly board meetings. These meeting are chaired by a trained facilitator who controls the meeting, ensuring that everyone gets a fair share of the allocated time.
This is an exclusive club. So it’s not for everyone. We want entrepreneurs, innovators, natural sales people, people with boat loads of experience. We want the very best people, so the advice they give is of the very best quality. If this sounds like you, then The Board needs you.
To find out more, visit The Board and apply for an information pack or you can visit us on Facebook.
Connector Networking Event @ Dublin Web Summit 2
by Sarai Fernandez on February 5th, 2010
Yesterday Craig Newmark, founder of Craigslist, and Matt Mullenweg, founder of WordPress, were the keynote speakers at the Dublin Web Summit in Dublin’s Trinity College. The great expectation this event created ended up in massive crowdofover 400 people.
Other speakers as Wired’s Editor-at-Large, Ben Hammersley, and former Iona CEO, Chris Horn shared their stories and insights about the current situation in front of a very mixed audience, but all interested in entrepreneurship and theInternet.
After the conferences the delegates assisted to a Networking Event organised by Connector where each attendee had a Connector coloured badge identifying the category they worked in so as to encourage conversation and create an ‘ice-breaker’.
Conor is picture with Matt from WordPress at the No Name Bar after-after-party ! Connector is built on WordPress so we are big fans of his creation ! Well done to Paddy Cosgrave for organising such a great event for the Dublin web scene.
Connector Weekly – 1st Feb 2010
by Sarai Fernandez on February 1st, 2010
This week at Connector … We are about to launch Connector Training Courses, to get more info click here.
Connector @ Events
Last week was great for Connector too! We had the Speed Connector, and we fundraised to support our pal Adrian Garry’s volunteering trip to Haiti. And now we’re looking for Tribes to parcitipate in our next event “Connector Tribal Love” on the 25th Feb at the Science Gallery
Conor was a guest for the Bootcamp at Stillorgan, the show run by the SFA which helps business to become more professional, more productive and more profitable, check their next venues on the website.We are going to the
ESB Des Bishop’s Gig at the Button Factory this Wednesday with 10 winners from Connector.
The second edition of the Dublín Web Summit will be on thursday, and besides high profile speakers, Connector will organise the networking party after the workshops.
Cool things are happening in Dublin the next days: The Irish Film Institute is having a free movies day on January 8th, the Postgrad Fair on the 16th and the Dublin Central Library will host a free workshop for jobseekers on the 25th.
Connector Links
Some links we like on the Internet… : Business Chamber, a free tool for local networking; Sagespark, a platform with lots of tools and services for small business; Bump Technologies an application for your mobile to share contact details, and 2night a website and a magazine to help you decide where the fun is going to start.
Social Media
And some news about the Social Media: A special report on Social Networking by The Economist, new data about time spent in social networking sites and a webinar run by the Irish Internet Association.
Have a look at the latest appearances on the media: On Thursday, The Irish Independent published an interview with Conor and The Sunday Times tackled Social Networking with the Conor highlighting the issue. Besides that , Conor wrote his regular column in The Digital Times and we have sent out the January eNews.
Job Hunting 2.0
by Rob Cumiskey on November 20th, 2009
The following is a guest post by Sarai Fernandez, and was posted originally on her blog:
It’s almost a month since I gave up sending CV’s out. Before, I used to sit down in front of my computer for an hour each day, log into different websites and apply for all the jobs that I thought would suit me. The only thing I achieved from this was feeling exhausted, and I have not had a single phone call from these applications since September.
So, my new strategy is focused in two main points: learning and networking. Besides my PR studies, I try to spend all the time I can reading articles on the web about new trends, new systems or anything else relating to Public Relations. They can be blogs, e-zines, or discussions in LinkedIn, it doesn’t matter what, because I am learning a lot and also improving my English.
The second point is Networking. I started this with the Connector Lunches, and the Connector Halloween Party, and I hope to continue with these, and also try more networking events in the future. Besides that, I was at the Monster’s Career Fair today and, as was expected, I didn’t get a job, or even an offer. I did get a few business cards that could be very helpful in the future. I also attended some motivating speeches, and I took some very good tips from all of them.
If I have learnt something during this year, it’s the importance of social media and networking for your own professional development. With these tools you will never be ignored, and that is the most important step in order to achieve a successful career.
