Ending 2009
It has been quite an interesting and eventful year to gain business experience. From launching the Loopthing Social Business Network in April we have had a busy 8 months full of increased challenges and demands, with invaluable experience for a young team, wrap this up in a global economic recession and the years teachings will take a bit of beating.
From my own perspective I have knocked down a lot of youthful mind barriers that might have restricted thinking on wider international business levels. Being based in London and having undertaken an Asian research trip during July have both added greatly to my vision on international growth. The Tokyoites in particular were very interesting to analyse in business practice and some great meetings shaped my thinking on undertaking business expansion in the region.
From an Irish perspective the year has done more to shape my national political and business views than at any other time in my life. Identifying those deploying sustainable business practices was very evident, as were the unsustainable who enjoyed the economic ride.
The political environment has become so stale that an immediate general election would even do little to revive it. It has become clear that expertise and experience is lacking in many government departments and serious constitutional changes will have to be looked into in rectifying this problem. The ability of the National Parliament (Oireachtas - President, Dáil Éireann and Seanad Éireann) to effectively and efficiently run the country has been called into question. Those with the desire to represent their local constituencies cannot be accused of a lack of patriotism or thirst for public life. However, the experience and education they possess for crucial ministerial positions must be assessed. If the required experience and education is not evident then the country must look to qualified alternative Irish citizens to hold ministerial positions, having not been elected but still being held responsible to Dáil Éireann (Constitution of Ireland 7.1 pg 38). So is debating the Irish consitution a possibility, and is it odds on to take a decade to provide any results.
The UK bears a very similar stale political position, but I believe the forecast early 2010 election will do much more to spur debate and interest in guiding their economy forward than in Ireland. Contrasting the differences between the two countries is now a constant exercise. Worryingly my contrasts are mostly negative from an Irish perspective. However I am keen to suggest solutions and not just focus on identifying problems.
On ending 2009, this isn't a case of sitting back and seeing what 2010 will bring us, we need to take decisive action immediately. In fairness the December budget was a step in the right track but only tackles Ireland's current problems and will need much more strategic public sector cuts and private sector initiatives. A general election in my view is badly needed, not just to change government, but to give local arenas the ability to analyse who in their community is actually capable of representing their current interests.
But let's wait until tomorrow morning, or how about 2012, my god!
Happy New Year All
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.
Twitter Lists
I've been exploring the benefits of Twitter lists over the past week to see what value they provide. Personally I have no real need to create lists. Categorising offers little value over my stream. I've been creating private lists (groups) on tweetdeck for sometime now and they are rarely used.
So the buck is then passed onto people intent on creating lists that they believe offer value. They are being formed by people creating them without tweeters permission or alternatively by you actually submitting your profile to be included in a list. Types include.
Nick Kallen the list project leader states
"lists have the potential to be an important new discovery mechanism for great tweets and accounts. We started working on this feature because of the frequent requests we received from people who were looking for a better way to organize information on Twitter"
Some significant value and structure may start to emerge with the lists api
So list creators be they stupid or clever are now on the prowl, and we must begin to look at lists of lists, or do we?
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.
Loopthing Launch Update
Bit by bit everything is coming together for the Loopthing official launch on the 27th of October.
Earlier this week we enabled Loopthing support for Youtube, Vimeo, Viddler and Flickr. We are also working on implementing other popular third party online media platforms that are utilised for business use.
Together this all forms part of the overall Loopthing development plan and provides the key elements behind our first business support module.
A further release will be made on this towards the end of week
Nibbles
Microsoft's hotmail has had what's seems like a serious security breach for its email users. The hack or phishing scheme as detailed on Neowin states that the passwords for names A through to B (assuming surnames) were posted to pastebin the coder debugging site. Ooops!, so which of the big mail providers can we trust for security and reliability, let the password changing begin.
On a lighter note Amazon is getting to grips with its Mobile Payment Service (MPS)
IIA on International Strategy, Caelen King - Reva Health and interviewed by Una Coleman Codega Consulting
and The Machine is only just starting to get powerful, excellent!
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
Countdown -25 days
Been a crazy week getting ourselves finalised for the official launch of Loopthing. It's now looking like we will complete our launch webcast on Monday the 26th of October. This should give us plenty of time to pull the last bits and bobs together.
This week saw us achieve a nomination for the Irish web awards under the best practice category. Sincere thanks to all involved, especially Damien & Co for the hard work in making this the true Irish acknowledgement of achievement on the web...is that a spider I hear in the background.
Also submitted an application form for the endeavour program and will be participating in the further rounds of selection.
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.
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