Paul Walsh, the Irish Opportunist

This post was inspired by an email I received this morning about an event entitled “Managing the Consumer Clamour“.

The digital industry appears to be split into two in my opinion. The first half is made up of those who don’t talk about ‘managing the consumer’ because they understand the art of conversation - instead, they talk about how to enable a better conversation between brand and consumer. In fact, the best of them aren’t talking about it at all, they’re just doing it as it comes natural.

The other half is made up of old media - they’re still talking about ‘managing the consumer’ and trying to figure out how to control what they say.

You can’t manage the consumer clamour. What you can do, is influence it by making sure you get involved in the conversation. It’s cheaper and easier than ever, with tools readily available to help everyone become a publisher/creator - enabling them to influence the perception of a particular brand. This is normally done through personal blogs, Twitter, Facebook, Bebo, MySpace and other forms of public arenas where it’s easy to publish an opinion for everyone to see.

What should you do?

Stop talking about trying to manage what people say. It’s impossible. In fact, trying to control what people say is worse than doing nothing. Instead, talk about how to get involved by listening to what the crowd has to say and then react accordingly. Soon, you will become proactive by asking the crowd what they think upfront.

If only I was Hugh McLeod. I could capture all of this and more, in one cartoon. Here’s a post by Hugh that’s relevant though.

My stay in Dublin a few weeks ago was kicked off with Curry 2.0 - a new networking event that Aido and I are working on. The t-shirts below were picked up for the Firefox party to help promote the event. I must admit, the photo is a little cheesy and opens the door for a slagging from friends. Go for it guys! You probably can’t read the writing but it says “Curry 2.0 makes you shit hot”

The first few networking dinners will be free for attendees, at least until we can demonstrate value for money - i.e. value for membership fee and the cost of a curry. Thanks to Hosting365 and BT for sponsoring the kick-off dinner.

With 17 hungry executives, a great lively debate was had by all. I met Sorcha, a Segala ex-employee, at 6:30 and as a direct result of her bad influence, we started drinking wine at around, er, 6:30. Needless to say I can’t remember much about the evening. Apparently it was a great night.

My second night in Dublin was just as much fun, but strangely, with a lot less alcohol. In fact, I was completely sober at the end of the Firefox Party that Aido and I hosted. Our thanks go to Aido, Fergus and Conor via Web2Ireland, Laura and Marie Boran from Silicon Republic for helping to raise awareness through their own networks and Web sites. While I’m at it, I should thank BT, PutPlace, Blacknight, Segala and wubud again, for sponsoring the party and Barry from IOTC (check here for video footage from the live streaming) for arranging the venue.

It was the biggest out of 771 parties worldwide - not bad. Even Mozilla sent us a picture of them celebrating our celebrations!

Read Marie’s review on Firefox 3 to learn more about the new features. It can’t all be about parties. So I’m told.

This post was inspired by a debate taking place on the Mobile Monday London forum. It has never been this easy to predict mobile. It has become increasingly easy since the first release of MMS (picture messaging) in 2002, which almost revolutised how users consumed content on mobile phones.

We have some historical data to go from when trying to predict the next few years of Mobile - in terms of connection speeds to help mass adoption of Mobile Web anyway.

Trying to predict mobile in 2015 is a little too far for my liking. I’d have to lay on a bed and dream about something so far stretched that most would probably laugh at. Some of my greatest failures include not having the balls to execute ideas because of colleagues laughing at them - such as charging hotels and restaurants for online advertising. Long story which I won’t bore you with. Instead, I’ll bore you with another story about connection speeds. For the sake of the record, I’m not bragging - it’s easy to say you had ideas, it’s another to execute them.

Some historical data which may help.

During the early days of the Web I remember writing modem strings to help get the best out of 1200bps modems. Before that I was using them to download interest rates from a bank in Paris to a bank in Dublin - all I knew was that some machine made noise and it all just happened.

We were delighted to eventually see the delivery of 33.6k modems after having 28.8k for so long. We were told by BT that it was *technically impossible* to get anything faster down a phone line. Then, one day, BT came back and said “hey, we’ve managed to squeeze 56k by reducing the line noise”.

1200bps to 56k happened between 1995 (roughly) and 1997. That’s just 2 years.

In 2002 the rollout of Broadband helped to achieve a major spike in users on the Web. I wasn’t involved in that, but some of my friends were, and still are.

So, it took about 5 years to make a huge jump in speed to help accelerate mass adoption of the Web. If we consider that the growth in mobile technology (and possibly technology in general) today is just twice that of Internet technology during the mid to late 90’s, we should see a major spike in mass adoption for mobile web in about 2 to 3 years. This argument is boosted in my opinion, by our generation’s knowledge and experience and the newer generation’s expectations.

Explaining the benefits/possibilities of the Web during the early days was much more difficult than it is to explain the benefits/possibilities of accessing the Web via a mobile today.

The future is bright, the future is not Orange or any other Operator. If this isn’t realised soon, Operators will end up like AOL - i.e. going out of business holding onto old business models

Take a dozen Irish technology entrepreneurs, digital enthusiasts, marketers and journalists. Place in a large Indian restaurant. Sprinkle in a smattering of venture capitalists, Government representatives, Enterprise Ireland executives. Add wine liberally. Stir vigorously for two hours. Result: curry 2.0.

curry 2.0 is a new regular networking event based in Dublin. Each month, top-tier executives will meet over delicious Indian food to connect with peers, to share knowledge and discuss/debate hot topics of interest.

Primary goals are:

• Learn about startups, technology and industry trends
• Meet and connect with interesting people
• Eat, drink, & have fun

Membership of curry 2.0, which includes invitations to dinners each month, is just €150 per annum. The first networking dinner is June 18th and sponsored by BT and Hosting365.

Networking dinners for members will cost €40 and €55 for non-members. I’m not expecting many to become a member for a while, so I’ll try to secure sponsorship for the first few dinners - to give attendees a taste for the event.

I’m hoping to turn curry 2.0 into a regular event like Rob Loch’s Internet People in London. I didn’t even come up with the idea to copy someone else’s idea. Fergus Burns suggested I evolve curry 2.0 so it was more inline with Internet People - thanks to them both for the inspiration

Feel free to get in touch if you’d like to learn more about upcoming dinners, or how to become a Founding Member for €50. Founding membership is open until end of September.

Look who’s coming to dinner on June 18th - this one was invite-only

• Brian Caulfield, Non-Executive Director, PutPlace
• Caelen King, Founder/CEO, RevaHealth.com
• Campbell Scott, CEO, IGOpeople
• Daniel Becker, Founder, GlowDay
• Dylan Collins, CEO, OMAC Industries
• Ivan MacDonald, CEO, Dial2Do
• Joe Drumgoole, Founder/CEO, PutPlace
• John Collins, Journalist, Irish Times
• Marcus Macinnes, Founder/CEO, pix.ie
• Martha Rotter, Technology Evangelist , Microsoft Ireland DPE
• Martin Kelly, Partner EMEA, IBM Venture Capital Group
• Mary Rose, Consultant, Brightspark Consulting
• Paul Walsh, Founder/CEO, Segala & wubud
• Sean Sullivan, CTO, Dial2Do
• Sorcha Moore, IA/UI Designer, Pocketkings
• Stephen McCarron, Founder/CEO, Hosting365
• Tom Murphy, Head of Public Relations & Citizenship, Microsoft Ireland

The Irish need to live up to the great name we have for partying so come and help us generate the loudest Mozilla PARTY around the world to celebrate the Firefox 3 launch.

The party is being sponsored by BT, Putplace.com, Blacknight Hosting, Segala, wubud and Mozilla is sending over lots of prizes/swag for us to give away on the night.

Registration to attend is required. Over 100 people have already registered so make sure you get your name on the list before it’s closed. Register here.

I’d like to thank Barry Alistair from IOTC for helping us secure the venue. The party will be streamed live thanks to intruders.tv. Bookmark the page where you can view the party live.

This is a great opportunity to network with the Irish tech industry.

The categories for the BIMAs Awards have completely changed this year. As well as staying true to our core vision of ‘Working to support the creative excellence and craftsmanship within digital media’, we’ve also decided to inject a bit of life into the awards, making them even more relevant to industry.

This basically means focusing on all aspects of digital, ranging from the traditional executions of design teams, right through to innovative craftsmanship, which often results in those awesome little gems of wickedness.

Therefore we think you’ll find the categories a lot wider and more general, allowing for a greater variety of submissions from more areas of our industry.

So, as well as celebrating traditional creative, we’ll also be recognising a few unsung heroes.

Read my full post on the BIMA blog and get the run-down on all the categories. We’ve introduced social networking stuff too, so you can enter the best blog or the best social networking application awards.

I’m delighted to announce June 12th as the date for the next gathering of Top Cats. We’re testing out Adam Street private members club for the next gathering - One Alfred Place was good, but a 21:30 finish is a little early.

If you’re a Top Cat, pencil it in now. Please don’t register your interest just yet - I just wanted to give you a heads up. I received a response from 70 Top Cats within 24 hours of sending out the invite for May. So, make sure you’ve got your finger on the ’send’ button.

Sponsored by

Our thanks for June’s sponsorship goes to TH_NK

How to become a Top Cat

The purpose of the event is to forge greater collaboration between London’s Internet startup, Web design, interactive marketing, mobile, TV and advertising communities at the highest level.

Top Cats are now permitted to recommend up to 2 new members each month. To become a member of this exclusive club, you’ll need to be recommended by another Top Cat. Less than 20% of recommendations make it however, so please don’t be offended if you don’t get accepted

Sponsorship opportunity for future gatherings

Get in touch if you’d like to sponsor a future Top Cat event. Email paul@segala.com

BIMA, the industry association which I Chair, is now calling for judges for the BIMAs 2008. Head over to the BIMA blog to learn more.

I’ll update you with a post about the AGM Party shortly. I need to wade through a mass of unread email first.

Join us for complimentary cocktails and buffet on May 20th in Soho, London. This is a Pre BIMA Party meetup but attendance to the party isn’t essential for this gathering.

We’re limited this little meetup to 50, so please join the Facebook event now. Alternatively you can leave a comment to register your interest.

Sponsored by Propel - Recruiters from digital, recruiting for digital

Hope to see you there!

Do you want to make a difference to the interactive industry in the UK? Do you want to raise your profile and that of your company?

The British Interactive Media Association (BIMA) is now seeking 7 new Executives to join the Board. Please read my post on the BIMA blog for more information. Closing date is May 16th, so there’s isn’t much time left.

Please leave a comment (on the BIMA blog) if you’d like to learn more. That way, others get to read the responses.