Keith Shirley

Peter Heary (aka. CroppyBoy1798) has made a new video of Carlow Past and present available online.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YVdtJTNcrok

For those of you that did not see them in the previous post – he has old photos of Carlow and takes new photos from the same place and angle. In the video he merges the two so you can see how things have changed.

I never seem to manage to guess where the old photos are taken. The videos are well worth a look – and take a lot of time I’m sure.

Yesterday we ran our second Bizcamp – this time in the Guiness storehouse. The event was a great success and I’d like to say a big thanks to all the speakers for donating their time and of course the sponsors for their money.

At one of the last timeslots of the day we had our own session to discuss what we did to organise the event and to show where the money went. We had some very useful feedback from the attandents as well. Normally at these events I’d have a big list of things that I think could have been done better – this time it’s more a list of things we can do to make it a little different.

Of the 499 registered attendants we had 291 people turn up. We probably had a few more come in without registering. Feedback from a number of people was that for a free event this was good – that a 50% dropoff rate is normal. I find it disappointing – and really unfair if people registered with no real intention of going. It basically meant

• We had loads of people that couldn’t come because we had closed the registration.
• We had 120 portions of lunch wasted – money that could have been used for other things
• It reduces the effectiveness of the event

At the review meeting suggestions were made that a number of people registered only with the intention of having their name listed. I suspect they are right. It means that we will have to limit what people can write – and will have extra work next time to try and verify registrations. Keep in mind that this work is voluntary.

We also had one no-show for the speakers – that’s twice as annoying. We had circa 70 people who wished to speak and only 40 time slots. Considering the talk was on time management there were a lot of jokes about the speaker not having the time etc etc. A phone call would have been nice – we could have slotted someone else in or at least warning the attendees so they could go to other sessions.

I hope this post is not coming across as a whinge. The event went really well – we had great comments from people on how much they learned and the contacts they made. I’m certainly glad I did it.

Anyone that has spent more than 5 minutes with me has probably had to listen to me talk about the house we’re building and the planning that has gone into it.

In order to support our new heavenly home – we’re selling the heavenly home where we currently live. It’s a 3 year old (but in showhouse condition) 3 bedroom semi-detached house in Sandhills in Carlow.

As all the “for sale” websites only show a few boring pictures I’ve started a site purely to give people a better idea of what the house is like – and why we loved living there so much. It will be updated (hopefully daily) with articles on what you can expect in the house, in the estate and local area and things you can do when you want to get out for a while.

If you know anyone that is interested then please ask them to have a look at www.73sandhills.ie and to contact us if they would like a closer look.

I received this today via the IIA Newsletter:

IIA establish an International Strategy Working Group
Members sought for working group
The IIA have set up an International Strategy Working Group. The aim of the International Strategy Working Group is to assist Irish businesses in increasing revenues from Overseas markets through better use of the Internet.

This working group aims to achieve this by providing support to businesses on how they can achieve increased global reach, increased global market share and increased global revenues.

Topics covered by with group will include Localisation, Translation Services, Foreign Payment Methods, Legal and Taxation issues in other Jurisdictions.

If you are a member of the IIA and would like to work with the group please email Roseanne at members@iia.ie. 

Read more about the working group on IIA.ie  

From my own work with the Social Media Working Group I can warn you that it can involve a lot of work. It can also be very rewarding. For me personally it has rounded out my level of knowledge and exposed me to areas of Social Media that I normally don’t work with.

If you are in a business that has the potential for internationalisation (or of course if you have already done the legwork) then get in contact with Roseanne to find out who else is involved and how your experiences may fit in.

Related articles by Zemanta

• The Guide to Blogging for Business (keithshirley.ie)
• IIA Congress 2009 – Report (keithshirley.ie)
• IIA Guide To Business Podcasting White Paper: Your Input (krishnade.com)

I went to the IIA Congress and Netvisionary Awards last Thursday and Friday. I enjoyed it a lot – it was a good opportunity to network and get some information. I don’t know if I’m spoiled by events like Bizcamp but I didn’t feel quite as inspired as I was at other events. The talks were good – containing some good insights but I couldn’t help feeling on occassion that they were slipping into sales pitchs. The organisation of the event was excellent – especially considering how small the IIA team actually is. Overall the event was very good and I hope to be able to go again next year.

On the afternoon of the first day the Social Media Working Group held three breakout sessions. Quite a bit of effort was spent in preparing for the breakout sessions and I have to admit that I missed the two practice runs. The idea on the day was to take a sample company as a case study and to form mini groups to discuss how blogging, forums and twitter could be used. The order of discussion was guided by a very good five point plan devised by Conor Lynch.  One of the things I especially liked about it was the simple fact that the first point of focus was to figure out who your target customers are. Regular readers of this blog will know that no matter how much I love tech – I’m always wary getting the tools and then going looking for where to use them.

There was two of us in each group facilitating the discussion and then after a few minutes we were moved on to the next set of people. I was doing Blogs with Conor. The feedback was great and most people seemed happy. The sessions were packed and we had people waiting in the room for 20 minutes during the break to make sure they had a spot.

While an overall success – I do feel that it didn’t really work as we had hoped. The biggest issue was that we didn’t have enough time to get an actual discussion going – and we ended up doing most of the talking ourselves. I got some very helpful feedback from FinalContext via Twitter. Next time I think we should try keeping it as one large group and having a general open discussion.

As a reminder – The working group is publishing the whitepapers on the IIA website – http://www.iia.ie/smwg

I spent all Friday morning doing the mentoring sessions on Social Media. Matt Matheson from ThinkhousePR and I spent 30 minutes with individuals from companies talking to them about their social media strategy and answering their questions. The format of these sessions is fantastic. For all my readers – book them as early as possible next year and fill up your whole morning. Do your homework to have questions ready in advance – you will never have a better opportunity to get so many experts together in such a short space of time. Your brain will be steaming afterwards but it’s worth it.

Originally Matt and I were going to split up the sessions but the day before we decided that we would do all the sessions together. This worked much better as while I’m strong on blogging – I have not been so involved with facebook (especially with fan pages).  It was a tiring but productive morning – we even managed to help three extra people during the break and in between sessions.

The Fish

And finally I have to talk about the fish. The hotel has a projector in the hall that shows images of fish on the floor. Companies can put there own graphic as the background. There is a sensor for when you walk that causes the “water” to ripple and the fish to swim away. No surprise that I want one – I’ll find a home for it later. Some gadgets are just too much fun to try and be sensible and find the requirement first. The picture below does not do it justice.

Related Links:

IIA Protecting Your Brand Slides

IIA Congress 2009

Irish Internet Association Congress 2009

Review of IIA Congress 2009

Photos are available from the IIA

Slides of the presentations are also available

Carlow Enterprise Board are promoting a new workshop for those looking for a new direction to their careers. It’s to be held at Enterprise House on 9 June 2009 and is free (but you must register in advance).

The aim is to receive practical advice on finding and applying successfully for work and looking at other alternatives such as starting your own business.

I met one of the speakers, Yanky Fackler, at Bizcamp earlier in the year and enjoyed his talk. He has recently published a book which I have yet to buy (I’m refusing to buy more until I read what I have).

The opportunity to speak with Brian McQuaid from IT Carlow’s Lifelong Learning dept should also not be missed - there are also some accelerated programs at the IT which might be interesting (although not directly in his department I believe).

Click on the pictures of the flyers for the full size version:

The Showcase articles are my attempt at helping to promote local businesses by giving them a little extra exposure. Todays article is about the Hayes Higgins Partnership.

Hayes Higgins Partnership

Who are they?

The Hayes Higgins Partnership is a multidisciplinary consulting engineering practice employing 50 staff in Dublin and Kilkenny. Rather than just concentrating on one specific area of engineering -Hayes Higgins Partnership aims to bring together the best professionals to suit their customers’ needs.

More details of the practice can be found in the newsletter at http://www.hayeshiggins.ie/images/newsletter.pdf

What kind of services and products do they offer?

Hayes Higgins Partnership has core capabilities in numerous areas:

• Civil and Structural Engineering
• Building Services
• Forensic Engineering
• Project Management
• Health and Safety Services & PSDP
• Fire Engineering
• Transport Engineering
• Environmental Engineering
• Risk Management
• Buildings Energy Ratings

They guarantee personal involvement and supervision by senior staff and principals on all projects.

Each of the engineering disciplines is supported by a team of qualified and highly motivated individuals.  They compliment their engineering disciplines with state of the art computer software technologies and a wide support network of specialist consultants engaged as required on more complex projects.

They aim to deliver a high value service to their clients and the design teams they work with, based on their knowledge of construction economics, planning, site selection and evaluation, engineering design, and value added engineering.

More details of the specific services offered can be found on http://www.hhp.ie/index.php?page=services

Who are their typical customers?

70% comes from large commercial ventures or local authorities but they do also work on one off projects. You can contact them directly for assistance – you don’t have to go through your architect.

References are available from Hayes Higgins on request.

More details of various projects worked upon can be found on http://www.hhp.ie/index.php?page=recent

What makes their business special?

As they say on their website “Our vision is to become the No. 1 wholly Irish Owned Engineering Consultancy in Ireland by 2030.”

They aim to

• Attract and keep the best staff
• Develop the full potential of every person in the practice
• Continue to work with the best architects and contractors to produce excellent buildings
• Use their brains, imagination, experience and energy to continually refine the design and construction process
• Lead the way in integrating design and construction
• Ensure sustainability is always part of project success criteria

What are they especially proud of?

They are proud of the quality of their work, and the large volumes of work for repeat clients reflect this quality and attests to their promise of meeting or exceeding our client’s expectations. This is achieved by adherence to their core principles:

• Recognise and respond to our clients aspirations, ideas and values
• Facilitate and support creative architectural design
• Identify and explore innovative engineering solutions
• Deliver practical, buildable and cost effective solutions
• Work collaboratively with all members of the project team
• Deliver our service on time and cost efficiently
• Adherence to our Total Quality Management System

What other things do they work on?

John Hayes is a qualified arbitrator is a well respected professional witness

Donal Higginsis a project manager (Donal project managed the M50 Westlink bridge in the late 1980’s) and is a specialist in contract law

Sean Murphy has acted as consulting engineer in Australia, Saudi, Bahrain designing large hydroelectric installations and skyscrapers in excess of 50 stories.

Christopher Grey has acted as consulting engineer on the design and construction of a $1bn oil and gas storage and refinery in Nigeria.

Shane Tierney is a Building Energy Rating Assessor

Niall Patterson is a specialist in Quality Assurance and Controls

Michael Fogarty is a skilled professional witness and arbitrator

What else do the staff do?

John Hayes Senior Partner is a bass singer with the National Concert Orchestra Choir and a Swim Coach for Tipperary Youth. He is also a breeder of Charolais Pedigree Cattle.

Donal Higgins is keen sailor and has competed in numerous regattas.

Christopher Grey is a keen tri-athlete, rock-climber and mountaineer

Sean Murphy(a Kerryman from Caherciveen) trains junior footballers in north county Dublin

Shane Tierney is a keen historian of the twentieth century.

Niall Patterson is a keen golfer with a 6 handicap.

Michael Fogarty is a keen golfer and senior club hurler for Golden / Kilfeacle in Tipperary

Contact Details

Hayes Higgins can be contacted via their

Kilkenny office- The Arches, Gashouse Lane, Kilkenny.

Phone: + 353 (0)56 7764710
Fax: + 353 (0)56 7723223
Email: info@hhp.ie

Or their Dublin Office – 58 Fitzwilliam Square, Dublin 2

Phone: + 353 (0)1 6612321
Fax: + 353 (0)1 6625804
Email: info@hhp.ie

Carlow Chamber and the Carlow Enterprise Board have a conference coming up this Friday at the Mount Wolseley Hotel. I went to last years event and it was a resounding success. Not only were the presentations informative – but the event gave me an opportunity to network with exactly the kind of business owners I needed for my business and my career.

I’ve been asked to blog about it – which means there are some spaces left. Unfortunately it conflicts with another event I have on – The IIA Conference for the Social Media Working Group.

You can download a pdf brochure and booking form for the conference – glass-half-full-economic-conference

Let me know what I missed.

The IIA has published the Social Media Working Groups (SMWG) guide to Blogging for Business. I’ve mentioned it a few times before – the working group is focusing on how various types of Social Media Tools (Blogs, Podcasts etc) can be used in a business environment. My work with them has focused on blogs – resulting in this whitepaper. Other guides will be published in the near future.

The guide is free for all until May 6th at which point it will be available to IIA Members only. You can doanload it from http://www.iia.ie/smwg along with the results of the survey we ran. There will also be weekly case studies available. You can see all the the blog postings for the SMWG on the IIA website.

The guide includes sections

• explaining the fundamentals of blogging;
• investigating why businesses are adding blogging to their communications and marketing strategies;
• analysing the results from a survey of Irish business bloggers about their motivations and objectives and how they measure those objectives;
• with key advice on managing blogging resources, comments and content;
• and numerous links to further information and recommended reading for those who wish to take it further.

As part of my work with the IIA’s Social Media Working Group I’ll be going to the launch on Wednesday of the Business Blogging Whitepaper – of which I was a co-author. The event is a simple breakfast seminar with some guests and the chair of the working group (Brendan Hughes) giving presentations on the business impacts that their blogs have had. I will link from here to the whitepaper when it is available online. You can use the subscribe option at the end of the post to be automatically updated.

Full Details are available on the IIA Website but in summary:

Event Date : 22 Apr 2009
Time : 7.45am – 9.30am
Location : Burlington Hotel, Upper Leeson Street, Dublin 4

The IIA Social Media Working Group present a breakfast briefing dedicated to the business applications of blogging.

Thinking about starting a company blog? Should your communications team engage with bloggers? Is it time to get on Twitter? These are some of the questions that the IIA’s Social Media Working Group will address at this event.

This breakfast briefing for business owners & communication managers will present the findings from the working group’s recent analysis and research into the business benefits and potential risks associated with blogging in Ireland.

An overview of blogs and micro-blogging (e.g. Twitter) will be given. Case studies will be presented of how Irish businesses are using these tools to achieve real business benefits and cost savings. The critical issue of measuring return on investment will also be addressed and time will be allowed for addressing questions and concerns from the attendees.

Related articles by Zemanta

• Business Blogging In Ireland: A Review Of The IIA Social Media Working Group Workshop (krishnade.com)
• Business Blogging Survey (keithshirley.ie)
• Blog Research (keithshirley.ie)