I’m all exited over tomorrows Inspired IT Awards Gala Dinner 2008. It is very official black tie evening till late at night. I really hope I will get some award and I’m happy that we got short-listed. I went shopping today and bought the best coat in my life. I haven’t been shopping for ages as I’m always so busy with business stuff. Awards was a good excuse to buy something.

Wish me luck tomorrow and I will post some photos of evening later.

When I first entered “Start your own business” course provided by Enterprise Board, I was surprised about the person lecturing. She was marketing specialist for over 10 years, but she told us that she went through psychology course to understand marketing better. I was wandering – why would I need that in marketing?

Over the course I noticed a lot of psychological things around her. For example, she always wore something that made her to come out in crowd – mini red skirts, red shoes with high heels. She was always friendly and positive and challenging in a most of lectures. I learned a lot and let me share few of those things.

Today I received call at the door and received free candies, popcorn and sticker from Qo2 radio. The Principle of Reciprocity in business. This principle basically defines the human need and tendency to want to give something back when something is received. In this case they gave you sweets and (constant reminder) sticker for you to listen to the radio. Both guys who gave me that were so positive that it made me smile and laugh with them. So would I try to switch on Qo2 radio after this – probably, if I had a radio.

So in business people often give something maybe not so expensive to others, because they know – you will feel obligated to give them something back. Especially they love to give some constant reminders – stickers, small funny candy box you don’t want to throw out or very well thought-through advertisement paper.

It’s funny if you search for reciprocity in Google, you get a lot of bible stuff coming out. So people knew the principle even in ancient times.

Two other principles which even I sometimes use is reverse psychology and “good and bad cop”. People often think that Reverse psychology don’t work on adults and it is childish act that normal people won’t do. Well, they do. Very often you say reverse things to clients to get the right thing coming up. You lead them the way you want and make them believe that they came up with solution. Does it sound very tricky? It is business and you have to fight for the things you want.

“Good and bad cop” is thing that I often do with my husband. If some client doesn’t like me, I ask my husband to call him and be a “good cop”. And vice versa.

Those few tricks aren’t very much advertised to people. Because if they knew them, they won’t fall for them. But they fall anyway.

There is very few sites in Ireland, where you can search for new software projects. Even thought there is so much online stuff going around, it is hard to find new leads.

I have been looking at www.freelanceireland.ie for a while, but small jobs and projects appears there only once in half month. And there is not much alternatives for this site. Everything happens through connections so networking happens to be the most important thing for IT companies. It doesn’t matter how good specialist you are or how good sites you have developed. Unless you really don’t know somebody, you won’t get any projects.

Should I say that people won’t trust each other in Ireland?

I keep going to those networking events (though I’m more IT person and it really makes me nervous). It’s unbelievable how much networking events there are in Dublin. Even if you just look at Dublin Enterprise Board site, there is Link! and Plato and Enterprise Women etc. And people keep making events just to network… Does it do any good? Sometimes. But you really have to find the ones that suit your business best. It takes time and money. There is very few that doesn’t cost anything.

I found Open Coffee, Techludd, Irish Web Conference and Enterprise Women networking the best for us.

I’m starting this beautiful blog with my first post.

Let me explain the reason, looks and feeling about it.

First, I decided to write blog about month ago in Girl Geek Dinners meeting. However only today I got somebody who installed WordPress on my server (I could do it myself, but was too lazy).

Reason is very simple – everybody writes blog and I love to write so why shouldn’t I? I willn’t write too often (at least I don’t expect to). I really need writing mood for stuff like that.

Looks of blog – this is maple trees design. Autumn is one of my favorite seasons. In Latvia, my home country, there is city Sigulda, which lies on the hills. And hills are covered with maple trees. You can imagine the sight on the autumn. It is one of the most beautiful things I have ever seen.

So that’s about the end of my first blog post