Paul Walsh, the Irish Opportunist

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.

I wrote a post during the week entitled ‘Manufactured anger over the lack of women in tech‘. It was supposed to be a lead-up to my panel debate yesterday - which I was unable to attend due to viral tonsillitis which I still have. Hoping to numb my throat tonight with a few hot whiskys tonight.

Anyway, following on from my post, I emailed a few female friends who work in tech in its broadest sense. By that I mean, they don’t attend the usual networking events on the London scene. They’re not connected to most of my friends and they’re mostly not on Twitter. They are however, very powerful, very influential and very talented. All of them agreed with my previous post and my current opinion; there are fewer women in tech because fewer want to be in tech. That’s a very different reason to why there are only 3.8% women in boardroom positions within the FTSE 100 companies - figures taken from Management Today. I’m sure there are many reasons for the latter, some good and some bad. But we’re not debating women in business in general. We’re talking about women in tech.

Milo wrote a post on the Telegraph blog entitled ‘Men perform better in many technology jobs. Must we apologise for that?’. I don’t want to debate Milo’s headline. What I want to debate is the numbers game - i.e. why there are fewer women than men in tech.

The answer is probably the same as ‘why men perform better in the kitchen’. By that I mean, there are (ironically?) more male chefs working in the service industry than there are women. Furthermore, out of all the top chefs around the world (think of the TV chefs for example), the vast majority of them are men. What does that tell you? It tells you that more men than women want to be chefs. It doesn’t mean that women aren’t been encouraged to work in the kitchen - that’s proven by the fact that most home cooking is done by women.

Not only am I heavily involved in the StartUp community and not only have I been working in tech since my days at AOL in 1995, I own some restaurants in Dublin. So, I can at least commentate on the chefs debate

This is an event I’d have created, had I thought about it first - I can’t possible give a better endorsement than that. The IIBN (Irish International Business Network) is exactly what it says on the tin; a network of Irish people who live abroad and who meet up on a regular basis to share some idle banter and where possible, collaborate on a business level.

The format is simple; turn up, grab a name badge and glass of wine, mingle, sit down, and listen to a few entrepreneurs pitch their business, followed by a talk from a very impressive/successful Irish business man/woman who gives insight to how they got to where they are now. After the talk has been delivered, pick up a few more glasses of wine and some nibbles and continue the banter with your peers. All of whom are lovely.

I must admit, the people who attend, are as far from my usual gathering as it can get - most of them wear suits. I tend to wear (half) a suit when standing before a judge or attending a funeral. If I meet you wearing a suit jacket, be impressed. Be very impressed. Most of the attendees also work in non-Internet/mobile/TV/media. This isn’t a bad thing though - it’s nice to mix with people who you have something in common with, which isn’t work related.

At the time of writing this post, I received an email which reminds that they also put on some very cool events which don’t include the formalities I’ve expressed above. The email I’m talking about is gauging interest to see how many people would be interested in attending the semi-final of the Heineken European Cup at Croke Park. City Jet is prepared to lay on a plane just for the IIBN and source tickets at face value. That is extremely impressive to say the least.

So, if you’re Irish and living in the UK, why not show up at the next gathering on May 26th to hear how Richard Corrigan became a chef. As coincidence would have it, I ate there only a few weeks ago. Fantastic food! - some pictures here. The IIBN also has a presence in New York, so make sure to register for their upcoming event there. All of their upcoming events can be found at http://iibn.com/

I’ll be at the next gathering in London with my pal Mark O’Neil, CIO for the Department of Culture Media and Sport (DCMS). Yes, us Irish penetrate at every level.

Vodafone Mobile Clicks is an international, high profile contest for the best mobile internet startup. The best mobile internet startup is selected by a professional jury in three different jury rounds.

Who can participate:

Vodafone Mobile Clicks 2009 is open to any individual residing in the Netherlands or the UK from the age of 18 years and to Dutch and UK-based start-up companies, businesses, institutions and all other organisations.

More at http://www.vodafonemobileclicks.eu/about/

The competition is open to UK and Netherlands based StartUps only. Great idea. Well, kind of. I know the StartUps must be UK-based, but can someone please tell me why you need to have been personally resident in the UK from the age of 18? What has that to do with anything?

Seems a little dumb, unless I’m missing somthing.

As you know, I like to include a few typos and grammatical errors in my posts to help give it personal touch. Ok, that’s not true. I do it because I’m extremely lazy and tend not to read over what I’ve written properly. I blame it all on the AOL culture of IM which I’ve been using since 1995 (when I was 6). My other issue is that the best of the worst posts I write are written as I think, literally. My touch typing is very fast and my brain doesn’t move that quickly - perfect marriage.

As Pat Phelan put it on Twitter just now:

@PaulWalsh i dont mention the Walshyisims as much as I used to

My response was

If I wrote on a serious blog I’d correct myself, but my ‘Walshyisims’ as you put it, are what make it a personal journal

At the time of writing this post I decided to copy ‘n paste Pat’s tweet and noticed the following

@PaulWalsh exactly and thats what make them perfect

Seriously though, if I was writing for a major publisher, I’d take the time to review and correct my mistakes. As it happens, I’m not and I therefore, can’t afford the time to review everything I write. It’s not out of disrespect for my readers (you mad eejit). This is my personal journal so I can get away with it, I think.

What do you think? Does it annoy you that I’m comfortable with my lack of ability to write properly?

By the way, you should follow Pat, he has a great technology blog and his tweets are very funny and insightful. He’s a good friend too.

I’m on a TechCrunch panel tomorrow entitled ‘Balancing Tech Culture: Getting more women involved in tech startups’. I’m likely to be a little controversial, but then again, I’ve never been known to sit back and clap other panelists or speakers on the back for the sake of it. You never know, some of the panelists might agree with me - I won’t make assumptions.

It’s my opinion, which I’ll articulate tomorrow, that the books of males vs females doesn’t need to be balanced in favour of more females. Why? Well, because there are plenty of females in tech and those that aren’t, don’t want to be. Ok, so there might be a small percent who would like to be in tech, but don’t make it. But can’t the same be said for any industry?

Are we trying to balance the books to encourage more males to become nurses?

It’s panel discussions like this one that does little to help - they’re likely to do more harm than good by devaluing the females already in tech.

To sidetrack for a minute; it seems I’m being called into the female-tech world - I’m heading to Greece next week to give a talk about entrepreneurial stuff to over 100 geek women and I’ve been invited to give a talk to a group of convent girls about entering into the interactive industry. So I guess I get to speak to the before and after. More about the Greece talk next week.

To summarise, I think females are as likely to go into tech as males are to enter into the nursing profession. What do you think?