Stephen's Thoughts

If your in Business, get to BizCamp this Saturday….

Stephen Downey — Thu, 17 Sep 2009 12:46:00 +0000

This Saturday, 500 people from the Irish Business community are getting together to share their experiences and inspire each other at BizCamp. It is based on the barcamp conference style where people come together in an open forum. There are no sales pitches allowed as the rules for speakers clearly state.

I was at the first Irish Barcamp in Cork in 2006 and really enjoyed the openness of the “unconference”. It was mostly aimed at techies but Bizcamp is for people from any aspect of business. I was away for the first BizCamp Dublin so was pretty happy when I saw that registration was open for Bizcamp2.

As there are so many speakers this weekend, the time table has been already decided. You can have a look at the speaker line up here. I would advise deciding on what you want to see before you go as there are some great talks that clash with each other.

Here’s what I am going to try to get to:

10.00 to 10.45	Joe Drumgoole Startups in Ireland. Where Do we go from Here?
10.45 to 11.30	Brian Flanagan Making financial projections for a business plan Or Steve Gotz Lessons from an Unsuccessful American Entrepreneur
11.30 to 12.15	Caelen King Online business models. I will looks at the value proposition of various online application and how these map into business models and how these revenue models can be adapted to maximise revenue.
12.15 to 13.00	Amanda Webb Facebook for business
14.00 to 14.45	Panel Discussion 3 Entrepreneurs talking about taking the rough with the smooth. Kevin Traynor, Colm Lyon & Jerry Kennelly
14.45 to 15.30	Claire Boyles Twitter as a marketing tool
15.30 to 16.15	Gerard O’Brien Approaching Enterprise Ireland for the first time – what we can support, what we look for in a start-up proposition and roadmap of supports offered
16.15 to 17.00	Steve Plunkett SaaS – The Servitization of the Software Industry. The software industry is undergoing a major shift. I will explore the implications and opportunities for software businesses in Ireland

What talks are you going to?

Google Car on the N3

Stephen Downey — Wed, 16 Sep 2009 07:54:14 +0000

On the way into work today I saw the google street car, used to record images for Google Street maps.

Google Car on the N3 in Dublin

Some great startup advice

Stephen Downey — Sun, 26 Jul 2009 22:23:07 +0000

I just came across this already very successful blog tonight and can’t get over the amount of great advice on it. (Not sure how I have not seen it before.)

I have gone to many seminars and read many books on being successful and one thing they all advice is talk to someone that has already achieved what you desire.
So if your dream is to make the transition from a Software developer to software entrepreneur then start reading this blog by Rob Walling. In another example of the law of attraction, I started to read the E-myth Revisited about a week ago and Robs first tip is from Michael Gerber.

I really like the second realization in his post:

Realization #2: Market Comes First, Marketing Second, Aesthetic Third, and Functionality a Distant Fourth

I met up with a friend that works with the Hothouse program in DIT a few weeks back and he made this exact point to me. As I come from a development background, my first instinct is to get as many cool features into an application as possible. Big mistake!!! If you have no customers, your features are wasted and chances are that your customers will be able to tell you exactly what features they want anyway. Start by identifying your market and marking sure they know, who you are and what you can offer them.

I would highly recommend adding Rob’s blog to your RSS reader. On a Irish note, James Kennedy also has a great blog for peple that would like to generate some automated income from the Internet.

Problems using Mobile Broadband with O2 Ireland

Stephen Downey — Wed, 17 Jun 2009 23:58:23 +0000

I recently updated my laptop and decided to go for a laptop with GPRS capability, thinking that I could share the data plan I have on my phone with the laptop. I was looking for a copy of my SIM card that I could put in my laptop and share the data plan that I already have on my phone.

I was told by O2 that I could not do this as each SIM card needs to have a separate number and I would have to pay for separate data plan for the 2nd SIM card. This means that the 1GB data plan allowance that I pay for on my phone and never come close to using cannot be shared with my laptop. (I know that I can connect to the phones modem over Bluetooth and use the current data plan but that means that there is no point having GPRS on the laptop.)

I might be totally wrong here but does a SIM card not have a unique number that is mapped to the phone number that you dial. Would it not be possible to add two “SIM card ID’s” to one mobile account when one of the SIM cards is used for data only and not voice calls?

I had hope that our telecom companies had convergent networks that could correlate the data between the different services that they offer and take the data used from one data plan account.

If anyone knows of a way to do this or how a SIM card in a phone is mapped to a mobile number that you ring, let me know? I would be interested to know if this is theoretically possible.

I’m turning into an Inverse Paranoid

Stephen Downey — Tue, 27 Jan 2009 23:40:49 +0000

I went along to a Jack Canfield seminar in Dublin last year and although I learned a lot at the time. The one lesson I didn’t pick up was how to take action. This is the only way that all of the ideas in my head are going to come to fruition. It was a great day full of great inspiration. Ever since, I keep finding myself referring back to things that happened that day.

At the time I bought the book that accompanied the seminar (The Success Principles: How to Get from Where You are to Where You Want to be) but left it on the shelf until recently. I thought with a new year, it was time to read up on those principles and set a few goals. I also turned 30 recently so decided I wanted to give my goal setting a bit more weight.

One of the goals that I set myself was to run a marathon. For those of you who have not met me, the idea of me running a marathon is a pretty tough reality. Well, the laws of attraction were in play that day. When I arrived home, I got a phone call from a relative of my wife asking if I would be interested in a study on the effects of exercise. It involves working along side a personal trainer and a nutritionist for 6 months!

I now have a clear plan in place to loose the weight I need, in order to start the serious marathon training in June. I’m now registered for the Dublin marathon in October. My number is 3071 so look out for me.

One principle I love in the book, is the idea of an inverse paranoid. This is someone who instead of being paranoid that everyone is out to hurt them, is convinced that everyone is out to help them. You should try it some day. If someone annoys you in some way, stop yourself from getting annoyed and think “What is my opportunity here”, “what way does this person want to help me”.

If anything, you spend the day a lot happier.