People and Technology

Bizcamp is a conference (un-conference) for start-up companies and entrepreneurs. The conference will be held in Dublin, on 7 March with another event in Limerick on the 21st March.

BizCamp is an opportunity for entrepreneurs and innovators to come together, share experiences, and possibly create new value out of the day. It’ll be a chance to meet up with people who’ve been there, done that and bought the t-shirt – members of the business community, VCs and investors, and representatives from the relevant state agencies. Lost your job or finding current market conditions tough? Come along to BizCamp, who knows what new opportunities might turn up?

People tend to associate *Camps with the Web and the tech start-ups, but our aim is to try and embrace as much of the Irish business community as possible. We want to see people from all streams – finance, operations, HR, legal, delivery specialists, R&D, marketing – and yes, even tech! Ireland Inc. has a wealth of knowledge and acumen, more than enough to help us out of these troubled times. By attending (and, more importantly, contributing!) you can help make BizCamp the first “good news story” of the recession.

A full list of people already signed up to attend is available at

http://www.bizcamp.ie/whos-attending/

Eircom, Bank of Ireland and other key digital companies will be sponsoring the event. The Bizcamp is being organised by a number of entrepreneurs who have businesses in the Leinster region, along with people active in the web from business and public sectors.

While most of the speaking slots are informal we are looking key business speakers for two panels on the day; Speakers should be recognizable figures, all with a good story to share. Suggested panel topics are raising funding and supports available for your business. A list of people already speaking at the event is online at http://www.bizcamp.ie/2009/01/speakers-sessions/

Aside from the business networking available at the event, Speakers will have an opportunity to promote themselves and their business in a friendly Q&A type session. If you think you’d have something to contribute to the panel,  please contact me (Paul) via the comment form on this blog.

In a reminder that it’s now been more than 1 year since Barcamp Dublin, Barcamp Belfast is on this Saturday, 21st June. Looks like it’s going to be bigger and better than last year’s event.

Belfast hasn’t moved any further away from Dublin in the last 12 months, so I can safely recycle last year’s plug for the event.

For most people in Dublin , the Belfast Barcamp is nearer than the forthcoming Galway and Tipp events. It’s 2 hours by train from Dublin (with the venue pretty close to both the Central and Botanic rail stations) and about the same by Car , with Motorway for all but 15 miles of the journey.

Derek Organ left me a comment about the new Investnet site. Investnet run the successful (offline, Dublin based) Wireless Wednesday and First Tuesday networking events. In terms of cold financial payback, the latter is the most successful IT-Business networking event(s) that I’ve taken part in. Now all these networks are available online, in a Facebook / LinkedIn style site.

Good to see an Irish Organisation ‘get’ the networking possibilities that Web2.0 brings.

Also came up in conversation at Barcamp Belfast - Business Networking International (BNI). Great if you do lots of little sales - e.g. Accountants, Solicitors, IT shops , as the aim is do to cross referrals between close, but not competing , companies.

I’ll (finally) get to OpenCoffee Dublin tomorrow (Thurs 5th July). Will it be better for networking than Investnet, Barcamp or BNI?

Summary of BarCamp Belfast - on the day presentations about Business Startup - Java - GIS and the Semantic web .

Link to slides for our presentation ‘Java Bites Back’ - what’s bad and good about Enterprise Java, e.g. compared to Ruby.

Fresh from Barcamp Dublin , we’re glad to hear that Barcamp Belfast has been announced. I can only hope that the organisers are a better looking crew than this (apologies to With the exception of Elly). But will they have better T-Shirts?

For most people in Dublin , the Belfast Barcamp is nearer than the forthcoming Galway and Tipp events. It’s 2 hours by train from Dublin (with the venue pretty close to both the Central and Botanic rail stations) and about the same by Car , with Motorway for all but 15 miles of the journey.

If you haven’t been to Belfast before, this could be the reason you need to visit. And the excuse ‘I’ll wait until Gerry and Ian sit in the same room together’ no longer holds water.

I’ve just picked up the Barcamp T-Shirts. They’re white , with the Barcamp Logo across the Chest. And they look pretty good.

If you want one, you better get yourself down to the Digital Exchange tomorrow.

Thanks to Ed Byrne of Hosting365 for the sponsorship.

A quick summary of the Barcamp talk on Enterprise Web 2

Until now, innovation has stopped at the corporate firewall, with most of the Web 2 activity taking place in the personal and consumer space. With blogs (slowly) coming to the attention of the business mainstream, what is next to be taken up? Why should large companies bother? How will they implement it, or is Enterprise Web 2 just a fancy name for stuff they are doing anyway? More importantly, will anybody make a living out of it?

Any thoughts / comments / suggestions on what people what like to see?

Barcamp team spotted organising in Dublin.

Barcamp team Ellybabes, Joe Drumgoole and Eoghan McCabe (plus Paul Browne behind camera) spotted plotting in a pub in Dublin. Paul Walsh sent his apologies. More to be revealed about Barcamp Dublin shortly.

Thanks to Eoghan, there are going to be some changes around here. He’s just announced that we’re the winner of the 2000 Euro worth of web design work. For a sample of his work , check out the redesign that he has done of the Barcamp Dublin site.

I actually tried to convince Eoghan to pick somebody else with even more readers (in a mercenary get some more exposure kind of way). He’s sticking with the person choosen by his random number omiter.

So the question is, What’s your favourite colour? What part of this website do you think needs an upgrade - this blog, the main FirstPartners.net ‘Corporate site’, or the wiki / knowledgebase? What changes do you think should be made?Or should I save the prize for the forthcoming mad, take over the world attempt part 2 (Red Piranha)?

Further Kudos to Eoghan for carrying out some Charity work as well: tuppenceworth.ie, entered by Simon McGarr, the other is a project by IQ Content for the Red Door School, entered by Laurence Veale

People we met at the pre-blog meetup

• Eddie from McGarr Solictors; Keep up the good work - yes at least one non-legal reader can follow your blog, and I suspect that there are many more.
• EllyBabes. I’ve volunteered to help organize Barcamp Dublin. I don’t even have the excuse of being drunk. And now I’ve gone and put it in writing , so I’ll really have to help.
• Tom and Damien, and ended up stuffing things into paper bags (I’m sure that wasn’t on the original invitation).
• Antoin from Eire.com , busy handing out fon.com cards (and he has me almost sold on the concept).
• GrannyMar. She’s a lovely lady, and was very graceful about my confusing her with Grandad’s wife.
• Eoin O’Dell - cearta.ie, who wasn’t able to stay for the rest of the evening

At the Awards themselves (mainly beside the bar, take from that what you will)

• Bernie Goldbach. Ungrateful sod that he is , gave away the award that we sponsored. I couldn’t have done it better myself, given that I originally wanted to nominate Damien for the category.
• Keith Bohanna, who looks exactly like his photo on his blog (don’t know if that is good or bad - see next point).
• Krishna De, who told me I should lose the tie in the photo (top right) , and she’s probably right.
• Ann from Allagi, also nominated for ‘Best business blog’ , but lost out to the Ice Cream guys (below).
• Conor from LouderVoice - as funny in the person as he is on his (award winning) blog posts.
• Thomas Holmes (YClickit) and Eoghan McCabe , fellow conspirators competitors in the pint competition. Thomas is living my ideal lifesytle (working remotely , living in Montpellier France. It might also be worthwhile (hint) subscribing to Eogans blog today.
• Richard Hearne, Red Cardinal. Target number 2 for lifestyle Jealously with 6 months a year in Thailand.
• Joe Drumgoole , yet I still don’t understand what ‘ace king - check it out’ means (see the top of is blog page). Maybe if I help organise barcamp dublin he’ll let me in on the secret.
• Roger Galligan , from irishblogs.ie. Yes I do know the difference between you and boards.ie
• Conn Ó Muíneacháin. Giving the (Irish Language) awards away this year, instead of winning them

and pings for the people that we didn’t meet …

• Brian Honan couldn’t make it (he was nominated for best business blog), but lost out in the end to the Ice Cream guys.
• Ken McGuire, who I still owe a pint (unless he can come up with a ‘double or quits’ scheme).
• Kieran from Ice Cream Ireland. He must have been surrounded by frozen food groupies
• Lar from IQ Content - almost got talking a couple of times, but generally one or other of us got sidetracked.

The announcement on the official BarCamp Dublin Blog is here.

To quote what is barcamp?

[Barcamp] is an informal gathering of people from technical and business backgrounds, where information and experiences are exchanged. The event is geared towards sharing knowledge and learning from others and there is a policy of encouraging active participation in all discussions.

So if you’ve never been to one before, and not sure about attending. Just Go. You’ll be glad that you did.

Update: Paul asked me to change the order of links so that the ‘official’ site came first (previously I had his blog listed top). The original links are below.

Paul Walsh has announced the date of Barcamp Dublin on his Blog. It’s Saturday 21st April in the Digital Hub Dublin. Paul is organising the Event , along with EllyBabes and Joe Drumgoole.

Update 2: I’d forgotten to mention Keith Bohanna’s post about the upcoming Barcamps. Anybody else up for organising a Barcamp north of Dublin (in Drogheda, Dundalk or Newry)?

Seems that both Michele and Tom will be at the Irish Blog Awards (but not the Barcamp in Waterford this Saturday). Tom’s not happy with his hosting. Make that Tom is very unhappy with the hosting. Will it all end in a barroom brawl in the basement of the Alexendar hotel?
My own opinion is that all hosting contracts, like politics, end in tears. I’ve sympathy with Tom , having recently been in a similar situation. In my case , I have nobody to blame but myself:

• I should have backed up my files if they were that important to me.
• You get what you pay for. In my case , I was on shared hosting for next to nothing. I was unhappy , but not surprised when it fell over.

Overall , I can understand , but I’m slightly disappointed with Tom. He’s the closest thing we have to an ‘A-List blogger’. With that power comes responsibility - I wouldn’t diss a companies hard-won reputation (even though they may deserve it) without thinking over ‘what could I have done better’)
Note, I don’t host with Blackknight and have no connection to them.

Forget your Web 2.0 , Barcamp, Networking events. This is how it is done - exactly like it says on the Tin. It’s (nearly) Christmas. 12 Pubs . Drogheda. If you need any more information than that, check out the web site.

This Years Route:

1 Trinity Arms
2 Carlies
3 Clarkes
4 McPhails
5 McHughs
6 Sarsfields
7 Carburys
8 Mariner
9 Cellars Bar
10 Barocco
11 O’Sheas
12 Storm

Derek Organ is brave enough to ask the question below about the Barcamp Ireland unconference. He’s deeply involved with Web 2.0 startup 1time.ie, so we know he’s not thick! I’m writing this post, as Enterprise Ireland recently posted an invite to everybody that was at the Web 2 Ireland get together, and I can just picture the people there scratching their heads and wondering ‘What is this Barcamp thing anway?‘.

Dereks’ Question:

I’ve never been to one of these events but I’d love to go there and show off our own web 2.0 product and also see what other people are at in ireland. I’m struggling at the moment though to figure out exactly how the the day will be formated. As in who talks, organizes etc? I’m sure they work but i wonder could anyone share there experience if they have been to one. What usually happens?

So, below are the answers the top questions I had before attending. Yes, the answers are strange, but yes, the whole thing seems to work.

1) Where is the event going to be held? At the time of writing , it’s going to be in Dublin, Cork, Galway or Waterford. Yes, it makes it slightly difficult to book accomadation, but hopefully a consensus will be arrived at soon. In general , Barcamp is dependant on people ‘donating’ a place to meetup. For example , last Octobers Techcamp Ireland was held in the Northside Civic Centre , Dublin.
2) When is the event on? This appears to be a little clearer, with current opinion favouring Saturday the 23rd September.

3) Who should attend? Anybody with a passion for the uses of technology - not just geeks in the traditional sense of the word, but people who can string two sentences together and still get excited about new possibilities.
4) How do I get invited? You invite yourself. Go to this page on the Barcamp site , and add your name to the list (click on the ‘edit page’ button on the top left). Yes it’s one of those web pages that everybody and anybody can edit (a wiki). In exchange for you being trusted to change the page, please don’t go mad with it.

5) How do I get in touch with the organiser? The organiser is you. I understand this may come as a bit of a shock, but at least you have about 30 other people (at the last count) to help you out. The wiki (see point 4) is what makes it all come together - the more you put in, the more you get out of it.

6) What will people be talking about? Anything that interests you. The current list is on the wiki, and first timers are actively encouraged to sign up to speak - not as a sales pitch, but if you genuinely think you have something useful to share.

If you’re looking for more information, you could do worse than check out the people that have already blogged about the event:

• Argolon
• Eirepreneur
• Paul Watson
• Fergus Burns
• Tom Raftery
• Jonathan Hill (Infacta)

And by way of apology to Derek for damning him with faint praise , here is his company logo - well worth checking out.