I had been looking forward to hearing from Lawrence @ IQContent, Richard @ Red Cardinal & Krishne De, in advance of the event - and they more than lived up to expectations. The revelations for me were from Conor O’Neill’s presentation on Outsourcing and Donagh Kiernan’s on Sales.

Conor was absolutely convincing on the importance of shopping around when outsourcing work - who knew that it’s possible to get a logo designed for $150 in Argentina through elance.com? Or that quotes for website design could range from $10K in Poland & the UK to $84K in Ireland?!

I’m not a sales person by nature, but being self employed, it’s something you do need to think about! Which is why Donagh struck a chord when he spoke about scaleable pricing and the importance of always addressing the client need.

There was a lot of audience interaction throughout the day, which I always think is a great sign. I found the day especially inspiring because people came together on a Saturday out of a desire to share their know-how for absolutely no reward, other than spending an interesting day amongst like-minded individuals.

Thank you Damien, for the opportunity to be involved, and to everyone else for sharing so willingly. The next ShareIT is set for April 28th @ the Microsoft offices in Dublin. Keep an eye on Business Advisory for more details.

More reviews of the event are here, here, here and here.

Date:    Saturday, March 24
Time:    10am - 5pm
Venue:  UCC, Cork
Cost:    €0

Another day is planned for Dublin in April - so keep an eye on the Business Advisory site if you’re interested.

I just used it to call a client in Brazil. According to the Eircom call calculator a 10 minute call would have cost me €22.11. By using the All Free Calls number, I only pay for a local 1890 call. Looks like this will save me a fortune!

Through the use of pictures, the site clearly and simply explains how to get to grips with these programmes. It’s definitely a case of showing is better than telling!

So, here are a couple of simple tips on how to create a good communication plan for 2007.

1. Conduct some research.
I don’t necessarily mean hire an expensive consultancy. Survey employees, review your press clippings, talk to your stakeholders and have a look at your competition, so you can understand the situation right now and set some benchmarks. At the end of the year, you should be able to measure improvement against this starting point.

2. Identify your publics.
It’s not just about who you need to communicate your message to. Post Cluetrain, you need to think about communicating with your audiences.

3. What do you want to say?
What should people know about you, your product or service? What makes your offering different, or worth spending money on? Why should people want to work for you? Why should a community feel good about your presence in their area? [I bold the people, because that’s who you will be talking with, not “target markets” or “segments”, or whatever we learned in Marketing class!]

Once you’ve decided on your messaging, it’s always good to bear the “Who? What? When? Where? Why? and How?” rule in mind. Answer those questions in your communications and you’ll be giving people what they want to know.

4. The tools maketh the plan
Considering the Cluetrain assertion that “Markets are conversations”, what are the best Communication tools for you to get that conversation going about your product or service? They can range from the traditional: brochures, annual report,
press releases, whitepapers to online options such as: Website, blogs, an online forum, wikipedia or viral campaigns.

5. Set yourself some target dates
What will you achieve by when? I like to use Red, Amber, Green charts, to highlight the tasks which are 1. Not yet started, 2. Begun but not finished and 3 Completed.

If you need to get a Communication plan up and running for 2007, I hope these tips help get you started! Good luck.

All that remains is for me to send you to a great online Christmas card - where you’ll find a round up of the most entertaining and viral online videos of 2006. Enjoy!

There are Irish women out there blogging on everything from Literature & the Arts to Business & Technology. If you know of any other great blogs written by Mná na hEireann (Translation: The Women of Ireland), please do let Mary know.

Seven months later and Murphys Ice Cream is set for a return to the shelves of Superquinn. Great news for Kieran, and for Superquinn customers - and further evidence of the power of blogging.

Now if only we could do the same with the Douglas Hyde in Cork.

But that presupposes that the government has the support of the fourth estate and Pat Leahy points out that

“Relations between the media and the present government have not been good for a long time … relations at a corporate, non-editorial level between Fianna Fail and Independent Newspapers, once warm, cordial and frequently nurtured, have collapsed entirely. This development was confirmed to The Sunday Business Post some months ago by sources at the highest level of government. And rightly or wrongly, almost everyone in government feels they receive unusually rough treatment at the hands of other media.“

Even a first year student of Public Relations will tell you that in crisis situations, it’s important to have built strong relationships with all constituent groups:

• Employees - Bertie seems to have the unwaivering support of the Fianna Fáil party members.
• Shareholders & community groups - it remains to be seen how the general public will feel about these events by election time. So far, the polls are looking good for the teflon Taoiseach.
• The Media - If relations have soured between the government and the media, they will have an uphill battle to fight at election time. It certainly did them no favours at this time of crisis.

This evening, almost 2 weeks after the story broke, Bertie finally apologised to the nation for “the bewilderment caused to the public about recent revelations“.

Bonus link: In fact, ah has the scoop on Bertie’s latest book deal.