Damien Mulley

Update:This was meant to go out on Monday. I really need to get my dates right! Anyways, it’s out so might as well keep it out.

Well, in return for equity or delayed payments. So when we were in the Valley (and his readers go “Oh Christ, here we go again”) some of the advice we got was too be as frugal as possible and that in the Valley some lawyers and accountants would often provide their very important services to you in return for equity. Lots of gamblers over there too and I think everyone is good at spotting potential riches if they team with certain people.

With property tanking and lots of talk of it there might be a lot of empty property in 2008. Property owners and estate agents might have to work that extra bit harder to get buyers and tenants in. Maybe instead of the apple tart in the oven trick that they use in houses, they could have a few energetic companies in what otherwise might be an empty building. The buzz from these companies might encourage everyone else to move into that building. Maybe this will encourage more property developers to build co-working facilities and incubation centres? With everything else being equal of course, it will then come down to other marketing techniques.

Then there’s the idea that developers/owners might enjoy the highs and the gambles of the old property market and might ant to try their hand at investing. I mentioned it already in this post of predictions and you never know.

Web2Ireland, PaddysValley, OpenCoffee, BarCamp Ireland, PodCamp, TechLudd, Ireland Inc., Startup Ireland, whatevernext? Too many yet not enough. All great ideas and all will make Ireland better. But…

Despite all the groups and all their aspirations it’s the same ding dong at the end of the day: There are a core number of people that shut up and do and far too many that talk and do no more and then bitch and whine when they don’t like what they are being spoonfed. Look at the overlap with all of these groups above. No, not with those that attend their events but those that do any kind of work organising them or even help out in a small way. The numbers are tiny. They barely increase year on year. I said the same about the same old faces at BarCamps. It’s time to get out and push.

I’ve put my time into the BarCamps and the PaddysValleys, broke my arse for Paddy’s Valley (at a time when I never realised it but I was seriously ill) and so now my lot is done. I’m retired until such a time as all the talkers start becoming doers. No I won’t join your group as it means me getting fed up with inaction and doing the heavy lifting, no I won’t spend hours on conference calls giving up my time for the benefit of others who don’t have time to organise their own stuff. Get out and push.

I think it’s time that people gave back without having to be asked. I’m also starting to think that those that do the work til now maybe have to start being more strict with their generosity because it seems the Joe Drumgooles, the Conor O’Neills, the Fergus Burns’, the Ken McGuires, the Keith Bohannas, the Paul Walshs, the Elly Parkers, the James Corbetts etc. are spoiling people here by always coming forward and are almost expected to do all the work. However I also think anyone that stands up and wants to do something either via an existing group or a new one should be encouraged and let them talk less and do something. So yeah, get out and push and maybe let the others rest for a while.

And how do you get out and push?
You can start in the morning by signing up to the next BarCamp to give a talk or to volunteer a worthwhile chunk of your time to the organisation of it. You can start your own BarCamp anywhere. You can do it without demoing your product or talking up your companies services. Maybe take the ShareIT idea I started and do one for your local area. Why not contact your local Enterprise Board and offer to give a free talk at one of their events? Why not actually use an OpenCoffee event (Which you can start locally) to give a quick tutorial on something. Or the list at the start of the post has groups that all need volunteers and people that do. Join one and get out and push. Don’t have the time, neither do any of the people I mentioned but they make time. Get out and push.

Finally getting around to thank Salim Ismail for his help during Paddy’s Valley. There’s going the extra mile and there’s running a marathon. Salim showed us around Yahoo! Brickhouse on one of the days and they showed off upcoming projects some of which are still in stealth I believe. Then introduced Jerry Yang to the group. As you do. The next day we got a tour of the Yahoo! Sunnyvale campus and some of the lads gave a micro-pitch to one of the main acquisition guys for Yahoo! Beat that! Salim also turned up for some of the pitch evening on the Tuesday night and drove up to Palo Alto to hang out with us one evening. In a culture of being friendly and transparent and welcoming travelers, Salim went much much further. He’s a really decent guy for helping us so much and I think Brickhouse really chose well when headhunting Salim. The next time himself and his colleagues come to Ireland there’ll be a lot of kegs emptied. Hooray, another post that was in draft for weeks and is now done!

Update: He’s going to be coming to Cork on March 2nd.