Pure Play

Design Project Opportunity

Post with no value add, as received:

DesignTwentyfirst Century believe that new challenges require new skills, and are on a journey to promote ‘Design Thinking’ as a process for people to gain those skills. As part of this journey, they are holding an exciting new learning project called ‘Designing Dublin – Learning to Learn’, which will run from September – November this year. The project will bring together participants from different backgrounds and experiences to collaborate together on a highly visible and positive Dublin City based project.
 
The project will be brought to life using Design Thinking tools and processes which are rapidly gaining acclaim around the world in the areas of education, enterprise and innovation! By using these processes the projects participants will gain valuable experience and skills critical for successfully addressing Twentyfirst century issues – invention, prototyping, iteration, learning to question the questions, collaboration, creativity and outside the box thinking!

Design Twentyfirst Century are looking for ten people to join their project who are creative, curious thinkers and most importantly doers who are passionate about learning. Applications are welcome from everybody who fits that description regardless of background, education, age or nationality!
 
There will be no payment for participating, however there is equally no cost for taking part in this exciting and valuable learning experience. Design Twentyfirst Century only ask that applicants are able to commit to the project full-time for the months of September, October and November this year.
 
Application deadline is the 30th of June and application forms and details are available on www.design21c.com
 
Their hope is that through the success of this pilot project – ‘Designing Dublin – Learning to Learn’ they will be able to illustrate the powerful benefits of ‘Design Thinking’ as a learning process and that it will gain recognition among education policy makers and providers in Ireland. Design Twentyfirst Century believe the skills the process gives to participants are valuable and critical for the future success of Ireland.

keith

Kilkenny Open Coffee this Wed - switch of venue to Rivercourt

The monthly gathering (links to the Kilkenny Open Coffee blog) of persons interested in shooting the breeze on technology and interweb related matters is coming up this Wednesday in Kilkenny.

In hope that we will get the weather we are moving it to the Rivercourt Hotel so we can sit outside.

keith

The Irish at the Techcrunch awards

Conor O'Neill over on Web2ireland put this post together and I have whipped the listing from there. Techcrunch Europe are running their 1st award ceremony - happening in London on July 9th. I have booked a ticket and am looking forward to them.

Even better if some of the following win on the night :-). From Web2Ireland:

The Irish are (and let me know if we’ve missed any):

• Decisions For Heroes, Best Social Innovation (which benefits society), (Vote Here)
• Mobanode, Best Mobile Startup, (Vote Here)
• LouderVoice, Best Web Application Or Service, (Vote Here)
• Joe Drumgoole, Best Startup Founder(s), (Vote Here)
• Dial2Do, Best Mobile Startup, (Vote Here)
• Locle, Best Mobile Application, (Vote Here)
• MuzuTV, Best Entertainment Application or Service, (Vote Here)
• CoClarity, Best Enterprise/B2B Startup (Vote Here)
• MaxRoam, Best Mobile Startup, (Vote Here)

(If any of you find the listing for maxRoam can you let me know - I cannot see them in the above category  Pat Phelan just dropped by and put me right - you can vote for him at the link above!)

keith

(not just) another collaboration tool - collab.ie

This weeks Tuesday Push is collab.ie.

Simple, easy to understand and easy to use.

A place where you can post your need for collaborators. Or search to see if there is something you would like to get involved in. Free.

For anyone - especially in self or un-employment this is a must read.

Another site worth checking out is halfaloaf.ie. Based in Westmeath Tom O'Mahony has set up a place where people who are unemployed can find support, free things to do and discussions on business ideas. There is more planned too - go to www.halfaloaf.ie

keith

Leadership and Motivation (now improved with Hyper-Links)

An exchange of tweets Direct Messages via Twitter earlier today with Eamon Leonard prompted me to post on this.

I have listened to the audio version (Audible.com link) twice, short and thought provoking ideas on leadership.

100 Ways to Motivate Others (Amazon.co.uk link) by Steve Chandler

Keith

The Europas - all is quiet

Is it a sign of the times or just a sign of my times (reading and blogging less while I and stay focused and try to achieve balance of sorts in my life) that I have not seen many (any?) Irish references to the techcrunch.co.uk inaugural Europe-wide awards ceremony for technology innovation.

Caught my eye and certainly considering attending - however wondering if I am missing something when the web2 community here are being silent on it.

Help me find those missing links? It is on July 9th in London and there are 300 places.

keith

Update - just sent in our pitch so will book a place now one way or another :-)

A bloody stupid idea from Fine Gael

Thanks to MJ for pointing this out:

I would like to direct you to point 1.2.8 in the FG manifesto - "Merge all city and county enterprise boards into Local Government"
There are 35 County and City Enterprise Boards (CEBs) located in each Local
Government area.....It cost nearly €40 million to administer the City and County Enterprise Boards over the past three years. These savings could be used to help fund the merging of responsibilities and staff into the Local Government structure."

I then found this on the FG website - taken from their SME Survival Package:

Fine Gael has already proposed in its ‘Power to the People’ document to merge
the City & County Enterprise Boards along with numerous other local and
national agencies into the local government structure to form new ’Business &
Employment Units’ within local authorities....will infuse local authorities a new enterprise focus.  
Local authorities will be allowed greater flexibility in determining grant limits, thresholds and the type of companies that may be supported

What is wrong with this, surely saving money is a good idea? Yes it is and there is no doubt that the current system for CEB's could be improved.

However - have you ever dealt with a City or County Council? They are pretty much the exact opposite of an entrepreneurial enterprise in almost every respect. One of the reasons for putting CEB's outside of the Local Authority Structure was to ensure that entrepreneurs did not have to deal with the same structure that handled their motor tax, their planning and their rubbish collection.

The ideas that

• you would save e40m (unless existing staff take on the roles now done by CEB staff, unlikely) and
• you would give the Local Authority a new enterprise focus  - eh, no. They are permanent staff with pensions and grades.

are laughable. A one stop shop (also mentioned in the document) is a better idea. The current system is too fragmented. But for the reasons given not a good idea in the CoCo.

And giving them more flexibility in who they give money to? You may as well **** your cash away. The restrictions (a major pain at times) are there for mostly good reasons - among other things they help to focus a very limited resource being cash grants.

Go revisit this element of your strategy Fine Gael and involve people who know what they are talking about.

keith

[Disclosure - I worked in Kilkenny CEB for 3.5 years and have a number of CEB's as clients. I have also done some work for the National CEB association. That experience has left me in a position to be constructive in my observations - not biased. I am no apologist for bureaucracy.]

Visual representation of the Singapore capital markets

Tom Corcoran sent me this ages ago and should have posted it then - a great way of showing the various capital/funding options for businesses in Singapore.

It is taken from http://mengwong.com/sg/capital/ where you can download a pdf version - anyone fancy doing something similar for Ireland? Would compliment these discussions nicely - web2ireland Patrick Collison and Joe Drumgoole.

keith

IQPrize Shortlist

After the judges considered 249 entries in the 10k iqprize competition 8 were shortlisted - some great businesses here and some completely new ones to me.

• Decisions For Heroes (Robin Blandford) –A web application that saves lives by helping rescue teams record and analyze their rescue operations and training
• GetitKeepit.com (Alan Coleman) – A web application to help consumers declutter their lives by offering an online portal for the management and retention of important documentation
• MyHotel.ie (David and Matt Sherlock) – A website and booking engine that reinvents the traditional booking model, offering hotels a powerful new marketing channel with no booking fees
• Neurosynergy Games (David Delany, Lorraine Boran and Michael Boran) – Innovative online brain training application designed to enhance both intellectual (’IQ’) and emotional (’EQ’) performance for healthy people and people with specific mental disorders
• Octopied (David Behan, Ronan Morris and Michael Flanagan) – A web application for freelancers, helping them manage invoicing, project management, sales and support through one simple and cost-effective tool
• Our Writers’ Bloc (Owen Gallagher and Karl Quinn) – An online marketplace that connects self-published authors directly with their readers, and facilitates the distribution of material over multiple formats including mobile phones and e-Reader devices
• Pendle House (Michael Furey) – An online currency exchange marketplace that allows companies and individuals around the world to trade currencies directly with each other, cutting out all transaction costs
• Plink (Mark Cummins) – An image-driven search engine that allows users take a photo of an object with a mobile phone, and automatically retrieve information about it online

I will not be able to make the public pitches and winners day - best of luck all.

keith

Sharing and commenting on an image. Simplicity

This weeks Tuesday Push is/was Finetuna.com - a focused and free web service from Spoiltchild which does one thing well.

It allows a user (without creating an account so zero friction there) to upload an image and then share it with someone else.

Great for a designer who wants to bounce a draft off a client. Said client can leave notes or draw on the image to give her/his feedback.

Easy to use, I liked it

keith

(BTW congrats to TuesdayPush, brainchild of Damien and Gordon) for their syndication deal with SiliconRepublic)