Paul Walsh, the Irish Opportunist

Every month, Robert Loch and I host an event called Top Cats. The goal of the event is to forge stronger ties and greater collaboration between the internet start up, mobile, interactive marketing, TV and advertising communities.

There are no formalities apart from my introduction to the evening and we don’t have speakers. It’s an informal gathering of likeminded people, many of whom end up collaborating on very interesting projects.

Who qualifies to be a Top Cat

• Established Agencies = Founder/CEO/Chair
• Technology Providers & Brands (big companies such as Microsoft and the BBC) = Director/Head or other senior decision maker
• Startups = Founder/CEO/Chair + secured VC funding or have a seriously good track record
• Other = Publishers, Editors, Authors, TV Personalities, Establish Journalists, you get the picture.

I’m going to have a chit chat with a few people tonight and stream it live via my mobile. Keep an eye on my Qik account and feel free to comment and ask questions in the live chat room. It might be better to subscribe to my Twitter feed so you get a text message each time I stream live.

So, another Top Cats event is upon us. Check out the names of those who have said they can make it this month.

Who’s coming tonight

• Alex Hoye, Chair, Faction/Buildersite
• Alexis d’Amecourt, 19 Entertainment
• Andrew Shorten, EMEA Platform Evangelist, Adobe
• Andy Co Founder, Agency Mobile
• Andy Finney, Founder, ATSF
• Andy MacLaren, Co-founder, Agency Mobile
• Angela Kirkham, Publishing Manager, Online Marketing, O2
• Armando Ruffi, Co-founder, Zubka
• Ben Johnson, Principal, Both Vitruvian Partners
• Brian Hoadley, Managing Director , phunQube
• Caspar Craven, Co-founder, Trovus
• Catherine Toole, MD, Sticky Content
• Cathy Grimes, Marketing Manager Personal Solutions, Equifax
• Charles Astwood, Founder, London Eating
• Chris Wood, CEO, Top Table
• Craig Hill, Founder / Chairman, Digital Outlook
• Dan Morris, Managing Partner, Splendid
• Daniel Appelquist, Senior Technology Strategist, Vodafone Group
• David Hart, Director, Codegent Ltd
• David King, Director, APCO Online
• Dennis Greene, Head of E-business, Royal Mail
• Dr Anxo Cereijo Roibás, User Experience Research manager, Vodafone
• Edward Charvet, Co-founder, Trovus
• Elizabeth Varley, Editorial Director, Online Content UK
• Farzad Jamal, Group Internet Controller, Northern Shell
• Felix Velarde, Founder, Underwired
• Hamish Gordon,
• Irfon Watkins, CEO, Coull
• James Booth, Co-founder, Rockabox Media
• James Pimentel-Pinto, Managing Director, Agency Mobile
• Jasmine Birtles Founder/MD, Moneymagpie.com
• Jemima Kiss, New media reporter, Media Guardian
• Josephine Fraser, Social/Educational Technologist
• Julia Eilon, AMF Ventures
• Justin Bradley, Head of Digital Television, Sixth Sense UK
• Justin Champney, Head of Brand Innovation EMEA, McCann Worldgroup
• Justin Cooke, Managing Director , Fortune Cookie
• Mairi Clark, Editor , Revolution Magazine
• Mark Fallons, Head of interactive, McCann
• Mark McDermott, Director, Codegent Ltd
• Martin Lowde, 19 Entertainment
• Mike Butcher, Editor, TechCrunch
• Mike Risman, Managing Partner, Both Vitruvian Partners
• Nick Halstead, Founder, Fav.or.it
• Omaid Hizwazi, Co-founder, Crayon
• Paul Canty, Founder, Preloaded
• Paul Duncanson, Managing Director, Creativebrief
• Peter Ogden, Producer, ITV
• Richard Daish, Head of Mobile Services, Chelsea FC
• Richard Titus, Acting Head of UX&D, BBC FM&T
• Rob Corradi, Founder, Preloaded
• Rob Walk, Managing partner, NovaRising
• Robert Killick, MD, cScape
• Robin Charney, Sr. Marketing Manager - Web Platform Solutions, Adobe
• Robin Howard, Client Services Director, BT
• Satish Jayakumar, Co-founder, AdJug
• Scott Gallacher, Director of Online & Partner Marketing, BskyB
• Simon Grice, Founder, ideas.org
• Stephanie Bouchet, Marketing Director, Joost
• Theodore Emiantor, Managing Director, Westminster Accountancy
• Tim O’Neill, Founder / MD, Reactive
• Tom Nixon, Founder, Nixon Mcinnes
• Tom Sacchi, Founder / Director, Unit9
• Tony Cocks, Microsoft
• Will Jeffery, Managing director, Maverick Media
• Will McInnes, MD, Nixon McInnes

Hosts

• Robert Loch, Founder, Internet People & Founder, That’s Useful
• Paul Walsh, Chair, BIMA & Founder, Segala

Thanks to Adobe for their sponsorship this month.

Why is it that my trips abroad always end up as a story telling exercise?

A fellow Twitter buddy asked for feedback regarding the hardware and software we use. I twittered my answer but it’s something I’ve been meaning to write a post on, as I think it says a lot about who we are in the context of our working environment. Drew Buddy is the Head of ICT at his college and I think, he’s using this feedback to collate a report.

So, what does the picture above say about me? Well take a close look. It’s a sticker of the Microsoft Blue Monster eating the head of Mozilla on my Apple MacBrook Pro. That sums it up nicely; I’m happy to use the most approproate hardware and software as long as it meets my requirements.

The picture should demonstrate that I’m open minded because although I’m a known standards enthusiast, I like to use the proprietary technology produced by Apple and products produced by the perceived monster and non-standards compliant Microsoft.

My hardware

• Apple MacBook Pro
• Apple iPhone
• Apple iPod
• Cannon Ixus 950
• N95 for Qik streaming

Software

• Microsoft Office
• Microsoft Vista (but don’t use it often)
• Waiting for Live Writer for the Mac (blog authoring tool)
• Apple Mail (the ‘geniuses’ at the Apple store recommend Entourage)
• Apple iCal

Internet

• BT Broadband (they are the most reliable!)
• Google Docs (but don’t use it often)
• Google Reader for keeping up to date on blogs
• Gmail (but only as a backup for my POP account)
• Wordpress for Corporate Web site and personal blog

My Social

• Facebook (for connecting/communicating with non-geeks)
• Twitter (for community building with early adopters/geeks)
• Qik (for live streaming my presence)

Office environment

• Home office
• Adam Street private members club

The fact that I’m happy to work from home demonstrates that I’m overly generous to my staff as our HQ is in the heart of Dublin’s most affluent area and designed by John Rocha

This post is intended for Drew, but please feel free to help him collate enough data to produce a meaningful report by leaving a comment about the stuff you use every day. I’d like to know also.

I wrote a post earlier in the week with my travel plans for the 3GSM Congress. I can now provide the names of those of us having a get together on Tuesday.

Attendees confirmed so far

Paul Walsh
Pat Phelan
Sean O Mahony
Florian Seroussi
Jenny Callicot
Bhaskar Roy
Loren Feldman
Oliver Starr
Paul Walsh
Frank Hannigan
Dennis Howlett
Daniel Appelquist

Time: from 7 pm till 9 pm
5 mins from exhibition

Institut del Teatre,
Plaça Margarida Xirgu, s/n
08004 Barcelona

Join us for a beer and a snack, lots of surprise guests, relax with some of your fellow mobile twitter peeps. (I got lazy and did a copy ‘n paste job on Pat’s post)

Watch all the news live from our dedicated 3GSM video channel

Please leave a comment here or on Pat’s blog if you wish to attend. Hope to see you there.

James Corbet made a wild assumption which I’d like to address. In summary, James blogged that I violated a friend’s privacy by streaming live to the Web using a mobile video service called Qik.

I’ve pasted James’ blog post along with the comments left by other bloggers. I’ve done this because James doesn’t have email subscription to posts which means commentators aren’t informed of other comments being left. I really wish all blogs had this feature, including TechCrunch.

James said

So you’re out with a group of friends in a pub, enjoying a few drinks, letting your hair down. As you do. And then one of them pushes a camera phone in your face and starts streaming video live to the web. And immediately announces the fact to 518 other people. Not only that but he’s oblivious to your protestations and pleas to stop.

I don’t mean to pick on Segala’s Paul Walsh because I’ve certainly enjoyed and appreciated his video coverage of events like the inaugural Irish Digital Industry Association Dinner in Dublin recently. But Paul is a guy who writes regularly about online privacy and is CEO of Segala, a company developing technology which, among other things, is designed to help you find websites which follow best practices for privacy and copyright.

However, it seems to me that during last night’s broadcast Paul crossed the line by invading the privacy of at least one friend. If someone asks you to stop, puts their hand in front of the camera and looks clearly uncomfortable when you refuse is that not a blatant violation of their privacy? I don’t presume to know Paul’s friends so perhaps I’ve misread the situation but if someone did likewise to me I’d be very tempted grab their camera phone and dunk it in my drink!

Comments left by other bloggers

In particular, the live aspect means there is no opportunity to undo the posting of something you immediately regret doing. I can imagine a similar problem with Shozu when people are out on the tear. Qik Content Labels? “Warning, this video may contain scenes of drunk people”

Posted by: Conor O’Neill | Feb 6, 2008 12:26:35 PM

Damn, that last line would have been a much better post title than mine! Yeah, I only bring the issue up for discussion because I think it’s something that we’re going to have to be increasingly concerned with. As I say I thoroughly appreciate informative videos like Paul’s other ones and your Cork OpenCoffee ones and Pat Phelan’s travel ones, etc. But I’m thinking ahead here and realizing we’ll probably have a few QIKers at the Irish Blog Awards and similar sociable events this year and wondering if we’re going to have people streaming video from inappropriate situations? What are the ground rules? What etiquette applies?

Posted by: James Corbett | Feb 6, 2008 12:47:48 PM

It’s a discussion that has to happen and I think it’ll be a major issue as services like Qik are adopted by the greater web community. Over time, though, people will become comfortable with such invasions the same way we don’t think twice now about the plethora of CCTV cameras watching our every move.

Posted by: Eoghan McCabe | Feb 6, 2008 1:09:17 PM

Having had people shove cameras into my face and say “Can I put you on my Flickr?” I’m pretty used to this, but there is a time delay between the act of recording and the act of uploading. Qik, and others like it, destroy that delay (as you point out), and without immediate web access - like in a bar - you can’t delete something that fast, and even if you could it would be already online. Once on the the Internet, always on the Internet, right? Mind you grown-up, ‘digital savvy’ people in a bar will pale beside what will happen when more nefarious people get hold of this mobile tech. Interesting post!

Posted by: Mike Butcher | Feb 6, 2008 2:20:59 PM

My response

@James - I think you’re right. We do face a potential problem and a lot of care should be taken when streaming live to the Web. I’ve since removed my videos of last night but for different reasons.

Please note that everyone around the table were aware up front, that I was going to stream live. In fact, I spent about 5 minutes trying to change the SIM from my iPhone to the N95 so I could do it. With this post in particular I think you should have asked if anyone genuinely didn’t want to be filmed.

Some people put their hand in front of the camera when in fact, they love it. No, I’m not saying that no means yes or maybe

Do you use Qik and if so, do you worry about the privacy you just happen to capture in the background?