Pure Play

Help Yourself

The series of one hour sessions that myself and Aidan Coonan started last year to give small businesses a place to come and learn the basics about the internet and technology have been formally backed by Kilkenny CEB for 2007. No change in the format or charge (still FREE!) - but we have moved venue and time.

So see you this Thursday at 12.30 in the Newpark Hotel to talk about business blogging - more details:

The helpyourself talks in Kilkenny start on Thursday 1st February and will be held on the first Thursday of every month up to 5th July. The venue has changed - it is now the Newpark Hotel and we are now holding them at lunchtimes instead of 18.00. So every session will have a 30 minute nibble time (12.30 to 13.00) and the talks will run from 13.00 to 14.00.

The topics are as follows:

1st February       Business Blogging - what and why? (Basic)
1st March           Good Web Design (Basic)
5th April             Internet Marketing (Advanced)
3rd May              Finding things on the internet (Basic)
7th June             Free Software & Services (Basic)
5th July              Web Stats for your site or blog (Advanced)

Just to repeat - time and venue change:

Venue - Newpark Hotel

Time - 12.30 to 14.00

Myself and Aidan will see you there

keith

This weekends activities - a lot of beta in here!

Signed up for 8apps (beta of social organiser/brainstormer tool - see review on www.solutionwatch.com for more). So far finding it a little too Web2.0 - very stripped down interface that I am not finding intuitive. And I am usually too lazy to bother with services I cannot figure out quickly.

Posted some feedback to Conor on the loudervoice beta.

Put some more shelving up in my office to accommodate my growing number of projects.

Added some colour to my new consultancy site (www.keithbohanna.com) which I built using www.squarespace.com. This week I will post a review of that comparing it to www.sitekreator.com which I use for my training courses. They both have a similar focus and approach the market in very different ways.

Had a 45 minute Skype Video call with my brother in Austin. Apart from the personal stuff we discussed the business blogging consultancy work he is doing with clients of Porter Novelli.

Added BarcampDublin to my RSS feeds - in anticipation of an announcement soon :-)

Unpacked a Buffalo 500G LinkStation Pro NAS drive from ComputerUniverse in Germany. Delivered on Friday and being installed tomorrow morning. Although it does not have a print driver it rated well in both professional and consumer reviews that I read.

keith

Barcamp SouthEast in Tribune today

Thanks to Damien Mulley for a good piece in the business section of the Tribune today. He focused on funding for start-ups and takes quotes from both the Finding Money for Your Start-Up and Starting a Web Services Company panels.

He also does a short piece on Tablet PC's - which I still find myself strangely attracted to because of the ability to draw mindmaps on them :-)

keith

Getting focused with Dexpot

One of the common themes at Saturday's barcamp in Waterford was the challenge of working from home. Apart from the loneness there is always the need to get your head down and focus on a task that needs doing.

I have just started using Dexpot for that - it allows you to run multiple desktops so with a flick of the Windows Right Arrow keys I can switch from my busy normal desktop (across 2 screen so tooo much happening) to one that shows 2 blank screens.

Yep - you can do that by turning your screens off - but isn't a free utility just more fun :-)

keith

Barcamp - Finding Money for your Start-up

[cross post from barcamp blog]

The second panel discussion will be on the subject of funding your start-up. This one (to be held in the 11.45 to 12.30 slot) will feature a combination of well known and not so well known names to you.

The Panel so far (2 others may also join it):

Louise Grubb is the CEO of Nutri-Science, a nutraceutical company based in Waterford. In business since 1999 they have raised funding from a variety of sources including County Enterprise Boards, Enterprise Ireland (€150k) and BES (€250k). They are previous participants on the SEEPP program.

Mick Cahillane is an active private investor and may be able to help participants understand the way in which Angel Investors make their decisions.

Evert Bopp who is in the process of fundraising for www.wimax-eu.com/

Brian Caufield of Trinity Venture Capital.

So we have a spread of experience ranging from self-funding and CEB grants to the Angel Investor and VC. What is missing is the slow burning web service start-up, however we will cover that nicely in the first panel discussion after lunch where a number of the participants are in that phase of development.

keith

A business plan I would love to see..

..is the one for Ammado. From the Web2.0 Ireland blog this morning comes a post about a new Dublin based start-up that is in heavy recruitment mode. If your job title/skill set contains the word Engineer and is IT related you should have a look - otherwise I would not bother :-)

Ammado are developing a "fun interactive online platform catering for a huge global market" and with no revenues and no product/service (yet) this start-up must boast a phenomenal management team and some serious prospects to be able to recruit so many so early on.

A quick Google/Technorati search shows a small number of entries and reveals that they are building a large scale internet games site/platform - part of which will include Flash based short 5-10 minute casual skill based games.

UPDATE - I was asked to make a small change to my post and happy to do so - start-ups are a difficult balancing act and would not have wanted to hinder such an interesting business.

keith

One for Sligo readers - Paul Thurlow

I run a music blog for a good mate (upcominggigs.wordpress.com) and we had a comment posted during the week from a person looking for her brother in Sligo. I asked her could I post here (she said yes) and if any of you think you may have an appropriate audience please do the same

hello, my names sam thurlow and im trying to locate my brother Paul Thurlow he is in a band called EXCUSES based in sligo. i lost contact with him a long time ago and am desperate to find him. if there is any way of contacting or getting a message through to him-please tell him that his little sister samantha misses him and to contact me!! I know this way is a long shot but i havnt been able to locate him!! many thanks samthurlow AT hotmail.com

keith

Jotspot upgrade

Notice by email this evening that Jotspot/Google are upgrading their wikis - amongst other things making them IE7 and Firefox 2 supported.

I wonder does this signal that the full integration of Jotspot into Google is close to hand and that new accounts will be accepted soon?

keith

Social Entrepreneurs

One of the things I enjoyed at the Cork barcamp was the number of social entrepreneurs - people using the internet and technology to assist others in a not-for-profit context. An email just into me is another example of this - from a global not for profit called Avaaz.

Avaaz.org was co-founded by Res Publica, a global civic advocacy group, and MoveOn.org, a US-based online action group with more than three million members. The email relates to the proposed US escalation of their invasion force in Iraq. Here is an excerpt:

Just when we thought the war in Iraq couldn't get any worse - it has. Last night, President Bush rejected reality, spurned the American people's verdict, and announced his new policy: MILITARY ESCALATION IN IRAQ.

The good news is that the newly elected United States Congress can stop this madness. We're launching an immediate campaign to let the Congress hear from global voices - placing an ad with the number of signatures to our petition in "Roll Call", an influential political paper sent to every member of the US Congress. Click below to visit our new campaign site at Avaaz.org, see the ad, and sign the petition:

http://www.avaaz.org/en/iraq_campaign_jan_2007/

If you are interested please click the link.

keith

Nominations Open - Irish Blog Awards

From the official blog:

The Nominations round for the 2007 Irish Blog Awards is now live. It will run until 11.59pm on Friday the 26th of January 2007. Go to http://awards.ie/nominations to nominate your own blog or another blog for one of the 21 categories.

Thanks to Damien for his work on this and looking forward to the awards evening on March 3rd - my first time in attendance.

keith

Useamap

This post is long overdue. As a tech-challenged blogger/consultant I regularly rely on others to stand between me and the services available on the internet.

Vinny Glennon is one such hack. By day he works with the crew behind 1time.ie, by night he is useamap man :-). Where you can easily work with Google Maps and use the features that Vinny has added such as Embed Maps in your blog or site and add comments to your personalised map.

Try it - it is easy to use and getting better by the week. Thanks to Vinny for the work and for being so responsive to feedback.

keith

iPhone

Been watching the Steve Jobs show for the last 30 minutes and wow to the iPhone - it looks sweet. Photo taken from Engaget site - thanks guys.

Going to have to save up and justify this one - by any means neccessary. And then use another phone for taking pics!

A touch screen phone and video iPod combined - with some superb UI design.

keith

UPDATE - thanks Adam - missed the 2 megapixel camera. What I am unclear on is if I can get my hands on a US phone in June or will their bind into Cingular be a show-stopper. And which network will they launch with in Europe? And will there be "Sim-Free" phones available?

keith

Barcamp SouthEast - Bloggers Dinner

[Cross post from barcampsoutheast.wordpress.com/]

If bloggers wish to gather in Waterford on either the Friday or Saturday evening please start the ball rolling with a wiki entry - or comment on the barcamp blog entry. Your call - we should have the funds to sponsor the wine :-).

UPDATE: Conor O'Neill (he of the louder voice) is canvassing for Saturday evening.

keith

Barcamp SouthEast - talk details

[Cross post from barcampsoutheast.wordpress.com/]

It’s been ages! Less than 3 weeks to go and myself and Tom Corcoran are meeting this morning to go over the planning for the day. Great response so far - 56 attendees at time of writing and we (specifically Tom) are planning on hitting the real media in the next week or so to get out to SME’s who are not reading blogs.

Can I ask the people who are doing talks to rustle up a paragraph or two on their chosen topic and send it into us. I will post them here and link from wiki so that potential attendees can get a better feeling for what is on offer?

keith