Pure Play

Taking the p*** out of vegetarians

2009-07-19T21:41:30+01:00

This is a personal one - saw a link to this video and really enjoyed it. I am vegan (worse than bloody vegetarian) and we desperately need to have the p*** taken out of us from time to time :-)

keith

5 Social Media Business Models

2009-07-19T12:38:06+01:00

Great post on Mashable which summarise the 5 key business models which any social media startup should consider.

A combination of interviews, illustrative screenshots and commentary make this a must read for entrepreneurs in this space.

5 Business Models for Social Media Startups by Jun Loayza

keith

Bord Snip - Enterprise Support extracts

2009-07-16T16:02:38+01:00

The follow excerpts from Snip2 report which deal with support for businesses. Please let me know what I am missing?

2.5 Supports for enterprise

At present, State supports for enterprise and job-creation are delivered by a range of agencies across a number of Government Departments. The Special Group proposes that enterprise supports for indigenous industry should instead be delivered through a single agency, led by a strong management team and operating under well-defined oversight mechanisms. This would allow for common measurement and reporting of effectiveness across the variety of enterprise supports, and would facilitate a more coherent and proportionate approach to the provision of financial and other supports to different industries.

The existing agencies differ in terms of their geographic focus (local, regional or international), the size of companies being supported, and the sectors involved (whether general or specific). The Group makes the following observations in relation to these agencies:

• expenditure and staffing levels have risen over the period 2003 to 2008 with no obvious associated increase in outputs;
• there is a high degree of overlap across the services delivered by the agencies (e.g. training, grant assistance);
• there is significant duplication of overseas representation with Enterprise Ireland, the IDA,
An Bord Bia and Tourism Ireland operating independent overseas office networks; and
• there is a lack of consistency in reporting what is achieved in terms of cost effectiveness (estimated grant per job). Based on the available information, there are significant variations between the agencies in the estimated average grant cost per job suggesting that some agencies are less cost effective than others.

It is proposed that the County and City Enterprise Boards, the Business Innovation Centres, the Western Development Commission and the enterprise functions of Údarás na Gaeltachta, Shannon Development, Bord Iascaigh Mhara, LEADER and Teagasc, as well as sector-specific agencies such as the Irish Film Board, should be merged within a re-constituted Enterprise Ireland.

The streamlined agency should also lead to major savings in overall administration costs including staff numbers. The Group considers that the new enterprise body should operate a regional office network based upon the nine Gateways identified in the National Spatial Strategy, leading to savings in local office accommodation costs. Savings in overseas office costs would also arise.

and from Volume 2:

C.3 Cease funding FÁS Services to Business and Skillnets

The Group was not convinced by the argument that the funding of €27m provided through FÁS Services to Business and Skillnets is a necessary catalyst in the provision of training by businesses to their own employees. The Group is not convinced that any market failure exists and recommends that these activities be stopped as employers can provide for their own requirements.

Mostly this makes sense to me. The devil here is in the implementation - if agencies which are effective at present (ie CEB's) get amalgamated into EI along with a host of others and there is no rework from the ground up of how EI is structured with a strong client centric focus used to guide the merger then the net effect will be to disrupt the support which is currently delivered to entrepreneurs as opposed to making it better.

The previous merger of Forbairt, the Irish Trade Board and parts of FAS took nearly a decade to settle down.

keith

UPDATE - Links to the reports underneath (pdf format)

Volume 1

Volume 2

Customer retention - t'is a narrow line between success and failure

2009-07-14T21:43:27+01:00

Andrew Chen writes great posts on the general theme of freemium, conversion and retention. In a recent post he explores the impact of small changes in customer retention percentages on overall customer numbers.

What he does not touch on (the post is nicely self contained as it is) is the impact this has on the life time value of a customer/user and the backward ripple effect on the max price per customer acquisition.

An extract from his post:

.....retention-focused features are very powerful because they let you create dramatic improvements in all the important metrics, across the board – be it pageviews, total time usage, revenue, etc.

This means that you can, just as people do with addressbook importers and the like, put a tremendous amount of time into a whole host of retention-driven features like:

A great product and value proposition
Targeted notifications
Fresh news and content on every return
Desktop app-integration (which has a much lower rate of uninstall)
The number of friends on the site (the more that are there, the more notifications can be generated)

All of the above contribute meaningfully to this user retention number.

His full post linked here, have a read.

keith

Announcing the 3rd Annual AWS Start-Up Challenge - why only 4 countries?

2009-07-14T16:37:55+01:00

From the email received today from Amazon:

The AWS Start-Up Challenge has launched and once again we are looking for the most promising start-ups that are building their businesses on AWS infrastructure services. Start-ups in the United States, United Kingdom, Germany, and Israel are encouraged to apply for a chance to win $50,000 in cash, $50,000 in AWS credits, mentoring sessions from AWS technical experts, and AWS Premium Support Gold for one year.

The 2008 Challenge winner, John Barr, VP of Yieldex says, "Winning the AWS Start-Up Challenge last year put our business on the fast track. Since then, we've successfully raised $8.5 million dollars and grown at least two orders of magnitude in each of the data processing categories we measure, including 40 billion monthly impressions under management and 3 terabytes of data processed daily in the cloud."

To learn more and enter the competition, visit the AWS Start-Up Challenge home page.

Looks good and relevant to a lot of businesses. Why have they specifically excluded Ireland? (or more accurately specified 4 counties and ignored everyone else?)

From their T&C: The Contest is open to: (a) individuals or sole proprietors who are legal residents of the 50 United States or the District of Columbia, the United Kingdom, Germany and Israel who have reached the age of majority in their jurisdiction of residence at time of entry;

keith

This Thurs: Content Monetization: 3 Models that Work

2009-07-14T16:18:04+01:00

I wish it was in Ireland but it is not - this one happening in LA. Dealmaker run some great events in California.

From video to music and games to news, everyone and their mother is looking for better ways to monetize online content...and it's starting to pay off.

New monetization models are taking shape as consumers rapidly embrace virtual currencies, micropayments, free to play, premium content...and more.

In this Strategy Series, you’ll get to sit down with executives and entrepreneurs who are leveraging new monetization models and kicking butt along the way...

Speakers:
Keith Richman, CEO, Break.com (linkedin profile)
Paul Yanover, Executive Vice-President & General Manager, Disney Online (linkedin profile)
Larry Fitzgibbon, EVP, Demand Brands/ Demand Media
Ro Choy, Chief Revenue Officer, RockYou (linkedin profile)

Moderator:
Jason Nazar, CEO, Doctstoc (linkedin profile)

More information and to register: click here

Date and Location:
Thursday, July 16, 2009 | 6:00PM - 9:00PM
Zune L.A. - 8275 Beverly Blvd, Los Angeles, CA 90048 (Venue)

keith

Free food and networking for social media heads

2009-07-13T13:38:05+01:00

The Clarion Hotel in the IFSC (a client) are holding a gathering for bloggers, twitters and related persons this coming Thursday 16th at 6pm.

The guys from Upandconnected.com are doing a short talk on their use of social media and the Clarion is providing free grub.

More details on their site, their facebook page or Linkedin.

keith

lynx on 12th July 09

2009-07-12T16:26:30+01:00

Comprehensive list of Events over the next 3 months from Gita

via Damien - Spoiltchild are doing a free email marketing course, by email of course

Zoho Projects - revamped with an easy to use interface and lots of functionality. A little glitchy at times (when you are linked out to various Zoho components) but well worth a play. Free for one project with unlimited users.

Chris Anderson's Free: The Future of a Radical Price, available on Scribd eh, for free (Scribd link down at time of posting) and also as a free audio download.

UPDATE - Scribd geographically restricted apparently "Due to our agreements with our publishing partners, the document you requested is only available to users located in the United States."

Foodtracer is an idea I played with for a couple of years - far too early when compared with the available technology at the time. Maybe this could be implemented?

FoodTracer concept+demo from gusepo on Vimeo.

keith

Rescue Team in slo-mo action - in celebration of Robins win

2009-07-12T12:29:17+01:00

@gracesmith tweets some great links and this one this morning was a brilliant reminder of Robin's win during the week for Decisions For Heros - an internet service which helps rescue teams be more effective.

Bathtub IV from Keith Loutit on Vimeo.

Well done Robin, well deserved

keith

Facebook V Linkedin, one difference starkly illustrated

2009-07-11T11:45:44+01:00

Facebook is pervasive and in the US it is a more powerful tool for EI employees in their networking and connecting than Linkedin.

This morning I connected to the groups they have running on both via their Jason Roe built Americas web presence.

Here are the ads which greeted me, from Facebook Liposuction and hot Russian Girls, from Linkedin an N97.

This is one of the things to consider when building a social network presence!!

keith

IIA Board Nominations close this Friday

2009-07-08T10:22:02+01:00

Some people just don't enjoy sitting on boards and I can well understand that! Tedious procedures, long discussions and work.

The IIA has some of the first two (not much) and a bit of the latter. It is not one where you come to a monthly meeting for 2 hours and then ignore until the next one. The upside is you get to meet loads of good people. The following is from the IIA newsletter;

Nominations for the IIA Board close on Friday 10th July.

As a member of the IIA you are entitled to get involved in this process by either nominating or seconding an individual from a member company who you think would be a good addition to the IIA Board. As a member of this association it is very important that you participate in this process as it allows you to ensure that the IIA continues doing the work that you feel is necessary to connect, inform and promote business online in Ireland.

You can read about the entire process of the IIA Board Elections by clicking here.

I will be reminding you to vote between Friday 17th July and Thursday 30th July. Only the voting member in each member company will receive this reminder. You can find out who your voting member is by logging into the IIA site.

To nominate or second an individual or find out more please email board2009@iia.ie

If anyone wants to give me a call on being a board member please do so - 086 2300702

keith

Willow Garden Design

2009-07-08T08:37:02+01:00

Claire Hawker is a Wicklow based garden designer and she built a site for herself a couple of months ago using Sitekreator.

Problem is her site has not yet been indexed by Google so this post may help that to happen.

keith

dbTwang pitch deadlines coming up - any to add?

2009-07-06T20:59:57+01:00

The following are noted in my Things as needing to be done over the coming months:

Hothouse Application
Going to give this a shot - for a number of reasons would be good to be part of the Hothouse Network. That application is due in 31st July

Seedcamp London
As recommended by the Europas shortlisted Robin Blandford the Seedcamp week in London has to be worth pitching for. It closes on 23rd August

Seedcorn
Have ignored this for the last 2 years as we had nothing to show. This year we will have so in it goes for a top prize of 100k for the winning business. 25th September for this.

Anything else to suggest for dbTwang.com?

keith

Ruby On Rails Hosting - suggestions?

2009-07-06T20:25:09+01:00

When dbTwang.com launches it will be aimed at the UK and US mostly with users coming in from other countries as well. Numbers not likely to be too big in first 6 months.

Have already book-marked:

for consideration. Who would you suggest dear reader? All thoughts, contributions welcome.

keith

UPDATE:

Following left in comments so far - thanks for those:

Webbynode (left by them in fairness!)
heroku.com
railsplayground.com

Local Currencies - free talk in Kilkenny on Tuesday 7th July

2009-07-05T11:25:48+01:00

I have had some exposure to local currencies and they constructively challenged my preconceptions of how things are and why they have to be.

keith

This is from FutureProof Kilkenny:

Ireland’s Economic Outlook and the role of Local Currencies

Richard Douthwaite is giving a talk in Kilkenny next Tuesday evening 7th July for a public talk. Richard is an economist, journalist and author specialising in energy, climate and sustainability issues. He is the co-founder of the Foundation for the Economics of Sustainability (Feasta), an economics think-tank based in Ireland. His books include The Growth Illusion (1992), widely regarded as a classic, Short Circuit (1996) and The Ecology of Money (1999).

See full agenda here http://futureproofkilkenny.org/?p=775

Venue: Butler House, 16 Patrick St, Kilkenny
Date / time: 8pm Tuesday 7th July, Free

Help the CEB's to build a case for micro finance

2009-07-02T10:24:24+01:00

From Kilkenny CEB:

The network of County & City Enterprise Boards (CEB) undertook a ‘credit survey’ of small business owners last December, which established that there is a growing credit crisis within the small business sector. The main findings of the survey are as follows:

·            54% of respondents indicated that their business activity is being curtailed at present due to credit issues (i.e. unable to access necessary
overdraft facilities; term loans; bridging finance; etc.);

·            52% indicated that the banking situation is having either a serious or very serious adverse effect on their business;

·            31% reported that their business is at risk of closure due to lack of credit; and

·            74% reported that debtors and/or debtor days has increased, putting severe pressure on their working capital and cash-flow needs.

The CEB network is again undertaking this survey to ascertain if the situation is improving or getting worse. We would appreciate if you could take 5 minutes of your time to complete the survey at the attached link. The survey will remain open until next Wednesday 8th July.

Thank you for your co-operation.

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=2_2b7MxqVFTXf2jpDQ4Z_2f7ZQ_3d_3d

keith

Design Project Opportunity

2009-06-29T14:23:57+01:00

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

2009-06-29T09:41:46+01:00

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

2009-06-28T19:41:41+01:00

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

2009-06-28T19:36:37+01:00

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)

2009-06-24T13:24:29+01:00

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

2009-06-22T19:22:55+01:00

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

2009-06-19T16:24:49+01:00

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

2009-06-15T21:10:13+01:00

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

2009-06-12T08:00:32+01:00

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