Paul Walsh, the Irish Opportunist

I know July 5th falls on a Sunday but if you can, you must make your way to JuJu, 316 - 318 King’s Road, Chelsea, London, SW3 5UH to meet some of the best known social media experts from the US (and the UK). I highly recommend this event and have been asked to help promote it. You have just under 2 days to get a ticket for just £10 20 - which will get you food and drinks!

Who’s coming to town

• Robert Scoble
• Craig Newmark
• Sarah Lacy
• Howard Rheingold
• Meghan Asha
• JD Lasica
• Tom Foremski
• Sarah Austin
• Susan Bratton
• Jeff Saperstein
• Renee Blodgett
• Jim Schuyler

To find out more and to register for the event, visit http://www.eventbrite.com/event/366118069

I sent a tweet this morning to say I was going to do a ‘#followfriday’ for the very first time. A number of people asked me what that meant, so I’ve decided to write a short post to explain.

#followfriday is a way of recommending people you follow, to other users on Twitter. The idea is that those being recommended will gain new followers.

I feel so strongly about my recommendations that I’ve decided to write why I’m recommending them as potential people for you to follow.

People I recommend and why

@Sheetalmmehta (London)

Helping companies to go global, Innovation, Social entrepreneurship, Technology, Investment…

Sheetal is one of the most inspiring people I have ever met. Sheetal is the UK Dealmaker for the UK Trade & Investment. She sits on several advisory panels including Shelter, UNIFEM (United Nations Development Fund for Women), Digital Diaspora Network for Africa, and the LSE Alumni Mentoring Committee. Her volunteer work is extensive and she is currently writing a book on Social Venture Capital. One of her most notable accomplishments is her new foundation that enables developing communities to access cutting-edge technology based on a social enterprise model.

@Mikeyfletch (London)

Technology journalist, Events, Networking

Mike is an established business & lifestyle journalist. He’s launched three magazines on behalf of UK publishing house Haymarket Media Group & specialises in marketing, media & live events. He is Contributing Editor for Visit London and also owns a part-share in digital networking company Net.works. Mike is also one of the best connected, if not the best connected person in the entire UK events industry.

@PatPhelan (Cork)

Technology with a bias towards mobile, Connector, Innovation

Pat is the founder and President of Cubic Telecom, a well known disruptor in telephony circles and one of the leading voices of Voice 2.0. Pat has developed a number of unique products for the USA, UK and Irish markets including MAXroam, and is a board member of Global Roaming, a NASDAQ listed company (OTCBB:GRDB). Pat has a genuine passion for connecting people and has been responsible for connecting me with some truely amazing people.

@JackieDanicki (San Francisco)

Marketing (true expert in the use of new tools, techniques and trends such as social and Web 2.0), Connector, Writer

Jackie is an extremely direct person who always speaks her mind. She’s an incredibly insightful marketer which is difficult to come by. Almost every marketer and PR expert think they know how to make best use of Web 2.0 tools and techniques. Jackie does - which is why she’s the Director of Marketing at Qik; one of the most innovative mobile products companies in the world. Like Pat, Jackie has a genuine passion for connecting people and has been responsible for connecting me with some truely amazing people.

@Jobsworth (London)

Technology, Social Enterprise, Innovation, Writer, OpenSource,

JP has  spent most of his life working in the space where finance meets technology, for a number of very large firms. Since 2006 he has worked for BT, as part of BT Design, where he is Head of Innovation and Strategy. He has a passion for how work is changing: the paradigms created by globalisation, disintermediation and the web; the implications of virtualisation, service orientation and commoditisation.  JP is an inspiring speaker and writer, who I admire most for his passion for how technology can be put to good use for the benefit of society.

If you decide to follow any of these great people, or you do already, please feel free to retweet my message - they all deserve to be heard by as many people as possible.

You can also leave a comment with the people you recommend on Twitter.

I’m going through some change in my personal life right now, providing me with an opportunity to reflect on what’s important and what, quite frankly, isn’t as important as I thought. I won’t go into detail about the personal side of things as I’ve never talked about my private life online and I intend to keep it that way. I will however, share with you, what changes I’ve made to my work life in the hope I can focus on my private life better - providing more balance for the people I love.

Here are 6 things I’ve changed:

1. Phone calls: I no longer take calls when I’m with people - unless it’s urgent and/or I’ve forewarned them. I started this quite some time ago and must say, it’s a wonderful and liberating feeling - not to mention that it’s impolite to take calls when in a meeting or having lunch/dinner with a friend or colleague anyway. I don’t think ill of anyone who does it to me as I’ve been there.
2. Email: I recently decided to switch off all work email on my iPhone. I did this because I realised I was only replying to what seemed urgent, promising myself to reply to everything else when I was at my computer. I noticed however, that the delay in getting back to the non-urgent emails was unacceptable. I’ve stuck with it for over a week and I’m now in more control of my email than ever before. I’ve since setup a personal email account for my phone and given it to a small handful of people.
3. Social Networks: I’ve unfollowed a couple of hundred people on Twitter as I wasn’t able to keep up to date anyway. At the time of writing this email I’m following 155 people. I do however continue to read and respond to people who either talk to me, or about me. Sometimes I do this in public but mostly I do it via DM. You’ll notice that my twitter stream has quietened down too. I don’t think I’ve made any improvements on my writing, or improved the quality of my contribution, but at least it’s not as busy. I do keep up to speed on specific individuals by using Summize to search for their conversations.
4. Meetings: I’ve restricted my meetings to one per day, with no meetings on Mondays or Fridays. I found that during most of my meetings, I ended up giving advice or offering to connect. This simply isn’t conducive to productivity on my part and it certainly doesn’t benefit any of the businesses I run and which put food on the table for my staff. That’s not to say I’m turning into a hermit, nor does it mean I’m going to stop connecting - on the contrary, I’m doing even more connecting from the comfort of my flat and office. I’ll continue to advise and mentor too.
5. Giving advice: I’m no longer meeting people I don’t know well, for the provision of going through their business plan or new business idea. I just don’t have the time. I do enjoy listening to entrepreneur’s pitches at events and I’ll continue to do so with the intention of providing honest feedback.
6. Networking events and parties: I don’t attend nearly as many networking events and parties anymore - I’m being much more selective. I run a networking events company and my flatmate/business partner is one of the most connected people in the events industry. So it’s not as if my attendance is going to stop. I just don’t feel the necessity to be out so much any more.

What do you think? Do you think I’m mad? Do you find you too need to find a little balance with your communication channels? Are you going to try any of this? If you do, I’d love to hear what you think.

I announced the registration page for OpenSoho June this morning and as a result of all the retweets from Computer Weekly, The Telegraph and others, my announcement had a potential reach of approximately 15,000 people. This can only help to demonstrate the power of twitter for marketing events, products and services. With this in mind, I decided to tweet this fun statistic in the hope someone would also retweet that, and they did, Milo from the Telegraph retweeted it. Oh the joy of it all.

In April 2008 I wrote some twitter tips to help new users better understand how to use the social network - my post includes how to make your messages more prone to being retweeted by others as I did above. Why not check them out.

I’ve been suffering from a weird intermittent cough since December and after many months of pestering from friends and family, I decided to get it check by a specialist - not a bad idea given that my GP couldn’t cure it with three lots of antibiotics and the like.

It turns out that I might not have had pleurisy after all. The pain in my side every time I coughed, according to the specialist, was probably down to a cracked rib. It’s no wonder I was in so much pain every time I laughed.

What I’m left with now, is kinda like Asthma, but not long-term. My wind pipe is tight and inflamed, which means I’ll be on an inhaler for a couple of months - so nothing major. At least I know what it is and it can be fixed.

Anyway, I decided to write this post as a result of my weird, but very funny visit to the specialist today. I asked if it was ok for me to take a picture of my chest x-ray. He said “sure, I’m going to give it to you anyway - is it for Facebook?” - to which I replied, “er, kinda. It’s for a service called Twitter, have you ever heard of it?”. “Yes of course, replied the 50-something year old doctor. I don’t use it myself but I know what it is”.

The clincher was his closing “perhaps you can link to my name when you’re all cured?! giggle”.

Social media 1. Twitter specifically, 2. Skeptics, 0.

Love it.

When Google first announced that it had acquired Jaiku, my first question was, ‘why?’. Why buy the second best in the market?! I’m a firm believer in going after the best and only the best. Some would argue that Jaiku is more feature-rich and easier to use than Twitter. However, I was never attracted to it because none of my followers/friends were on there. ‘Better’ doesn’t necessarily equal ‘better features’. In Twitter’s case, it’s main benefit was ‘people’ (i.e. users).

When Google launched Latitude I thanked my contacts at the company for educating the marketing as clearly, their product doesn’t actual solve a problem. I’ll write more about that later. By launching latitude without any Jaiku integration, it proves they were unable to make use of the software. Perhaps they knew they were flogging a dead horse. Anyway, it’s a little late to go after Twitter - they should have put in an offer when (all) of my friends were mocking me for using the service - when it was still very early and mainly used as a one-way broadcast medium.

Unsurprisingly, Twitter turned down Googles offer and according to TechCrunch, it looks like Apple is now making a move.

So, who’s going to buy Twitter? Apple, Google, Microsoft or one of the main operators (carriers)?

I’m hoping Twitter remains independent but there’s only so long they can hold back from a gazillon dollars.

Follow me on Twitter.

On Monday, May 4th, my Facebook account was hacked. The hacker logged in and sent a message to everyone, driving them to a drugs Web site. If you were one of the recipients please disregard the message and accept my sincere apology for the inconvenience.

What happened

I remember receiving a message from a trusted friend, with a link to what looked like a Facebook page. It turns out that it wasn’t a Facebook page and in fact, was someone phishing for user names and passwords.

Problem solved.

In preparation for my talk in Greece tomorrow. A massive thanks to Eileen Brown from Microsoft for sending them across to my office on time.

This is a talk I’m very much looking forward to, not just because I haven’t been back to Greece since managing a cocktail bar on the party island, that is Ios, but because I’m dying to hear their story. I’m looking forward to hearing what the benefits and hurdles are in Greece for entrepreneurs generally and women in tech specifically. I’ve been asked to talk about ‘my story’ - which means I’ll talk about my career path and highlight the good and bad choices I made. You can read more about the event on the Greek Geek Girl Web site.

So, if you’re in Greece and are reading this, I look forward to meeting you. Please feel free to ask plenty of questions during and after my talk. You can leave questions on this post if you like and I’ll take them with me to answer on the night.

I’m getting tired of people on twitter coming up with stupid statement such as

I see your point. Still think wealth redist through tax is right when directed to those who really deserve.

What a load of bullshit. The people who are being subjected to horrendous tax are the people who earned the bloody money in the first place. If Bob didn’t earn enough to pay a lot of tax, he obviously doesn’t deserve to have someone else pay more tax on his behalf.

Some would say I should pay lots of tax because of the nice house, cars and lifestyle but lets not forget where I, like most, started. At one point in Dublin I lived in a flat that was literally infested with slugs, I had to put clingfilm across the widows because the draft was so bad and I had a crap diet because I couldn’t afford nice food. At that point, I learned how to touch type, yada yada yada, bought a computer on HP (which was a massive risk given the lack of money coming in) and I went out and handed my CV to just about every company in the city. At no point did I think I deserved anything better. Nor did I feel like someone else should pay lots of tax so I could have a better life. That comes with hard work and putting yourself in positions where you can get lucky. Luck doesn’t come to the fat ass sitting on the sofa watching the lotto every week.

So, to all you G20, tree-hugging twats who think people with high salaries should be subjected to extortionate taxes, think again. Better still, try harder yourself so you can end up in a high paying job. See if you complain then.