Nov 11th, 2009 by Stephen Downey
This is the River Shannon the end of the Garden
If you love to fishing and always wanted to see the river Shannon in Ireland then visit my dad’s new website. He had spent two years creating a spectactuar house on the shannon. He is renting the house out as a self-Catering home so if you would like to rent a house right on the banks of the Shannon in Ireland, get in touch with him.
Check out his website for more about Banagher and all of the more on the local amenities but here just a few of them.
Clonmacnoise
Birr Castle
Esker Hills Golf Club
Tags: fishing, Ireland, self catering, Shannon
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Sep 17th, 2009 by Stephen Downey
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?
Tags: Bizcamp, Dublin
Posted in Business, entrepreneur | No Comments »
Sep 16th, 2009 by Stephen Downey
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
Tags: Google Street Car, Ireland
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Jul 26th, 2009 by Stephen Downey
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.
Tags: automated income, Hothouse, software entrepreneur, startup advice
Posted in Law of attraction, entrepreneur, tips | 2 Comments »
I finally managed to get my HTC Hero via an upgrade to Meteor. After using the phone for only a day I am extremely impressed with the applications I have used and the ability of the phone.