Yet another successful evening in HerbStreet restaurant with other girls that are in the technology. Food was great and there was a lot of discussions going around why women has such a hard time to achieve something in IT career. Apparently it is our nature - being more social and not so geeky. We don’t go after “win or loss” strategy and that brings us down in corporate environment. But we do success better as business owners, because it’s all about socialising with people.

We got great talk from Amanda Scott about success in our careers. Here is questions Amanda presented to us. Try out them yourselves to understand better where you wanna go in your future.
1) Who is your role model? And is your parents close to that or they are completely different?
2) Where you wanna be in next 10 years time in your life?
(Most of the us wanted to be career, money and travel independent.)
3) What you have to do to get closer to your dream?
3) What is the next step you have to do in next 18 months to get closer to your dream?

I got recommendation for book to read - “Difficult Conversations”. It could help you if you want to get better salary, change something in your work or just in your life.

And I was completely amazed by vacuum cleaner robots Martha presented us with. I want one! Apparently YouTube is full with such Roombas + cats driving on them. My cat would definitely love that thing.

Here is my summary of Open Coffee Dublin that took place in Dakota bar this Saturday. The coffee at new place was delicious (even thought people did have problem finding it). I got a lot of new ideas for my blog and enjoyed networking.

• Little Black Card gave short presentation - the littleblackcard promotes stores and individuals who have something to offer you while also helping to raise funds for Simon Communities across Ireland.
• Nial gave presentation of Echodio - iTunes music synchronization tool
• National College of Ireland representatives came to get more ideas what should be in new web development course they are launching
• Thomas from Synergi told us about how system administration is similar to Chinese doctor system. You pay when you are healthy, but when you are sick they come for free. Good motivation to keep you well. Same with system administration - if you pay maintenance fee, then when you have emergency administrator is there for you for free.
• I learned about webstorng (our in-direct concurents) and their model of work - they develop you site for free, but you pay them fee after
• Few other people I met was: PHP developer who developed his business idea; Visual Basic developer who loves networking; web user who just want to hear more about internet.

As usual giving away events that you & me might be interested in. IT & Business related ones.

• 8th April 18:00 / Signature Speed Networking / Brooks Hotel, 59-62 Drury Street - 40 eur per person, very nice and quick business networking
• 9th April 19:00 / ALT.NET - Let’s discuss Domain-Driven Design / The Duke, off Grafton Street - free event for IT enthusiasts who want to make it better
• (In case you forgot - 12th April is Easter and 13th April is bank holiday)
• 14th April 19:00 / Webinar - Using Social Media to Attract More Customers / on the web, free event. I really love HubSpot webinars.
• 18th April / Digital Media Breakfast @ Galway /  It’s free but please register so we know how many are coming.
• 18th April 10:30 / Open Coffee Dublin / Taking place in new venue - Dakota
• 20th April 14:00 / it@cork Cloud Computing Event / The Cork International Airport Hotel  - 60 EUR for non-members
• 20th April 09:00 / Mini SeedCamp London - aims to connect the UK and Ireland’s thriving startup community, but the buck doesn’t stop there.
• 20th April 20:00 / Early Days of Computing in Ireland / you can watch it over web or go to 22 cycle road, Ballsbridge, D4
• 21st April 19:30 / Dublin Girl Geek Dinner / Herbstreet restaurant, Hannover Quay
• 23rd April 19:00 / Connector No.9 / free. With the economic downturn, there is a renewed interest in networking & business startups in Ireland.  Connector is here to help you get connected in the real world at face to face events.
• 23rd April / iPhone Developer days Dublin / Free event
• 24th April / iPhone Developer days Belfast / Free event
• 25th, 26th April / Silicon Ireland Brainstorm Weekend - launching first BrainStorm Weekend in Belfast. This event will enable would be entreprenuers, programmers, and developers to get involved to create a startup over a 2 day weekend. The startup will be equally owned by all involved.
• 25th April / BarCamp Belfast / University of Ulster, Belfast - there is 290 ppl going there up to date. Try out your first BarCamp, it is definetly worth it.
• 27th - 30th April / Digital Hub Lunchtime Seminars - a lot of intersting seminars you can go to at your lunchtime
• 29th April 10:00 / Marketing Event / The Digital Exchange Building - Free event for Marketing Managers, Owner Managers and anyone wishing to learn more about marketing their business.
• 29th April / Digital Tonic - Digital Media Networking / 3 Fade Street, Dublin 2 - Free of Charge
• 30th April - 1st May / Cambridge Wireless Conference
• 6th May / 121 Marketing First Wednesday Club - great way to meet fellow marketers or find way how to market your business
• 8th, 9th May / SLanguages Conference / Happening in Second Life game - even thought I’m not interested much in languages, it seems awesome for conference to happen over the game
• 21st, 22nd May / IIA Annual Congress & Awards / Early bird ticket can be bought till 17th of April, so don’t miss it

See also Venture Network events, which happens weekly around Dublin and outside it

This Sunday we went to visit chocolate warehouse to see Easter Bunny and get personalised egg. Warning - if you decide to go there, don’t forget to eat before. Decorations and chocolate all around made me feel very, very hungry. Event is free for adults, but you probably will buy a lot of chocolate eggs. I recommend this for all chocoholics (like me).

I’m happy to announce that our Scalability Whitepaper (see few posts before) were featured in Feature Friday Section in Irish Developer Portal. See it here: Scalability Whitepaper on IrishDev Feature Friday

Lets start with the fun stuff as it was April’s Fools Day yesterday. Here is list of all pranks by web/tech companies and Locle April Fools joke. Spent all my morning yesterday reading this ^^.

Two new networking groups I found - Southside B2B networking and Venture Network. Heard quite nice reviews about second one

Awesome MMORPG game for primary kids - Club Penguin (my daughter really loves it)

Some interesting things in news about social media - Twitter and social media will be taught primary schools in UK & UK is planning to monitor social sites.

And for those who missed it - IQ Content are still giving away 10k EUR for best business plan.