Damien Mulley

FOI’d Visit Dublin which is part of Fáilte Ireland. Remember that Loving Dublin thing in the Bord Gais Energy Theatre? Did you know they got €5k ex VAT from Failte Ireland as it encouraged people from the UK to travel to Ireland? Now you do. The money was to help in “Repositioning Dublin as a cool, contemporary, edgy city break destination”

Good news too. They expect 10k people (lots from the UK) in 2015 and 15k in 2016. Hmm, people from the UK coming over in 2016. Great!

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I asked Failte Ireland too if “communications between Fáilte Ireland and employees of LovinDublin on content/editorial decisions of
LovinDublin” and they said they didn’t contact them with any issues about their content. Maybe people from the UK will Love content like this? It’s “edgy” alright.

I’ve been doing these Ones to Watch now for 8+ years. This is my 9th “Ones to watch”. This is the 2014 one. Good to see it’s something worth copying.

2013 ones to watch. 2012, 2011, 2010, 2009 2008, 2007.

My ones to watch are entirely subjective, they’re based on people I know or know of, these people are mostly Irish or they have a link to Ireland that’s weaker than the criteria to play for our soccer team. I do not link to people hoping I’ll get gratitude from them or get links, retweets or future business from them.

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Marie Duffy was featured in these Ones to watch about two years ago. In 2014 she has been directly affected by mental health issues and she wrote about it from hospital. This felt like watching storm coverage on TV and the person in the middle of the storm pausing the scene and talking directly to you, explaining what’s going on. I worked with Marie when I was on the board of Spunout and am really proud of everything she’s done and will do. If there’s one new thing you’d like to read as 2015 starts, read this short piece from her. “Can you guarantee your safety?”

In no particular oder, here are some people to check out and see what they’re up to in 2015.

Matthew Mulligan
Deputy Editor of tn2 Magazine and Editor-at-Large of Trinity News for the 2013//2014. This is his LinkedIn. A very boring place for someone that is not. I first encountered Matthew from various tweets to his writing and retweets of his commentary. A very talented writer who I hope to read more from in 2015. His Twitter, far more interesting than LinkedIn.

Jane Ruffino
Well there’s someone that won’t shut up. Won’t be quiet when some bro has his mansplaining to share with the world. Won’t play the game of “all is well in techland” as everyone feeds from the trough. Good. I’m glad Jane has her weekly slot/shot in the Business Post. You should read it. This is her site. This is her Twitter. She did archaeology, she knows how to dig up the stuff that other people buried. Oh my, isn’t that clever writing from me? Punarific. Jane is also the token woman on the list so I can now go back to talking up the menz, right? All of the menz.

Mark Coughlan
Good journalists weave. They take various threads and bring them together and give you a tapestry. Weaving. Mark has put in the time to craft his skill, put himself out there and worked hard which has made him skilled. It wasn’t family dynasties that got him to now. In 2015 though they’re going to replace that pen in his hand with a swankier one.

Vicki O’Callaghan
I’m sure she’ll get awkward reading this. Vicki is a digital champion for Landmark Digital who look after all the digital properties of the Examiner. What’s great about Vickie is there’s no being able to bullshit her on anything digital. Same goes for a few others in there. The Examiner publications have seen major changes in the past few years and their digital offerings have been doing really well in 2014. I’m not privvy to the way the Examiner works but 2014 seemed to be a year of things settling down with debts, layoffs and office moves so given some good enough digital gains in 2014, I think 2015 will be very interesting for the Examiner group and it will be worth seeing what Vicki and her colleagues will be doing. Plus you know, Cork bias from me.

Mat Morrison
Mat’s Irish now. He’s stayed in Dublin at least three times. So yeah. Mat has spoken at the Measurement.ie conferences from the very start and made them successful as a result too. He’s finished up in his last gig and is off now, wandering the land like an episode of Kung Fu. 2015 ought to be very interesting for this very insightful chap. His blog.

Ciara King
Yer wanno from Chris and Ciara on 2FM. If she doesn’t kill him, their show is going to grow in 2015 and you may see them get more attention for the work they do. Ciara’s youth diary entries are a recently uncovered gem. Even if she did kill him, she’d get out in a few years anyway and can resume what she does. Ciara King on Twitter.

Aoife Clarke
Aoife and Caitriona and the other Lidl comms staff seem to be always on social media looking after their brand. Lidl did well in the 2014 Social Media Awards and it’s because of an in-house team that obviously like what they’re doing. For such a massive brand, the Lidl comms are a bit of fun. Looking forward to what happens in 2015 with whatever Team Lidl will be doing.

Deborah Maguire
Deborah is the bosslady of Irish Made Gifts, a growing company in Cork that sources well produced Irish crafts and sells on behalf of producers. One of the ways to pay attention to a company, technology or person is having three different sources come to you talking about the company/person and I experienced that a few times in 2014 with Deborah.

Jim Carroll
The Banter Boy. Jim has been piloting Banter for a good few years and it’s expanding out and out each year too. It’s almost, but thankfully not fully become “the establishment”. And when other outlets report on what happens at them, good stuff is happening. Again, not privvy to his plans but with Banter, Agility HQ, that Irish Times gig and other bits n baubles, 2015 could prove very interesting. New shirt for those bigger arms or something.

2013 ones to watch. 2012, 2011, 2010, 2009 2008, 2007.

Barry Hand
I’ve known Barry from the days of Boards, then Digiweb, then LastMinute and now GrabOne. Barry is one of only a few that I feel is better at digital marketing and planning than me. (That’s not an ego thing, much). I’ve attended talks and workshops that he’s given and always come out of it richer with knowledge, which is why I’m always nagging him to do courses for my clients. His constant strive for bettering himself and more knowledge is admirable and something I want to do but rarely get round to. 2014 by just probability is going to be a good year for Barry.

Dylan Varian
Dylan has been doing the business thing since 17, has worked for himself and worked for Trustev. If you have that much experience before 20 and you stick with it, you’re going to do well. Or maybe totally burn out and run a small scented candles store near a surfing and tourism spot.

Niall Smart, Cormac Driver
They’re at it again. More Irish Y-Combinator alumni. Sold their last company to Real Networks. Now both doing different things but in New York. Cormac is head of product at Temboo which is an SDK that gives you access to 100+ APIs. The Internet of Everything goes their pitch. A perfect platform to create your own web app. Be interesting to see how this tool kit fast tracks a lot of new tech startups.

Niall is now CTO in Hightower and they just landed $2.1 million in investment and are bringing realtors to the 21st century with their software. This should be a fun space to watch.

Christian Ryder
In fairness I was a mentor to Christian so I know his business quite well. Christian’s company Fonesense is now in the Wayra incubation programme and they’re getting some great meetings with some very nice companies. You can tell they’re going places when Government Ministers want in on their success. Selfie with Bruton in 5, 4, 3 … And like the lads above, Christian already has had previous success with the Cabbage texting app for Android.

Laura Gaynor
Laura is from the Spunout world and has a talent for getting her videos on to Broadsheet.

Only barely done the Leaving, that she wrote about for the Indo and she’s out in IADT now doing what she’s good at: videos. Wait a few years and see what she’ll be directing.

Lastly, going back to two I’ve featured before but a revisit is always worth it.

Alexia Golez
Alexia is now working for Trustev (that’s two Trustevees on the list this year) and featured on the list in 2011, so not that long ago. She’s not been in Trustev that long so her impact and the impact of a startup culture on her should make 2014 interesting for them both.

Dena Walker
Dena is back in Ireland, maybe back for good. Featured in Ones to Watch 2010 edition. Herself and Barry Hand are the book ends of this post. Two people in Digital Marketing who understand marketing/digital strategy better than me and most people. Thank god there’s a voice that calls bullshit in an industry that rewards bullshit. No, I meant the marketing industry, not green tech.