Bleeding Talent
Over the past 4-5 months I've been recognising some demographic trends that make me a little bit nervous. Being based in London and travelling back to Cork frequently I have a good chance to identify changes in both environments.
The one which concerns me most is the amount of young talented Irish people making their way to work in London. I've been based here now for two and a half years and there has always been a steady flow of guys and gals coming over. But, the state we are at now is where people's entire groups of friends are now either based in London or travelling and upon returning, coming to London. The people that are already based here, also, once questioned see very little prospect of returning to work in Ireland in the coming years.
Now there will always be an attraction for the best grads and professionals to work in large global cities due to the industry positions available. However, what we are seeing now must be classified as mass emigration, and a repeat of the devastating 1980's economic situation.
I'm not a pessimist, and will always look for solutions to a problem. So what can be done to ensure that Ireland can not only maintain but also attract the creative class required to drive the country's economy forward. FDI from multinationals will neither be freely available or the required solution to this problem. Investment in national enterprises and supporting an ecosystem of national successful upstarts is where we need to be at. Now the government will profess that the smart economy is their focus, but they have no real prospect of achieving this.
1. The speed at which initiatives are implemented are frighteningly slow
2. It's difficult to run without maintaining the smart people in the country.
3. Zero confidence not only in the current government, but the entire political hierarchy and its oversight of the inflated public sector.
So if we can't rely on the government to drive initiatives to inspire and maintain Ireland's talented workforce, then it must fall on universities, existing industry and professionals. Free professional training, free office space, equipment sponsoring, mentoring, no strings seedfunding, inspirational talks, innovation events, drives to attract international talent, international experience trips.
This is not a banking position in London paying graduates £40,000, but it does at least provide exciting opportunities for a work hungry young population. I’ll be doing my part to drive some of these initiatives and I just hope some of the people with real power wake up and smell the bloody coffee.
Development Progress
After a huge push last week, we are getting to the final stages of development before our official launch on the 27th of October. Most of the work we are doing at the moment revolves around the creation of our first business support module. It's pretty intensive stuff, but the result will provide an excellent tool for businesses that are serious about their web presence.
I can now state that the name of Loopthing's first business module is "Open Score"
As for the specifics to the exact functionality of this business tool, everyone will have to wait until the 27th and check it out for themselves. At which point we will be happy to address any questions people may have.
In other developments, we are bouncing ideas around for the redesign of the Loopthing landing page. We’ve got some great ideas for the new layout and we look forward to implementing the design in the coming weeks.
Input into Loopthing’s First Business Application
As we near the final stages of development on our first business app, we're reaching out to the wider social web for some input into its accuracy.
So if any well groomed social media boffins would like to pitch in and help us help the wider business community we would be very grateful. Only take five min, and a pint you will receive at our next encounter. Say hello
Loopthing Seed Funding Round
This week saw the launch of the Loopthing seedcapital funding round. We thought this would be a good time to begin sourcing some inward investment given the network's stable base and suitable platform for growth.
It can be a difficult decision to make, as to when to time the injection of third party capital into an early stage company. Given revenue streams are more often than not planned rather than proven, the project must have a convincing revenue growth and development strategy to warrant suitable equity interest from prospective early stage investors.
We think we are timing it right, as we prepare for our official launch next month and the release of the first Loopthing business application. More details to come on that at a later date. If fact I may actually reveal some elements of the new business application at Business Camp in Limerick, Ireland on the 11th October. As for the official launch of Loopthing we are planning a live web broadcast for the end of October, so we'll be run off our feet to get everything ready, but isn't that what makes life worth living.
Running an Internet start up in a recession
When we first started developing the loopthing business networking project back in early 2008, we felt what we could produce would significantly change the way businesses interact with web based media platforms, and this concept has not changed.
What has changed dramatically in that time is the local economy in which we are based, and the global economy in which the network is poised. As many industrialised countries entered into recession over the past 18 months we from our small office in Cork, Ireland have continued to follow our business development plan in an attempt to put our project at the forefront of our country's economic re-focusing.
Although we do recognise that our forecast revenue earnings have taken quite a hit, it is still imperative that the desire and will to create exciting new products and services is not lost amongst the contraction in investment and consumer spending.
Cost-cutting is a must and hard work an absolute certainty in safeguarding our ongoing development. As we build up to the Loopthing official launch in October and the release of our key business networking feature our desire to innovate will not falter.
Pages
Categories
Tags Cloud
My Tweets
- Once again, don't ignore plonkers, great free benchmarking service!
- French entrepreneurship #FT http://tinyurl.com/ygdhdv8
- Morning
- @conroyp alas, hope will not secure the winnings
- @damienmulley to whom would you move
Friends
- Damien Mulley
- Donagh Kiernan
- Donagh Mc Sweeney
- Jeromakay Blog
- Loopthing Blog
- Loopthing Business Networking
- Niall Devitt
- Stephen Spillane