Anton’s Hat

Hi there folks I’ve been very quiet for a while around here but that’s because I’ve been running around like a maniac with things for benchd. We have some BIG announcements to make regarding people coming on board and our development plans but I’ll have to leave you hanging on that for the moment.

Anyway, if you know me, you know that I am passionate about helping other irish businesses and I’m a huge believer in the value of networking, which is why I decided to start TechLudd in January this year and it’s exceeded all my expectations.

So I’m delighted to announce that, as of yesterday (21 Apr), I’ll be workingwith the guys at the Digital Media Forum to help develop an All-island Digital Media Network. Neil Leyden chairman of the Digital media Forum introduced me thus.

I am happy to introduce our new Project Manager, Anton Mannering, who has joined the companies in San Francisco. Anton will be looking after the All-Island Digital Media Network, a collaboration between the Digital Media Forum and the Northern Ireland Digital Content Panel and kindly funded through Intertrade Ireland. Anton is going to help us build the network North and South and hopefully become a key dynamo in our continuing efforts to build and strengthen the digital media industry on the Island of Ireland.

So apparently I’m a “key dynamo”!! Never been described as such before but it’s appreciated all the same.

There are some very interesting things in the works at the moment so watch out for that and if you’d like to chat with me about it please get in touch.

Edit: I’ll be blogging about the Web2expo Tour and other things for the Digital Media Forum and the Network project here 

TechLudd is on tonight in the Odessa club 13 Dame Court. Hope to see you there for beers chat and maybe a bit of business. Should be a few interesting folks knocking about.

Register here if you haven’t and see you there at 7pm. Laters…
Now where’s my hat?…

Hi there guys some developments with the meetup in January.

When: January 24th 6pm

Where: Input needed! Gravity bar was suggested by Joe Drumgoole but it’s not available although The Brewery bar is. Also ElyHQ in hanover Quay has been suggested.

Who: 3/4 Entrepeneurs and a Keynote speaker. Need some suggestions on who people would like to see. Some so far are: Loic Le Meur, Robert Scoble, Chris Horn…  

Shane also suggested a web video link to one or more industry leading lights for a 20 min Q&A if we can’t get them to come. Views on this idea (whatever you think) and anyone willing to offer help out setting it up appreciated.

Grainne has indicated in the comments of the previous post that intertrade are interested in coming and possibly supporting this. Thanks Grainne.

We’re hoping to get some of the investment community around too. Suggestions here appreciated too.. (BES, VC, Angels, UK -VCs? Who do you want to meet?) 

Any and all other suggestions for this event are welcome too. There will be a website and wiki soon for this as well.

TechLudd Group in Facebook - http://www.facebook.com/group.php?gid=6684912683 

TechLudd Meetup in Facebook - http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=178439255000

TechLudd on upcoming - http://upcoming.yahoo.com/event/386309/

I just got my new seesmic account  (Thanks Halley) and I have to say it’s some pretty cool shit. This is famed French blogger Loic Le Meur’s new video blogging/podcast/twitter affair.  I love it but haven’t put anything up yet because my Webcam is all broked up.

This does have huge implications for Bench’d  and all sports content websites and I’ll be reviewing the whole video podcasting phenomenon over on www.benchd.com/blog and what that means for us in the next few days. Hictu run by Italian Voip entrepeneur Luca Filigheddu is also running in this space. Luca’s usual business is Voip so this is a departure for him. Watch out for developments. He was in the Valley at the same time as the Paddy’s Valley crew and he made some of the same mistakes as us (going to the WorkIT.com Silicon Valley mixer specifically) but a fantastically positive guy who I’ll buy a coffee for next time I see him for sure, maybe even lunch, but not through paypal. I might even go visit him in Italy (well I do have relatives there).

In the meantime if you’re jealous or want to know what it’s all about just ask me.

Peace out brothas…

Ok guys I’ve had some responses and interest about the event pencilled in for the 24th Jan.

Here is the current suggested format. All comments suggestions and criticism are welcome…

When: Thurs 24th Jan 6pm

Where: Exact Location TBC, Dublin

Who: 3/4 entrepeneurs presenting and one celeb if people want that. (You guys suggest who you want we’ll see if we can get them)

What: Format will be Presentation by 3/4 companies then demo for about 8 depending on location. (presenters can demo too if they want). followed by networking and a few beers.

6-6:30 - Mingling and getting setup for presentations/demos

6:30-7:15ish - Presentations- Short and sweet anyone with questions ask them during the demobar.

7:30-8:30 - Demo Bar so people can be comfortable talking about what they’re doing and networking can happen naturally.

8:30-whenever -  Pure networking and relaxing

 This is only a suggested format so please comment and suggest etc.

I’ve just arrived back from the fantastic Paddy’s Valley Tour. What a blast!

Quite frankly anyone who couldn’t go on this really missed out on an amazing, informative, inspiring trip with some of the best and brightest of Irelands Entrepeneurs. Which brings me nicely to the point of this blog.

One of the things that stood out the most for me for our trip was the culture of the Silicon Valley and the way business is done there. The technology community is fragmented here in Ireland and the knowlede base spread quite thinly throughout the country as there is no real forum for people to pass on knowledge acquired and experience gained. Quite a few of the peole and businesses brought together for the Paddy’s Valley trip only got to know each other and share thougths and ideas in California. This begs an obvious question, why did a bunch of irish entrepeneurs have to travel around the world to form a close network and share ideas? Well the truth is that there is no way of doing that in ireland at the moment. But I’ll leave that for now but watch this space…

 The value I gained from the trip was access to the minds of Mike Murphy, business development manager at facebook, Ross Mayfield, the founder of socialtext, Marc Andreesen of Ning, Salim Ismail who runs Yahoo’s Brickhouse (we also had a 30sec hello with Jerry Yang), Seth Sternberg of Meebo and those are just the biggy’s. The host of other contacts made and people we were exposed to would take all day to relate and i’m sure I’ve even left out a billionaire along the way. Notably some of the best and useful contacts were among the Paddy’s Valley group itself.

Track Damien Mulley’s blog for more info as he kept a better track of what was going on. 

I could relate what all these people had to say about their businesses and what their experiences were but it would take too long. I will say this though the most powerful thing I learned about Silicon Valley was not it’s concentration of VCs and Technology companies but how it’s massively open culture affects those groups of people and led to an environment where investors, entrepeneurs and the general community know (or can easily access) information about what is going on in any particular space. A place where respect is gained for having a go, and where knowledge, contacts and info are shared with ease. The attitude is not, “I’ll help you because you’ve already done it” (why would you need it then anyway), it’s more “I’ll help you because you might be the next big thing”, which from a business perspective is a far more intelligent way of looking at the world, especially when you consider the CEO of the hottest company in the web space right now is only 23 (Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook).

So I pose a challenge to the Irish Technology community. Let’s build the same thing here.

Starting Dublin on the 24th-ish January and the third thursday of every month thereafter. Format and location to follow. All ideas and suggestions are welcome.