Paul Walsh, the Irish Opportunist

I’ve got two conference tickets to give away for a startup event in Brussels on March 19th 2008 call Plugg. If you haven’t been to Brussels before, it’s worth heading over to the conference if only to see this fantastic city. Although I wouldn’t go for the city alone, I’d got for the amazing networking opportunity to be had at this type of event.

Discover Europe’s hottest young internet start-ups and get inspired by some of the most compelling visionaries out there in just one day!

The Plugg conference is an excellent opportunity for you to get up to speed on the state of the European Web 2.0 industry. Register now for this extraordinary event - you can still enjoy the early-bird reduction fee!

I wish Robin Wauters the very best with this event. Robin used to work for Blognation before it was finally brought to a close through the unfortunate battle of the blogs late last year.

I’ll keep this simple. Leave a comment and I’ll pick two names out of a hat live on Qik on February 6th (around lunchtime in the UK).

I hosted a tech dinner last night to solicit people’s feedback regarding my idea for a new independent association to represent the interests of the Digital Industry. There were a lot of good questions and concerns raised and the general consensus was that Ireland would benefit from such an association.

Rather than provide you with what I thought about the evening, why not check out what those who attended thought. Below are some links to posts already written. If you’ve written a post please let me know and I’ll link to it. Check out the Qik video too to see who attended, I got everyone to give a quick introduction. It’s a little long so you might want to grab a coffee before watching it. Can’t wait to see the bill for that data usage

Look at who attended

Read what they had to say

Maryrose Lyons

Paul Campbell

Joe Drumgoole

Thanks again to Microsoft and Blacknight for their kind sponsorship and support.

Next

The next thing to do is come up with a name so I can setup the legal entity. Do you agree with Fergal from the IIA that the Irish Interactive Media Association would confused people because the acronym would be IIMA? Suggestions welcome so get your thinking cap on please.

I’d like to arrange a slightly more formal meetup in February. Perhaps a lunch meeting with a few presentations. Please let me know what you think and importantly, if you or someone you know would like to sponsor it. Are there any dates I should steer clear of?

I didn’t provide much insight to Yabb in my blog post so here’s the interview I did with Paul to help you better understand what Yabb is all about.