James O’Sullivan’s Blog

Last night I attended BizSpark - a Digital Media Networking event at the four seasons in leafy south Dublin. The event was well organised by Digital Media Island and I certainly enjoyed the few pints of Guinness. There was a good panel discussion followed by presentations from locle and justroutes. During the Q&A session Michael Walsh from GlobalDMX made a very candid point that we(Ireland) are the backwater of broadband services. I certainly agree with his point, the government need to step up to the mark and deliver the infrastructure needed to support digital services in Ireland. One of the issues we have is users don’t understand what real broadband is and what services could be offered. It’s really a case of chicken and egg. I would call on hosting companies in Ireland to come together on this issue and lobby for greater broadband services. Another discussion point was the support for start-up companies and role Enterprise Ireland can play. Start-ups mentioned that they find it difficult to find the information they’re looking for and how they can find it.  However there is a project called M50 which aims to solve this challenge with speed. I personally find it amusing that the project is named M50 since the M50 is car park at the moment where people get highly frustrated! BizSpark was a fantastic event where I met some great people such as the lads from blacknight (Irish Hosting Company) and Iarfhlaith Kelly a freelance web designer from Dublin
There’s another digital media event organised my Connector next week which I’ll try to attend.

 Today I received an email from iProfile.org with a really interesting subject line “How to protect yourself against CV Identity Fraud” and have posted a report on the topic. I didn’t subscribe to iProfile.org emailing list and I would normally mark such emails as spam but this time was different. The email was informative and concerned a topic of major online safety importance - Identity Theft. iProfile provides a free service where you can upload your CV and protects you from CV identity fraud. You can protect your phone number through a masking feature but apart from that I don’t see any difference between this online CV tool and any other.

CV Identity fraud is fast becoming a major online threat to both job hunters and recruiters. What better way for a fraudster to gain your personal information to setup a profile and masquerade as you. Recruitment agencies and HR departments receive many external documents on a daily basis from unknown source. Their job is reliant on opening attachments and processing the information. However without proper understanding and protection of this threatening landscape they’re at risk of various malicious code attacks. This is why I believe online CV’s will be the preferred method of choice for both the job seeker and recruiter. iProfile and linkedIn definitely make life easier and I’m all for improved processes, efficiency and semantic data but there’s an art in writing a CV and I believe the presentation of the traditional CV tells alot about the job seeker. Standardising a format for everyone to use removes this insight.

Whatever you work at there will always be conflicts, challenges, politics, difference of opinions and some form of buracarcy involved. You may not ask for it and you may not like it but it’s a fact of life! To get you through simply follow this list.

1. Prepare
2. Listen
3. Smile
4. Choose
5. Focus
6. Relax
7. Act
8. Forgive
9. Trust
10. Change
11. Persist
12. Accept
13. Risk
14. Wait

So if you find yourselve in a spot of bother or you think your the best thing since sliced pan, step back, take a breather and go through this list and think! Please share your techniques or tips.

Thanks.. James : josullivanlive..

Being a Guinness lover I came across an advert on rte’s website today offering a free poker set for anyone that signs up. Everyone loves free stuff and I’m no different so of course I clicked through and signed up and looking forward to my free poker set!

With the social shift of people inviting their friends over for a few drinks instead of going to the pub, Guinness are striving to grow their off-license sales. Recently Guinness have reported an increase in sales of their draft cans and have now equally increased their advertising budget to tap into this market. Guinness have done 3 things very well with their poker campaign.

• Give Free Stuff!!

People love free stuff, web 2.0 is all about FREE FREE FREE. Say no more!

• Be current

Guinness have tapped into the poker market. Every where I look I see online poker ads. They’re on TV, online, bus stop posters, bill board everywhere! VCpoker have just launched they’re online poker website which is being heavily advertised to the Irish market using the well known face of Ken Doherty. Guinness can now acquire search traffic using poker related keywords and because poker is something you do with your friends what’s more perfect than gathering your friends around a table with a few cans of draft Guinness playing some poker.

• Be viral

We all know that viral campaigns can be extremely power especially if they are personalised. Guinness Poker campaign lets you send a personalised video to your friends. Enter their name, nickname and traits and your friend will receive a tailored video inviting them to sign up for the free pack. pretty sweet! Some other examples are www.nevergiveup.ie This campaign promoted the sponsors of the Irish Rugby team Powerade.

The funny thing is before writing this blog I was shopping for Christmas presents and popped into a bookshop where there was plenty of poker books adorning the shelves. Talking to my mates over a few pints of Guinness at the weekend about what to buy the girlfriend my mate was also in the store looking at the same poker books! so where does this leave us? It seems that Guinness have tapped into something very powerful here. Lads love to bet and doing it between friends over some drinks is safer and not as hard on the pocket! Fair play to the Guinness marketing team to identifying this opportunity to grow their off license sales and keeping their customers happy by the fire

Some people blog for money others for fame but I’m just doing it to gather my thoughts and spin off some ideas. Darren Rowse has a good article on “Should I Blog for Money” here. When begining this blog I of course read up on some blogging tips and how I can get it right from the start. However I believe in most cases, if one follows common sense then you will succeed. If you want an audience and readership why would the subscribe to a blog where they read your meanderings about your hobbies. for example, Your friends call over to your home for a chat and bring their holiday photos with them and spend all the time talking about how great their holiday was while you might have been hard at work for two weeks! Would you like to come back for more of that? Of course it’s different if you were on holidays together then you can connect in a real way with these people. So what’s the name of the game? It’s simple, one rule always applies.

Know your Audience.

So who is my audience I ask myself? hmm

• People who like to think different.
• People who encourage information sharing
• People who aren’t afraid to speak their mind
• People who are FUN

You think these attributes cover a wide area. Yep! but the aim is to keep it open, engaging and hopefully touch the minds of different folks. I guess you could say I am my own audience with a hint of pepper.

Speaking of pepper It’s time for Lunch!