We LOVE carving pumpkins at Halloween. Working left to right is mine, Gabe’s and Lisa’s.

Time to roast the seeds for tomorrow night’s “horror” triple feature. Mothman Prophecies (which none of us have seen), Alien and Nightmare on Elm Street.

• Success leaves clues.
• You are the average of the five people you surround yourself with
• You are not your business
• A customer acknowledge is a customer half served. Service is about feeling valued.
• In year one you CAN’T control your revenues, but you CAN control your costs
• Action. You can’t plow a field by turning it in your mind.
• The only thing you have is your effective energy. (Sean only concentrates on five things in relation to his business and ignores all other activity.)
• Be brave if you don’t know know the answer
• I’m not a fan of advertising but I love PR.

One nice aside from the Q&A session was the advice to always say your name and your company when asking a question in an audience. Take advantage of every opportunity.

Quote of the day goes to Jerry Kennelly.

Sack the gobshites.

You only need to look to the public sector to see what a demotivated and unincentivised workforce can “accomplish.” I can also draw on my own work experience in the private sector. The worst mistake I made was not getting rid of a highly-productive, but toxic employee in my own group. Now, even in the private sector, the law seems to be on the employee side with enforced multiple stays of execution and fear of lawsuits tying your hands while your team looks on and begins to question your ability to lead. It wasn’t entirely my decision. But if you’re running the show, you must make the call.

Clued in organisations like Netflix succeed with policies to reward the best and give generous severance packages even to the good.

You can never get to every session you’d like, but here are a few of things I wrote down from some of the speakers I heard:

Gerard Brandon – It is part of the job of an entrepreneur to find money. Get over it!

• Find complimentary skills. This was echoed in several presentations and though it seems rather obvious, how many of us are willing to recognise our weaknesses and fill in those gaps with other people? Hiring people just like yourself is common and not helpful for success.
• It’s often a story of getting 50 x 10K investments vs. getting 1 x 500K investments. Get a group of people in a room.
• Tell a story in the first 10 seconds, convince them in the first two minutes
• Answer these three questions for potential investors: What is in it for them? How much could they lose? Who the hell are you?

Brian Flanagan – Making financial projections for a business plan

• You can find a summary of Brian’s points at How NOT to Write a Business Plan. There’s also a link to How TO write a plan if that approach does your head in.

Joe Drumgoole – Start-ups in Ireland. Where DO we go from here?

• Check out the NDRC for potential funding
• Most entrepreneurs are successful on their third start-up
• (Again) find a co-founder that is complimentary and plan upfront for what happens if one of you leave.
• It’s no longer about technological skills, you can build whatever you want in Ireland. It’s all about cost of customer acquisition, channels of distribution and go to market strategy
• The only way to bring Silicon Valley to Ireland would be to literally move California and bolt it onto Ireland. US investors don’t invest overseas because they don’t have to. Ireland is a “great place to practice” but you need to be honest that the market is only about 250K people. That makes consumer plays in Ireland very hard.

Panel Discussion – Kevin Traynor, Colm Lyon, Asheesh Dewan, Jerry Kennelly

• You know people in the industry so go ask for the stuff you need
• Go back to all the people in your network to let them know how you’re getting on
• Answer these questions: Where? What is the scope? How is it different? Why does that make sense to you?
• Be outside the space of your own business
• (We already covered ‘Sack the gobshites.”)
• And then I had to run to my own session …

Here are the slides from my session on Service is Product is Service. You can download a deck of cards covering the major points / approach to service design. I’ve also created ones on user-centred design and brand experience.

Looking forward to the next opportunity we all get a chance to meet up.

Yay! That’s right. This is an exciting moment. Just a sticker, but it sure beats a box with your first card taped to the top.

They thought of everything and even gave me some credit in the process. Thanks. The curious thing is, nothing outside the card I designed is actually personal, but it feels personal. The content is great. Well-written and full of personality. Someone wiser than me once said, “Creating a brand is easy, being different isn’t.”

The main selling point was being able to have 50 different images across the fifty cards. If you’re doing anything visual, this is fantastic. The printing quality is great.

In addition to a great card box, how clever are these tabs?

And if something had gone wrong, they have that covered as well with what would appear to be a guarantee to sort it out. Why lose a loyal customer over a €40 order?

In order to extend the experience, they gave me a simple tool, as well as another reason (coupon) to come back. I witnessed Heather James singing moo’s praises on CruiseCamp and was able to help her by using her code.

Contrary to Cristina’s experience of feedback, how’s this for a follow-up? I gave them my time on three short questions and even let them know I thought they could provide better information, or a template, to help people account for bleed for precise custom images.

Moo also realise that every face of your packaging represents a billboard for expression. (This is the inside bottom of the box.) Literally every “touch point” had some thought applied to it. What are you doing when people are waiting for something to load? What do you have on the back of your envelope? On your invoice? On your business card? How do you express your brand personality?

(Feel free to use the discount code: DDZUWQ)

I used to DJ throughout high school and into college. I couldn’t imagine life without music, and would likely sacrifice my eyes before my ears, which is bizarre since I make most of my living through sight. Gabe has been developing his skills on the decks and today we officially launched GNET!C.

I’m digging the brand I whipped up this morning. What do you think? The last thing I need right now is another web project, but I made up little tent business cards; registered a domain at djgnetic.com and got us up on Twitter.

Most importantly, we dropped a hot set last night for a mainly Spanish and Italian crowd. At one point they were actually dancing on the tables. No joke. Can’t wait until next Friday …

Paul began by giving an overview of some research that was done in the Netherlands on how cultural diversity was represented in Dutch design. I’m sure similar hackneyed patterns exist throughout the world. Rainbow children holding hands in a circle anyone? The challenge is to move from the straightforward to a more refined, well-considered, researched and executed vision of diversity.

What is a common denominator beyond our nationality that connects us?

Reza followed Paul with an exploration of Persian culture and how that has influenced his work. I was initially struck that his schooling included Persian painting, calligraphy and even archaeology. How enlightened is that? His cultural explorations fell into several themes like Magic & Mysticism. Persian calligraphy, like zen calligraphy, is performed in a meditative state, where largely process is more important than outcome. War cloaks, covered in written prayers and magic, were believed to protect warriors in battle. While exploring Framing, Composition and Distance, Abedini remarked that “composition” is a modern term. Works from 500 years ago were done by artists “thinking about meaning before composition.”

I was left (again) with the sense that Irish graphic design has not fully explored or leveraged the visual history and cues of Ireland. I’m not suggesting one must reference the rich, cultural heritage of Ireland in all their work. To be sure, Abedini’s work is universal because it simply is great design in any culture. I didn’t need to read farsi to appreciate it. However, the layers of authentic reference add a complexity and depth beyond good composition, typography and colour. The local becomes universal simultaneously.

They only show four games a week on Sky Sports here, but I’ve been lucky as almost all the Steelers games have been shown, and of course, all the playoff games. I did have to splurge for NFL Game Pass last week to watch the Divisional Playoff, and I can’t say enough about the HD quality of the internet broadcast.

I haven’t lost any interest in American Football, though I have picked up a healthy interest in GAA and certainly rugby. I’m convinced a squad of rugby lads would run all over an American football squad, because I’d assume an American football player wouldn’t have the cardiovascular fitness to keep up the entire match. And as a fan, there really is something to be said for an entire game of fairly sustained non-stop action, minus one half-time break.

That being said, it’s gonna be a hell of a game tomorrow night. Go Steelers!

Christmas is inextricably linked with the family, considering our namesake, Knecht Ruprecht, is associated with Santa Claus. My Dad was always proud to exclaim that we were related to Santa himself, but it turns out Ruprecht was the evil partner that beat the bad kids with a switch.

We used to live in Bethlehem, PA, which is also known as Christmas City, but it’s neighboring Easton, PA that lays claim to the “First Christmas Tree in America”, where German settlers purportedly erected a Christmas tree in 1816. We’ll be visiting both places on our travels, and my Dad will not disappoint with a well-decorated tree, topped with a cotton-stuffed Claus I made in kindergarten, perhaps unconsciously saluting our heritage.

If we don’t see each other before then, have a Merry Christmas.

I’ve been sick in bed for almost a week now, and contrary to those who suggested this was a “man-cold”, it has developed into the worst flu I’ve had in years. Writing this post is painful. So, with that in mind, we all need a bit of comedy diversion in these tough times, right?

On a lovely trip to Leuven, Belgium, I came across this sticker on the front door of my hotel. Does it deserve a place alongside the 2012 Olympics Logo or other absurdly suggestive graphic designs? I assume this sign is supposed to mean that guide dogs are welcome. It could be argued that there is nothing suggestive at all about any of these logos until someone points out they might suggest more than they were intended. But at the end of the day, isn’t that a failure of the design? No unintended meaning should be applied.