Thanks to Elaine for bringing me to Cork and allowing me to stay at her lovely cottage the night before Barcamp. I definitely wouldn’t have gone to Cork if I haven’t received her tweet.

It is my second year attending Barcamp Cork and I thought that this one was even better one than last year. It had great location (Webworks in Cork centre), tasty snacks and lot of interesting speakers. I do believe however that social media dominated most of the talks (or maybe it is just me attending those kinds?).

Unfortunately I wasn’t able to stay for drinks. Going back to Dublin does take a while. But I was rather happy to meet everyone I met on the night. Looking forward to next barcamps. Presentations should be uploaded soon on the website. Some photos from my iPhone are below.

AudioBoo

Even thought I did hear about AudioBoo before I never actually downloaded application. For those of you, who actually do daily podcasts – application will be soon available on Google Android.

Bootcamps

I really loved Sabrina Dent bootcamps – going through different websites and telling some good / bad things about them. It might be harsh, but it is always usable.

12 free tools for start-ups

Really loved this session by Brian Walsh and I will try to check out those tools which I still dont know:

1. Dropbox – free file sharing
2. Hootsuite – social media tool
3. pixlr – get graphics from web
4. SEO Firefox – tells you seo stats for sites
5. Firebug – allows you to modify HTML / CSS yourself
6. Google Webmaster tools – for sitemaps & other things
7. Prezi.com – zooming presentation tool
8. Photoshop – everyone can do that
9. CuteFTP or FireFTP for downloading / uploading files that has been changed
10. Google Adwords – for getting traffic to your website
11. WordPress – for blogging, simple first website (and don’t forget to use AllInOneSEO plugin)
12. Google Analytics – to know traffic sources, visitor browsers, countries etc for your country
13. ZohoCRM – how much sales calls you have to do to get stabile revenue?

Hmm… somehow I got 13 instead of 12 advertised. Not sure which one wasn’t there. I’m sure we talked about all.

How to create a social media strategy in 10 steps

Conor from Connector always amazes me with different interesting ideas. To hear more about his 10C tips, watch video here.

And more..

I really loved Catherine Wilson talk about e-mail Newsletters. If you are interested, definitely contact her.

I loved  Elaines tips for how not to run away from your business and how actually start earning something. One amazing coach!

And finally my last session was about debt collection from Ciara Crossan. I do believe that it is very vital question in recession. Even listening at her experience made me think.

Today I have only 2 business cards left after free business owner network last month. Designer asked me to provide him with content for new ones.

While front of the card is more or less clear (basic person / company information), back of the card is always a challenge. All my previous cards had blank backside and I think it is waste of paper.

So I did my little research going through 500+ cards I have collected over past 2 years and sorted them by back idea.

Quick tip: When designing cards, keep in mind to leave space for receiver to put notes on. They would like to remind themselves where they met you and how can they benefit from you. Glossy cards that you can’t write on is a bad solution.

Colorful background or Irrelevant photos

If you really want to spend money on printing bacground black, at least put logo on it or link to your website.

Colorful background and logo and/or slogon

This is very powerful solution if you want to remind people of your brand. Very often you can put there link or other contact information in small print below logo.

Bullet points

Be careful with bullet points as there isn’t much place at the back of the card. If you want to put 10 bullet points – don’t! Nobody will be able to read it. Three to five bullet points are the best.

Tag clouds

Pretty good as it tells people what can you do and highlights things you want them to notice.

Client names

I actually don’t know why people put their clients on the back of the cards. If they are popular – I don’t believe person really worked with all of them. If they are unpopular – I won’t even know them. I think tag cloud is much more beneficial than client names.

Request for action

If you are in medical, training or service business, then making next appointment, scheduling meeting or writing down next training session is a good selling point.

Product photo & slogon

If you selling product then photo with slogon should do it. And don’t forget your contact information

Unique

The more unique is card, the more there is possibility that it won’t be thrown away later in the evening. Think about how to make people to keep your card. Some make it bigger or smaller so it won’t fit with other business cards. Some make it transparent or opening like book. Maybe there is something that you can do with your card because of your business that some others can’t?

For more successful networking read 9 Networking Success Tips.

Update: Designer created design of my business card. I love it. It can have 3 different backgrounds. I love first one, others love 3rd one. How do you think? See my Business card (PDF)

Yet another great night for girl geeks in Dublin. This time event was targeted to mobile phones and everything around them.

While I’m not directly into mobile market, it is important to know what’s new in market. Phone industry, its applications and usage is quite amazing and is growing every day. While most of the people would discuss iPhone only, there are Androids, Blackberries, Nokias and much more used by people. And each of them are trying to launch application store, make browsing and communicating over web easy.

Of course, we did fun part as well – ate cake, watched movies about cat Roomba drivers and cat playing with iPad.

I heard a great presentation from Ana Nelson about Tropo – VoIP solution with voice recognition. It was interesting tool you could decide to implement on your website to help your customers. Check her blog for more information (code & examples).

Why would you decide to attend GGD next time?

• it’s definetly fun
• great to learn new things
• meet fellow IT girls

Next time is planned somewhere around June.

While I have been working in IT space for 10 years now, I have been working mostly with guys only. It is nice to see other girls in this space and for them being techie enough to understand me..

>> Sign up for Ireland Girl Geek Dinner Newsletter here.
>> Follow organiser of IGGD Martha Rotter on twitter

I’m back to event list! But before you scroll down, I wanted to tell you that I found 2 really good examples of social marketing. Check out Simon’s Cat and TheFunTheory. You will understand what I’m talking about when you see it.

Now back to what you really want to see :

• 11th Nov 18:00 / Free Business Owner Network / Bewleys hotel, free – meet other businesses and try out your pitch in speed networking
• 11th Nov 19:00 / 10 Min Street Networking / Main Gate of St. Stephen’s Green, free – another great idea of business networking
• 11th Nov 19:45 / Southside B2B Visitors Event / The National Yacht Club, Dun Laoghaire, free – Southside Business Network is a business and professional networking organisation whose primary purpose is to exchange qualified business referrals.
• 13th Nov 19:00 / ISA Annual Awards / Burlington Hotel, 125 EUR – The Irish Software Association is pleased to announce the Annual Software Industry Awards 2009.
• 12th Nov 18:00 / World Usability Day & IQ Studio Launch Party / 34 Clarendon Street (opposite Saba), D2, free – there’ll be wine tasting (or bring your own beer), music, food, shorts and Powerpoint Karaoke!
• 13th Nov 20:00 / Cork pre-BarCamp Girl Geek Dinner / Gourmet Burger Bistro, 8 Bridge Street, 18 EUR – Girl Geek Dinner
• 14th Nov 10:00 / BarCamp Cork / Cork International Airport Hotel, free – people getting together, sharing ideas, learning from each other and finding like-minds.
• 16th Nov 08:00 / SME Links Ireland Breakfast Networking for Childline / Hotel Isaacs (Beresford Place), 10EUR (min donation) – the event will include a number of showcase presentations and offers an opportunity to network with other SME owners and managers while raising much needed funds for Childline
• 17th Nov 08:30 / Synergy Breakfast “Exporting” / Synergy Centre, free – yet another interesting topic you might want to hear about
• 17th Nov 19:00 / Dublin ALT.NET / Seagrass, free – event interesting for developers. This time discussing Open Rasta
• 18th Nov 17:45 / NovaUCD 2009 Campus Company Development Programme Awards Evening / NovaUCD, free – meet companies that has been successful from NovaUCD campus
• 18th Nov 09:00 / Winning International Business with the Web / Radisson BLU Royal Dublin Hotel, price €95/ €65 – how to grow your business internationally, increase your revenues and use the internet to expand into new markets cost effectively.
• 18th Nov 09:15 / Technology in Business Conference / Radisson Blu Hotel, Cork, 95-195 EUR – it@cork annual conference
• 18th Nov 19:00 / Python Ireland Meetup / Scruffy Murphy’s, free – 45 minute to 1 hour talk demonstrating the creation of a straightforward webapp from scratch on App Engine.
• 19th Nov / Golden Spider Awards / Burlington Hotel, from 300 EUR – eircom Golden Spider Awards (recognizing excellence in internet & digital media)
  
• 20th Nov / National Women’s Enterprise Day / Mullingar, 100 EUR – this event offers support to women already in business and those thinking of starting out
• 21st Nov 10:30 / Open Coffee Dublin / Dakota Bar, free – informal event for web / business people to get together and chat about anything and everything.
• 24th Nov 18:30 / Entrepreneurs Only / Mont Clare Hotel, 25 EUR – what do all these enterpreneurs (check out speakers) have in common?
• 26th Nov 09:30 / Virtual Desktop Roadshow / Sun Microsystems, East Point Business Park, seems free – explore the opportunities offered by a virtualised desktop from Sun Microsystems
• 26th Nov 19:00 / Connector – New Businesses / Kobra bar, free – Connector is looking for 10 new businesses to step forward and tell us their story
• 27th – 29th Nov / Xtival / free – XBox Live festival
• 2nd Dec / The iPhone as an Emerging Enterprise Platform / The Alexander Hotel, free – this is a chance for software companies to explore the opportunities presented by mobile applications and Apple’s iPhone in particular.
• 5th Dec 10:00 / GreenHouse Business Camp / O’Reilly building on the Trinity campus, free – event is about sharing information, knowledge & experience

more to come later…

Here is IT & Business event list for October. Don’t forget to add them to your diary

• 6th Oct 14:00 / Launch of the National Digital Skills Week / The Digital Hub, free – I found this event quite advertised, however I wasn’t able to find any events related to digital skills week, which is pretty strange
• 6th Oct 10:00 / Open Coffee Mallow / Springfort Hal, Bar & Lounge area – monthly opportunity for business people to meet in a casual environment
• 7th Oct 18:15 / 121 Marketing Club / The Mint Bar, Westin Hotel, free – great to meet fellow marketers
• 7th Oct 18:00 / FREE Business Owner Network / Bewleys Hotel, Dublin 4, free – good event for networking
• 8th Oct 10:30 / Open Coffee Dublin / Science gallery, free – OpenCoffee Club is an informal event for web / business people to get together and chat about anything and everything.
• 8th Oct 08:00 / 3rd Annual Mid-West Entrepreneur Showcase / Limerick Institute of Technology, Millenium Theatre – 16 LEAP programme participants and more businesses
• 10th Oct / Irish Web Awards / Radisson SAS Royal Hotel, 35 EUR – great place to learn best web practises and projects and have lots of fun
• 11th Oct / Greenhouse Business Camp / Absolute Hotel, Limerick – for people who are self-employed, starting their own business or thinking about starting their own business.
• 12th Oct 15:00 / FaceBook Garage Belfast / The Black Box, Hill St., Belfast, free – learn more about Facebook applications
• 13th Oct 19:30 / Ireland Girl Geek Dinner / Ciao Bella Roma, €15-€20 per person – Girl Geek Dinners are a chance for ladies in technology to get together, enjoy some nice food and drinks, and have fun meeting other women in their field.
• 13th Oct 08:00 / BIG IDEAS Showcase 2009 / Croke Park, Dublin, free – The event is being organised by Enterprise Ireland’s Research & Innovation Business Unit and will showcase the commercial opportunities emerging from Ireland’s Higher Education Institutes in the areas of: Life Science & Food, ICT, Industrial Technologies
• 14th Oct – 20th Oct / Innovation Dublin – Innovation Dublin is a week-long festival of events highlighting and promoting innovation in the city. Check their website as they host some business seminars as well.
• 16th Oct 12:00 / FWIB 10th Celebratory Lunch & Networking Event / Roganstown Golf & Country Club, Swords, 35 EUR non-members – join marvellous celebration of women in business and networking in Fingal
• 20th Oct 19:00 / ALT.NET / Seagrass – talk about introduction to Python and possibly talk about DB
• 20th Oct 19:00 / WebsiteSpark Lunch with TechLudd / Guiness Storehouse – Come along and meet new people, and make new contacts and have some fun too. The BizSpark and WebsiteSpark programs are run by Microsoft to help Startup companies with support, technology and networks.
• 21th Oct 09:00 / IBM Storage – Doing More for Less / Conrad Hotel, D2 – The half day event will provide you with the details and relevant information that will help you to develop plans to to reduce your storage costs and use saved budget for other business critical elements of your infrastructure.
• 29th Oct 10:30 / Open Coffee Naas / venue tbc – an informal event for business people to get together and chat about anything and everything.
• 29th Oct 19:00 / Connector BTW Halloween party / venue tbc – connect with other businesses, usually includes free drinks and maybe some food.

I might be adding few later on, so keep an eye on the list.

I’m sorry to everyone who have been checking my blog for events and hadn’t found anything new from start of July. I will try harder next time to give you events earlier. A lot of conferences are happening in August and September and there is less free events around. That’s probably because of vacations. As usual – events I’m posting is Business or IT related. Feel free to comment if you think some more should be added.

Events Jul, Aug and Sept

• 13th-16th July / ICGSE2009 / Limerick – The 4^th International Conference on Global Software Engineering will bring together researchers and practitioners interested in exploring how globally distributed teams work and how the challenges can be met (prices from $300 – $1200).
• 14th July 19:00 / The Digital Hub / Science Gallery, FREE – Join this brain storming session to discuss the creation of The Dublin Hub. The vision of the Dublin Hub group is to create a flexible, affordable, shared working environment for freelancers, small businesses, the self-employed, and home-workers looking for a desk, or a meeting space in town.
• 16th July 18:00 / Social Media Networking / Kudos Bar, Clarion Hotel IFSC – A FREE Business Networking event that will help you understand how social media can help you grow your business.
• 18th July 10:30 / Open Coffee Dublin / Dakota Bar, FREE – informal event for web / business people to get together and chat about anything and everything.
• 21st July 08:30 / Maintaining work/life balance as an Entrepreneur / Synergy centre breakfast seminar, FREE
• 22nd July 10:00 / Quickly Discovering and Understanding your Software Applications / FREE – organised by ASG software solutions
• 22nd July 18:00 / HotHouse United / School House pub – business networking event for all current and former participants of the DIT Hothouse programme.
• 23rd July 08:30 / Free NovaUCD event about security / FREE- don’t miss it as there isn’t much free events in NovaUCD
• 23rd July 18:30 / OWASP Chapter meeting – group dedicated to fighting the cause of software insecurity in Ireland
• 30th July 19:00 / Connector BBQ / The Church – connecting people around web, business and technology
• 31st July 09:00 / Podcasting training courses from Podcasting Ireland / 100 EUR
• 2nd Aug 13:00 / Geeknic / Farmleigh Park – picnic for geeks, there is also a farmers market that day
• 5th Aug 18:30 / 121 Marketing Club / Mint Bar, Westin Hotel – usually around 30+ people is attending event, includes 1h speed networking
• 5th Aug 20:00 / Ireland Girl Geek Dinner / Kennedy’s on Westland Road – meet fellow girls in IT
• 6th Aug 10:30 / Open Coffee Club / Science Galery, FREE – informal event for web / business people to get together and chat about anything and everything.
• 14th Aug 18:00 / Free Business Networking / The Bewleys Hotel, Ballsbridge – speed networking and presentation. Great event for networking. Last time more than 60 people attended.
• 15th Aug / CupcakeCamp / Belfast – while I really thought that this was baking event rather than IT, somebody convinced me that it isn’t. So if you wanna go and try it out, let me know afterwards ^^
• 16th Aug 19:00 / Dublin ALT.NET / check website for place (probably The Vaults again), this months talk will be about “ORM with NHibernate”
• 21st Aug 09:30 / SQS Agile Workshop / 4-5 Dawson St, 100 EUR – explore the key principles of agile development with a particular focus on the quality and testing aspects.
• 24th-28th Aug / epicenter – The Irish Software Show / Trinity College, 99 EUR – 197 EUR – the biggest ever event in the software space ever held in Ireland. Should be fun.
• 27th Aug 13:00 / Simply Zesty Summer Camp / The Church, 99 EUR – earn how social media can transform your business
• 10th Sept / OWASP conference / 90-150 EUR – first Irish Application Security conference in historic Dublin University, Trinity College, Dublin, Ireland
• 10th Sept / Confidence in Action conference / FREE -  if you’re looking to navigate your way through the current economic climate, then Confidence in Action is the perfect place to start.
• 19th Sept / OSS BarCamp / DIT Kevin Street Dublin – open source bar camp
• 19th Sept / BizCamp – website isn’t updated yet, but I’m sure there will be more information closer to date
• 20th-24th Sept / COSAC 2009 / Killashee House Hotel, Naas, Co. Kildare – 16th International Computer Security Symposium (prices from 350 – 4000 EUR). A lot of speakers from outside Ireland. It is self organised event so don’t be afraid of website
• 24th Sept / Mobile Marketing 2009 – explore and develop the many opportunities that has and will drive this sector for the future

Some more information

One week from now on you can promote yourself on Irish Business Women forum. This event happens only once per year and you can promote yourself as much you like and how you like.

If you are just starting networking, few of the Dublin City Enterprise networking groups are quite good. I have heard lot of good things about Link! network. Usually you can attend one event for free to check them out.

If you are in web development check out The Rally Rev-up Webinar about Agile and Rally development methods happening every Thursday. As you might know our company does Agile Scrum development and we are interested in everything agile.

Other non-IT and non-business events you shouldn’t miss this summer is Festival of World Cultures and Electric Picnic at the end of August.

I’m starting to meet more and more people in networking events that I have seen before on some other. And I have received quite a few questions like “how do I manage to do so much networking?” and “do I have my personal life as well?”.

So I decided to put on one post just to answer those few questions. Firstly – I don’t go to all events I advertise in my blog. Maximum I can make is 3 events per week and after that I’m really tired. I found that I better do 1 networking event per week properly than do more and feel sick after.

Secondly I’m actually introvert person when it comes to talking with new people. I don’t enjoy it, but I’m starting to like it. I meet 5-15 people over each networking event. And for each of them you have to understand what they are doing, tell them about your company and think of opportunities for both of you together.

It takes few hours per week to follow them up (do research, send e-mails, call them or setup meeting). Networking is part of my job, part of generating new leads and opportunities. It is as important as doing other things in my company.

How it overlies with my personal life? Not all of the events are happening on the evening. And if they are, my family don’t mind if I’m away for one day. And on few of the events I receive things like USB-cards, t-shirts, stickers and other fun things that I’m starting to collect.

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