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

Imagine eating ice cream as much as you like for 2h! Imagine getting free Bulmers beer and talking with a lot of interesting people. Hear great presentations and pitch your business. That’s Connector. It was my first time there, but it seems I gonna return there again. Thanks again Conor for organising such a great event!

And for those who love Ben & Jerry’s ice cream, write review on their Facebook site. The most interesting review will win a delicious year’s supply of Ben & Jerry’s, yum! And there is Irish Artist bags on the site as well (at least that what they told us, but I wasn’t able to find ^^).

You can see a lot of information on web about recession and how to fight with it. Yesterdays Business Advice Show supported by Bank of Ireland was everything about stopping to look down (because of recession) and start to do something with your business. I completely agree with everyone who said that January was the biggest peak of recession. People was so afraid that they actually didn’t even went out of their offices. It started to pick up on February and I’m amazed how much people actually attended this event.

I therefor regret a lot that I didn’t came there with my stand. So much people starting their own businesses and expanding them - they would need to do something with web. They would have some great ideas of expending over it. Well, I was rather unfortunate to not thinking through this beforehand.

Event was part of the Enterprise week and as most of them took part in Stillorgan Park Hotel. My benefit from the event:

• 21 business cards, 2 leads, 10 existing contacts
• 2 free tickets on business coaching event next week
• Information about:
  • Patent search & registration
  • Selling Services in Northern Ireland
  • SFA, IIA, ISME, Enterprise Boards joining, networking, events
  • Investment for Redundant people who are starting business
  • Business Coaches
  • Translations
  • Online Banking (event was organised by BoI)
  • Solicitors, Office of the Director of Corporate Enforcement
  • Franchising
  • Accounting software
  • Brochures about Managing Business Finances from Enterprise boards & ROS
  • Brochure about Marketing business

We heard great presentations from both Krishna De (marketing specialist) and Gavin Duffy (from “Dragons Den”) about actually starting to do something not just feeling depressing.

Krishna De presentation

Have you heard of Harry Potter site launching before? I keep hearing it on every networking event related to marketing. It seems that it was such a great success that people keep babbling about it. The marketing person of the site decided to tell only 7 people about site they are going to launch. Those 7 people were a big influencers in their area. They were all invited on the website on midnight for a talk. It made World Wide Rave after. Everyone blogged about it and they got enormous popularity in very short time and with a low cost budget.

So how do we find our customers in this recession scenario? First we talk with our existing / old customers and ask what they have been going through. What are those decisions they have to make now? Creating survey over Google Docs doesn’t cost us anything. Why not to see what our customers are doing? Second we look at your concurrents and analyse how they are trying to target customers.

After creating marketing plan you have to do it. Every day think - what have I done today for my business marketing? And even if it is small step, it will move forward your plan.

Think about how to make marketing more engaging. How to get people come back to you? Promising them free quote, documents or prizes? Make your site interactive. Make your business card interactive. Make people talk about you and keep in touch with them.

Gavin Duffys presentation

He was one of the “Dragon’s Den” dragons, so he kept talking about business, but it was so funny. For example, he talked about applications that didn’t went through. One farmer called them and said that he invented rat catcher, because you are always about 3m from some rat. And those rats, they have electrical charge, so when you take them in hand you can be hit by electricity. The “rat catcher” was actually a land mine. Dogs and cats can walk over it, humans can walk over it and there isn’t a problem. But if rat go over it, it goes boom. Hilarious.

Recession is father of innovation. For those who live through recession are more likely to grow multinational that those who don’t. However, setting up business might be very, very lonely. You are alone with all those problems which you have no clue how to solve. This is where enterprise boards and networking is a great help for everyone starting up.

Apparently “Dragon’s Den” might start second season from September or October. So if you are interested go online and try to apply for it. And remember - that investors do not invest in business, they invest on people.

Awards

BoI together with enterprise boards were giving away 5000eur in cash and 5000eur in mentoring & training to one of the applications for Bright Ideas Challenge. There were 4 of them. Each had great idea, very nice business plan and future growth planned.

• Asimil8 is an e-learning venture that provides immerse education for languages and other subjects through virtual world and gaming technology. I was amazed by they idea. It might be quite similar to the MMORPGs such as World of Warcraft but with learning purposes
• iFoods owns and operates the website lookandtaste.com. The website features over 230 professionally produced video recipes raging from scrambled eggs to the daunting soufflé. I actually have to check that website out. It looked very tasty.
• Trezur is an online music recommendations service. It provides listeners with a widely distributed mechanism to find new music. Its recommendation engine combines the best of people-generated and automated musicology analysis to provide listeners with relevant recommendations
• Vellocity Couriers provides an environmentally friendly bicycle courier service within Dublin’s city center. Using specially designed cargo bikes, it carries small to medium loads more quickly, cheaply and with no emissions.

Asimil8 won the first prize, but I didn’t got enough time to take picture. Congratulations!

Would I go to this event next year? Definitely, with my own stand!

One great thing about recession is that people are more willing to do networking. I have heard few people saying that networking doesn’t really help businesses and it is waste of time. I have been networking for last half year and can tell you that people do not know how to do networking. Here is some 10 tips that might help you network better.

1. Do not sell

Everyone fails on this. You go to networking event to meet people, introduce your business to others and learn new things. Remember that each person has around 500 contacts behind him. If this person can’t help your business, it might be that one of his friends are in need of your services. So how about stop selling and start to do some networking.

2. It’s not all about you

The person you talk with is the most important person at that moment. You should try to help him in any possible way by give him advice, your contacts or introducing him to others. Remember the law of reciprocity. If you give something, people feel obligated to give you something back.

3. Make yourself noticable

When I first went to Start Your Own business course and there was lady with small red mini skirts and big red high heel shoes, I thought she is very unusual. But after quite a few networking sessions I noticed that people who network regular keep those touches on. I have seen at least two guys who always keep funny hat on, or girls who wear red clothes. I have a hat and people do recognise me after seeing it only on twitter or LinkedIn.

4. Find the right networking event for you

It’s not true that you go to all networking events and they all will be viable for you. Find the ones that are most suited for your business and do research beforehand. If you have a list of people attending, look up them and decide whom you want to talk with. If there isn’t anyone you want to meet - don’t waste your time and don’t go there.

5. Do talks & presentations

While people are very affraid from talking in front of others, it is almost the only way to introduce yourself to everyone. People will be more at ease to approach you after.

6. Do Follow Ups

There is no point for you going to networking events if you don’t follow up people you met. Don’t sit at office and hope that they gonna call you. Send them e-mail, call them and remind about your talk.

7. Don’t lie

If you don’t remember somebody ask for his name or business card. If you don’t know what person is talking about, ask him. Don’t pretend you know those things. It usually leads to worse case scenarios!

8. Try to talk with everyone

Standing and chatting with one person all evening won’t bring you much opportunities. Go around, talk with everyone and return to persons you are most interested in. I have heard that most best spot for networking is near the food and drink stand. You keep returning there, pour tea for somebody and start talk.

9. Don’t do networking too often

Firstly you won’t have time to follow up with everyone and secondly you will be very tired unless you are super sociable person. I had around 4 networking events last week and I was very, very tired after.

This is your chance to get some business, so go do some networking!