Paul Walsh, the Irish Opportunist

Go to Twitter now and following wubud. A Mac Air will be given away in a prize draw as soon as it reaches 5,000 followers. If you’re an American, help the small Irish guy raise his voice loud enough to be a squeak amongst Scoble’s and Calacanis’ of the world. If you’re not an American, show them that we can be just as noisy, well, almost.

Presents will be given to those who help raise awareness around this silly game. No rules. I will simply do a little research to see who I can hear loudest. Blog posts are already being written.

Do your bit for the environment and head to twitter now and follow wubud

[Update] Since writing this post, I’ve been asked by journalists if they could have an exclusive and asked why I decided to run this little game. Here’s my response:

1. The exclusive has yet to be given. Although a national newspapper has it in Ireland specifically.
2. I’m running this little game to get people talking about my newest venture, wubud
3. I’m also doing it to demonstrate how the power of conversation with communities of people is the way forward. If it’s the way forward for brands then it must be the way forward for traditional media folk to embrace tools/communities such as Twitter in order to find out what’s happening in the world. I’m likely to announce what wubud is and who my shit hot team is, on Twitter at the same time as whoever gets the exclusive. Some of my team is known to every reader of this blog.

In a deal rumoured to be worth approximately $150m, Carphone Warehouse is the latest to sign up to Facebook’s contextual advertising. It looks like it’s working too - look at what they delivered to me today.

It also looks like they’re using their own staff to make the calls. Why didn’t they just tell me they were joking when I was called every month for over a year.

A good friend of mine, Paul Carr, is spending the next couple of weeks in SF (as of tonight). If you’re in town why not leave a comment or send me/him an email to connect. Paul has taken a few months off to write another book, so help him ‘create’ new material. His latest publication is imminent so watch out for it!

Sub to his blog too, it’s hilarious. He knows I won’t forgive him for making fun of iJusine though

paul at alljustwords dot com

At the expense of loosing a mate, Steve Clayton, this is for you. I normally do a Monday Humour post but felt like being early for once.

The Ferrari Formula 1 Team sacked its entire pit crew yesterday. The announcement followed Ferrari’s decision to take advantage of the UK Government’s Youth Opportunity Scheme and employ people from Liverpool.

The decision to hire them was brought on by a recent documentary on how unemployed youths from Liverpool area were able to remove a set of wheels in less than 6 seconds without proper equipment, whereas Ferrari’s existing crew can only do it in 8 seconds, even with millions of Euros worth of high tech equipment.

Prime Minister Gordon Brown went on record as saying this was a bold move by the Ferrari management, which demonstrated the international recognition of the UK under New Labour.

As most races are won and lost in the pits, Ferrari now have the advantage over every team.

However, Ferrari may have got more than they bargained for.

At the crew’s first practice session, the Liverpool pit crew successfully changed the tyres in under 6 seconds.

But, within 12 seconds they had re-sprayed, re-badged, and sold the vehicle to the McLaren Team for a dozen bottles of Stella, a kilo of cannabis and some photos of Coulthard’s bird in the shower.

I asked the question on Twitter this morning, “Why can’t people who are nasty or sarcastic have to be anonymous on my blog?!”

Jemima Kiss’ response was so funny I felt it deserved a permanent placeholder.

Posts that mention me on TechCrunch seem to attract anonymous comments so bad that the type of people leaving them, are formally known as ‘trolls’. I don’t mind anonymous comments per say, mainly because we get them from companies such as Google and Microsoft on the Segala blog - they leave their real names and judging by the conversations I know their identities.

In general, I hate anonymous comments. If you don’t feel you can associate your name with a comment, don’t comment. Should we ban anonymous comments altogether? Should professional blogs such as TechCrunch ban them?

By the way, if we’re not yet connected on Twitter, feel free to follow my feed.

I read and hear that question being asked all the time, most recently via a comment on a TechCrunch post.

For those who don’t know the answer, here it is

• Segala, Founder / CEO
  
• Jaipur Restaurants, Partner
  
• Newspepper.com, Non-executive Director
  
• 3 Dynamics, Mentor to the CEO
  
• British Interactive Media Association (BIMA), Chair
• New startup which you’ll read about very soon
• Consult multinational brands in how to be more innovative with their marketing
• Chair and speak at conferences around the world
• Have fun doing it

Do people have a problem understanding what I do because I have so much fun doing it? Or could it be because I manage to squeeze in so much?

Business should be fun!

You might have noticed that I call myself ‘The Irish Opportunist’ on numerous social mediums. I use the word opportunist after a thesaurus lookup for entrepreneur, for two reasons:

1. Because I can never spell entrepreneur without using a spell checker and I mean never
2. Because I don’t consider myself good enough to use the word. I always think of Richard Branson whenever I think of an entrepreneur.

The following words come up when I look for alternatives to opportunist on thesaurus.com.

charlatan, daredevil, entrepreneur, explorer, fortune-hunter, gambler, globetrotter, hero, heroine, knight, madcap, mercenary, opportunist, pioneer, pirate, rogue, romantic, soldier, speculator, stunt man, swashbuckler, traveler, venturer, voyager, wanderer

Someone pointed out to me recently, that the word opportunist could be perceived as negative as well as positive. I’m no longer sure. What’s the first thing that springs to mind when you think of the word opportunist?

Also, how would you sum yourself up in one word?

Coming out of a restaurant yesterday I noticed a guy selling a Big Issue magazine. In case you don’t know, The Big Issue is a magazine published especially for homeless people trying to get back on their feet. They get a percentage of each one sold.

So this guy, Carlos, grabbed my attention as he flipped one of the magazines up and down his arm with a beaming smile on his face. I couldn’t help but smile and stop to watch him. We could all take a leaf out of this guy’s book. He didn’t jump in my way to ask for money. Nor did he try to sell it in the same way that the rest of his pals do; by shouting out ‘Biiiig Isssue’. He, like the few companies that get the ‘art of conversation’, managed to get my attention by demonstrating how much he enjoyed selling his product. It’s not about ‘telling’ people why ‘you’ think you’re the best.

I don’t buy the Big Issue often. Actually, I think I’ve bought it twice in the past. However, I was so compelled to buy it this time that I went into a shop and bought a bar of chocolate that I didn’t want, in order to get change. He wouldn’t take the chocolate without paying for it either, which I admired.

This guy, who is likely to be starting from a much lower point than most of us, is getting himself out there. He’s determined to make it by doing jobs which may be beneath others, so he can put money into his new business idea. Check out his exhibition.

Check out my video of Carlos that I streamed live to the Web yesterday. He did end up on camera but for some reason it’s cut short.

On that note

1. Never expect things to happen… struggle and make them happen
2. Never expect your business to be given a high value, create a high value propisition
3. A drop of water that falls in a lake has no identity. But if it falls on a leaf of lotus it shines like a pearl. So choose the best place where you would shine. Network and connect like crazy.
4. Falling down is not defeat… defeat is when you refuse to get up
5. A ship is always safe at shore… but it wasn’t built for it. Take calculated risks
6. Even the word ‘IMPOSSIBLE’ says ‘I M POSSIBLE’

The funniest and most cringe-worthy job I ever did was advertising a woman’s clothes shop by sporting a sexy sandwich board on the middle of the high street where I come from. I don’t know how I plucked up the courage because I was a young teenager at the time. So, never believe your mother when she says “I’ve got a great ‘opportunity’ for you son”. Thanks mother, it’s your fault I’ve turned out this way. It’s no wonder you ended up as a brilliant physiotherapist, psychotherapist - I was your experiment

What’s the one job that you did which makes you cringe?

I was flicking through my RSS reader this morning and noticed that Donncha O Caoimh from Wordpress has upset a few Mac buddies by putting some stickers on the front of his Mac. I’ve had similar jibes in the past. Mine is a Mozilla head in the jaws of the Microsoft Blue Monster.

Have I insulted the Mac extremists?