The French Agree

Going by this poll on the Le Monde website, it seems that the French agree that Ireland deserved to go through to the World Cup finals and that they have the Referee to thank for their success.

http://www.lemonde.fr/sport/article/2009/11/19/robbie-keane-la-fifa-ne-veut-absolument-pas-de-l-irlande-en-coupe-du-monde_1269061_3242.html

I hate soccer.

I really do. I literally had no idea what Soccer was until I was about 11 and thought as a youngster that “The Red Devils” sounded like something I should definitely be afraid of.

I hate Soccer.

But I love Kevin Coleman’s new project: http://backpagefootball.com/

Kevin is a 42 year old Web genius/millionaire who is the secret brains behind many of the greatest web brands we use every day. He divides his time between Silicon Vally, London and Dublin 4, but is only really at home on the web. For the last 15 years he has delivered success after success, selling many of the sites on, always looking for a bigger success. Determined and hard working and all the other usual flaws one finds in real achievers.

Look at his latest effort, its beautiful.

Among those flaws I mentioned earlier, Kevin detests the spotlight and also has a flare for mis-direction. Hence his disguise as a Teenage Tipperary Student enjoying his summer holidays.

Weird, but hilarious. Typical Kevin. Although, I am not sure how he expects us to believe that a mere kid could get a really excellent team to commit to a years worth of writing and create such a beautiful looking product on F*** all resources. Gas.

Laura Ingalls and the phone.

The little house on the prairie got a phone installed. One of the first in rural America. Laura went nuts for it and could often been seen evangelising outside the old school-house. The wider population of Walnut-grove were quiet happy to listen to Laura going on about her “Phone Calls”. Some were delighted that their little settlement of farmers and small merchants were in some way associated with this craze that was sweeping the nation. Others thought it was a load of old shit.

Laura didn’t mind – She knew the Telephone was the future.

One Tuesday, Laura had left the school house, collecting the weekly newspaper from the general store on her way home. She was ecstatic to find a mention of Telephones on the front page. It seems the author Herman Melville had installed a phone in his own home  and was quoted “Well, its a new way of communicating”.

Laura was thrilled and rushed home to Telephone her childhood friend (sometime foe) Nellie who was had married extremely well and was living in a fine house in Independence. Nellie (obviously) had a phone too. Laura was breathless and took quite a while to get her story of the latest celebrity endorsement for telephones out.

“Herman… Melville… has telephone…. new way of… communicating… he says” to which Nellie replied: “Laura, Stop fucking ringing me to talk about telephones, you daft bitch”.

Please stop tweeting about twitter.

Photo owned by photogirl7 (cc)

Is Twitter dead?

I signed up to Twitter last may and started using it regularly from June. In that time I have never seen downtime of any significance.

This meant I could never relate to oft-heard complaints about Twitter’s flakiness.

At its extreme, I remember @tomraftery suggesting at one stage that Twitter’s new (and still absent) revenue model could be based on premium users enjoying uninterrupted service. As someone who expects uptime as a minimal feature, I found this attitude shocking.

If I promise you that your water supply will have no sewerage in it – Would you be willing to pay me? I would hope not. Some aspects of a service should not be separated from the service – To do otherwise would be shoddy.

But today I am getting a glimpse into what life without Twitter is like. Today, from around 7:30AM until just before 9AM and from about 4PM and still continuing now – Twitter is missing.

Enough with the cutesy cartoons.

If this was to happen on more than a half dozen occasions, I would be gone.

The only sticking power Twitter has are the people that I follow. But what is the tolerance of this group for slack service. Especially when better alternatives are available in Jaiku and Plurk.

Cop on Twitter.

Update: Twitter is back, 5PM. So thats just over 2 hours dowtime today.

Update2: Spoke too soon, 5 mins later and its gone again.

Warning: “Self-Help” epidemic going about.

I think I have Gordon Murray to blame for this.

He gave me a loan of his copy of “The 4 hour work week” by Tim Ferriss at the last Cork Open Coffee Club morning. Its a good read, with practical advice on how desk jockeys can become base jumpers. Obviously that isn’t going to happen, but like all good self help books, it reinforces what people already know to be true and good. As a bonus it delivers it in a very readable format.

I am really enjoying it, enough to recommend it already, even before I have finished it. Mainly because, as I said, it backs up what I already felt but was not articulate enough to… erm, like say and stuff. Obvious stuff that we often and always forget such as “Its only money”, “99% of Meetings are pointless”, “Writing emails does not actually achieve anything”…. in a nutshell, “You only live once”.

One downside from the book: Lets say you wake up in the Matrix and you realise that you are the equivalent of Cheeze Stix for a bunch of well-suited kungfu applets. The obvious tendency would be to be slightly peed off with your lot.

So it was with delight that I traced the following tweet to Jamie’s Blog.

Rage against the machine like.

Guess what, Jamie has read the book!!!

Looking back now, it also explains Gordon’s sudden aversion to god damn time wasting email.

As for me, I have already cut my tweetage in half.

The problem with Self-Help type binges is that usually, we revert back to our comfortable old cheeze stix selves, meaning an endless market for self-improvement books.
Life, Oh Life… Do Do Do Do.

Build a Web App in a Day at BarCampCork II

Disclaimer: I can’t wait for BarCampCork II – Check out it’s excellent site at http://www.barcampcork.com/

I really do think its a unique opportunity – Look at the list of attendees, I know many of these people by avatar image on twitter, or through their blogs. This is the cream of creative Ireland when it comes to the Internet and beyond.

Met the tireless Conor O’Neill at the last Cork Open Coffee Club morning. What he does for the rest of us, in terms of organising these events is amazing. When Cork does eventually birth an amazing world killing web app, it will owe a lot to this man, directly or indirectly. As far as I can see, Conor is a vital part of the Cork Web 2.0 infrastructure.

At the OCC morning we discussed Bar Camp and the requirement for all attendees to contribute in some way or another. At that stage, I had been kicking around the idea of “Build a business in a day” – possible a web based business, but it didn’t matter as long as it created value. But that’s a lot to bite off, especially for someone like me who is a relative newbie on the Cork scene.

So I was delighted to see a mention of the “Build a Web App in a day” feature being mentioned on the Bar Camp site. This was something I could get my teeth into. I think such a project can bring the best out the attendees. With Web 2.0, I claim that technology is no longer the (main) barrier to creating value. And even if it is, there will be plenty people at Bar Camp with the required expertise.

What is tough with Web 2.0 is the Idea!

And it is my experience that the more people who bounce off each other, with half-cooked ideas and different perspectives, the better the result (if in a conducive environment). Surely Bar Camp is the perfect environment for  this  process. (Again, I direct you to the attendees list!)

This morning Conor posted more detail on the “Build a Web App” in a day project. If I read the post correctly, the App will be a “Carbon Footprint Calculator for Meetings”. Please read Conor’s post for more detail.

I have left, what for me is an extremely violent reaction, in the comments section.

My point is: Aren’t we getting this backwards? Sure everyone wants to see the outcome in terms of web pages or Widgets, but the real gold is in the idea. To cut out a huge chunk of the creative process in advance by deciding the project outcomes is counter productive, though it may culminate in a more pleasing tangible result.

Of course the obvious answer is to do both. Thats the beauty of Bar Camp.

let me know, is it worth doing?

Best work advice I ever got.

Just started Richard Branson’s business book “Screw it, Lets do it”. I recently read his autobiography “Losing my virginity”, several hundred pages in a bearable style, but a great story. The problem I discovered 23 pages into with “Screw it, lets do it” is that a lot of it is a rehash of his biography. And its not just setting the scene, I flicked forward to the 80 page mark and he was still talking about balloons.

I’m not reading that again. I was expecting some great business advice, something to get the blood pumping, something new I could apply to my own work. What a let down, my wife suggested a new title for Branson’s book. “Screw it”.

It got me thinking, I have read a lot of these types of books at this stage. At the time of reading, I thought some were excellent. However, if the proof is in the pudding, I must be honest and admit I have never read a piece of business advice that I regularly use.

I have heard two pieces of advice though that have resonated and still do.

Don’t complain, suggest!

I received this piece of advice when about a year into working with Accenture. It came from my “Career Counsellor”, bless her. I found the Accenture experience highly frustrating to begin with, many do, it has a solid steel culture and its not for everyone.

I was frustrated and moany. I brought these moans to my “CC” and she came back with some brilliant advice. “Don’t go to your superiors with complaints, go with suggestions that address those complaints”.

It guarantees a better reception from those superior ears!

I often catch myself now when I feel a moan about to erupt – Instead of getting all negative about it, what can be done about it?

You’ll like what your good at.

This came from a guest lecturer we had for Strategic Management, the fourth year of commerce, UCC, 1996. he was American, in his late sixties and I am fairly sure his name was Donoghue. A really excellent lecturer – very enjoyable lectures. (I remember he exposed me as a pseudo-socialist by proposing a future that I assumed everyone would agree to and put their hand up for. No they didn’t , just two of us. Good going in the middle of a Commerce class of 60).

He warned us that we would be off to work a year or two later and at first, for many of us, we would find ourselves in jobs we hated.

He was right.

In fact, I can’t say that I have ever occupied a role that at one time I did not curse.

What to do when you find yourself in this situation? Similar to the first piece of advice, flip the situation on its head. Instead of hating the work and letting the situation slide until something breaks (you or the job) – Work harder. Get Better. Be the best at the job.

It was his experience that of all the people he worked with, the people who most often admitted to liking their jobs, were the people who were recognised as being the best at those jobs.

Its tough advice to follow. But its a positive approach for all-too-common negative situations.

And if it doesn’t work, the you know you are right to hate that job. Sewerage tank cleaning isn’t for everyone I suppose.

Screw Dick Branson and his mates, not one of them yet has written powerfully enough and with such clarity to get onto my exclusive list of tips.

Any additions out there? Please comment and let me know.

In defence of Yammer

Yammer wins at Techcrunch50.

On monitoring my twitter stream this morning, I see a lot of negative comment.

I think Paul sums up the feeling fairly precisely. My own twitter stream is very skewed towards Irish tweeters, so I checked out Twitter Search and found that there is a good deal of Anti-Yammer sentiment floating around generally.

This Anti-Yammer sentiment centres on an apparent lack of Innovation. This is a twitter clone with some bells and whistles. I agree.

But it is also a Twitter Clone with a revenue model attached.

I love Twitter. In my eyes its a new way of communicating. Its the Pony Express or the Phone or Text Messages. The problem with Twitter is that it doesn’t make money. (At least not at the time of writing).

Yammer’s innovation is making a method of communication that I love into something sustainable because it can pay for itself.

I don’t think Yammer is the be all and end all of twitter-like communication. In the same way that I don’t think my Blackberry is the be all and end all of Phones.

I do think Yammer should be applauded for being amongst the first to put twitter-like communication on a sound footing.

Well done to all the people behind Yammer.

My first UnFollow in Twitter.

I like Twitter – It has really added to my days and I can sincerely say it has changed the way I navigate the web.

In 13 years of browsing, I can only say the same about Google/iGoogle. That’s a huge success in my eyes. Its not Twitter as such, but the people I follow on it that has brought about this change.

Some of my favourites, off the top of my head :

• @lexia and @jackiedanicki have an unrivalled repartee going.
• @damienmulley‘s feed is an excellent supplement for his blog.
• Apparent insomniacs with insight: @frankiep, @Debz
• @topgold, @sineadcochrane – Very interesting people.
• Hard workers: @gorton, @patphelan, @robinb
• Self publicists such as @paulwalsh and @gapingvoid

The last category stands out from the rest in that I have to ask, where is the value for me, why should I follow them? Well, they are using Twitter for their own ends, growing their audiences daily. I can learn from them without a doubt.

What I can’t stand is Self Publicists with no aim. That is, arseholes who are apparently using twitter to advertise their self-perceived greatness.

In real life I may be too polite to bare-facedly walk away from a conversation with such a person. But in Twitter, you can. Isn’t that wonderful? So today I unfollowed for the first time. it felt lovely.

Who's Missing?

Earn a Living or Win the Lottery.

I want to thank FrankieP at bifsniff.com for pointing me towards the Gaping Void blog and especially the material on Micro Brands. Just this evening I came across this quote.

Like any good Kung Fu master will tell you- There are no secrets. There is no magic formula. Just a lot of hard work.

On several occasions lately since a web based project of ours went live, co-workers, investors, advisers, friends keep posing the question “What are we missing? When will we catch fire? What are we not doing that will make this go ballistic?”

I am sick of it.

If anyone paid attention to the plan back in the day when this was a development – I never intended to have a massive over night success. The growth curve that has always been put forward is like a Stair Case. Each step reflecting a small task, well executed that makes a small contribution to our progress.

The curve isn’t a fire work shooting almost vertically.

There is a reason that the odds on the lottery are so ridiculous.