Author Archive

Fluffy Links – Monday June 25th 2012

Monday, June 25th, 2012

Chuggers caught scamming people. Shock horror. Remember that these chuggers are on 15 euros an hour, the company they work for supposedly get up to 300 euros when they sign you up. Greed not bettering the world is the motivation for these charities.

Silence. A film about the lack of sound by Pat Collins.

Via Paul Savage. Removing your email contacts from Facebook.

A real use for these Near Field Communication enabled phones. Real smart tags. Wave your phone over a tag on your bedside locker, sticks phone on silent and sets an alarm.

Scamworld take on Chris Brogan. Gary Crushit next please.

Respect our robotic overlords

Fluffy Links – Saturday June 23rd 2012

Saturday, June 23rd, 2012

I wrote a freewheeling piece for Irish Comic News this week on the idea of routing around traditional gatekeepers, be they banks, media, publishers and son on.

Want to tell a story? The Pixar way is fascinating and useful.

MSc in Marketing Practice. From CIT. Full-time.

What a “hands-on” with a Microsoft Surface really means.

The Crawford Degree Show was on this week. Well worth going to.

Via the IIEA mailing list but not on their website:
Seminar: The Future of News Journalism in an Internet World

Monday, 2 July 2012 at 12.45p.m.

This seminar will draw from the extensive experience of an expert panel including: Noel Curran, Director General of RTE; Kevin O’Sullivan, Editor of the Irish Times; Anne O’Dea, CEO and Editor-in-Chief of Silicon Republic; and Brian Fallon, Director of Distilled Media Ltd. Panelists will reflect on issues such as the response of media institutions to the deepening digital era. This seminar will analyse the changing landscape of news journalism and the challenges facing traditional media from the perspective of the broadcasting, print, and online media.

If Aaron Sorkin could write for Obama

Monday, June 18th, 2012

In his own words:

For instance, you need the wealthiest people to pay higher taxes. Why not frame it as a patriotic sacrifice? Why not say that for generations now, it has been mostly the sons and daughters of working-class families who have fought our wars for us, with many of them paying the ultimate sacrifice? This is a national emergency now, because of what happened in 2008, and we’re going to call on a different group of Americans to make a patriotic sacrifice. We need you, for a certain amount of time, to pay an additional 4 percentage points, to simply go back to the Clinton tax rates. It’s not going to hurt, and we’re all going to appreciate it. Why not sell it that way? I would have suggested that, but there would have been nineteen people in the room smarter than I am. I don’t believe for a second that nobody thought of that—I just believe I’m not smart enough to figure out the reason it wouldn’t work.

Fluffy Links – Saturday June 16th 2012

Saturday, June 16th, 2012

Brian Honan talks about how blogging has helped his company. Good for SEO, great as a form of PR.

Training courses. June 25th and 26th in Cork. Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn. Or via Chambers, doing them in August in Cork.

Sometimes you don’t need VCs for your business. Sometimes you do.

Mobile Monday folks are coming to Cork on July 9th for a lunch time event.

This lunchtime showcase event will showcase a sample of Cork-based businesses (Yougetitback and TransAct Carbon) that deal in the mobile space. We’ll also hear from Barry O’Neill (mobile games) about future trends in mobile and Muirne Laffan about the RTE mobile strategy.

Cork based. Recession Busting Moms are a really fun Facebook Page. Very cute ideas on it. Should be Mams not Moms of course. Bring back Mams!

Having an ATM in your gaff? Love it.

Freezing your jeans? Ok.

Best pitch video I’ve seen:

Fluffy Links – Saturday June 9th 2012

Saturday, June 9th, 2012

More great work from Annie Atkins. We Love You Oakland. See it in Dublin.

Tuneyards, Questlove and more do a single.

This amazes me. How news is coming to us. News via Facebook for this lady. She heard about the floods after a call that told her look at Facebook.

From the famous one of the woman who had cancer but didn’t to more local versions on Twitter in Ireland of building people up on Twitter before the big reveal, the Internet and Twitter in particular seems to have a small number of people that seem to have Munchausen by Internet.

Internet Freedom conference in Dublin. Cory Doctorow will be present. June 18th and 19th.

ITU Young Innovators competition. Open to 18-25. Got an idea that can change the world? Submit it.

Visited RTÉ Digital the other day. Very promising stuff being done by them. The whole org very much getting a digital layer.

Flame Challenge. Explaining science to kids, love this idea.

Play

A Dark Horse – Take Me Home

Sunday, June 3rd, 2012

James from A Dark Horse sent me details of this beautiful song and great video. The reasoning of the video also is:

Basically it’s the stand by me moment of our lives. We’re all just gone 30. So it just fitted in with a song that is about walking your own path but remembering the past. (It’s not a euro song as some have misunderstood, just a timing issue)

Fluffy Links – Saturday June 2nd 2012

Saturday, June 2nd, 2012

Can you get milk for me? Jesus, there’s a web service for that now. I wonder could you get someone to pick something up for you and while they’re out, rob their gaff? Oh right. Someone already made that app too.

Online fraudsters and scammers. Good docu on how they work.

Good post from Josie Fraser about Social Media Guidelines in Education.

Gaydar. Seems science says that some people have it. To me this article maybe suggests that human cognition is still more powerful than DNA tests. Yet we are trying to remove human abilities from science instead of using them to unlock more scientific discoveries.

Nice that a Church says sorry for Christian bigots.

This crowd make some lovely iPad apps for kids.

GMail do new types of ads. Send an ad as an email eh?

Hackney Colliery Band – Under the Bridge

Fluffy Links – Sunday May 27th 2012

Sunday, May 27th, 2012

The Holy Numbers. Tommie Kelly is back and having fun with this comic.

West Cork Development Partnership are doing a series of web workshops. I like the idea of the Responsive Design one.

Love this. All the Twitter accounts for the London Underground routes.

Make things people want rather than make people want your things.

Breaking bread. Nixon McInnes go over the social aspect of business, today and historically.

Guy hides away inside AOL building his startup. Totally ticks the box of every person that wants to build a startup on a shoestring. The truth is somewhere else I would think but that would be boring, right? I expect this story to be reused by some entreprenurial social startup hacker in Ireland in about 5, 4, 3 …

You may have heard of Jonny Ive, the guy that designs all the pretty Apple items. This guy is probably his strongest influence. Dieter Rams. You will know his work.

Social TV. James Whatley has some ideas. I agree. Not enough innovation even when the tech is brand spanking new. Not just about tech, is it.

Via Jim OTR

Punt Nua – Creative Economics

Saturday, May 26th, 2012

I’ve been dragged into an art exhibit called Punt Nua – Creative Economics that’s happening next week in Dublin. The launch is on Tuesday if you want to head along.

PuntNuaInvite

It’s in Darc Space in North Great George’s Street. Facebook invite is here. My “art” of #mulleybucks will be there along with genuine pieces of art too.

MulleyBucksArt2

Can I get tax relief now?

Chugging

Sunday, May 20th, 2012

I was asked to write 350 words on chugging for Le Chéile magazine, which is part of The Wheel. The question asked was: “Should charities use chuggers?”.

Full submitted piece:

If you want to be crass, lazy and think only of the short term for your organisation, I have a suggestion for you. If you want to extract money quickly from people and let a private organisation get handsome fees from you, I have a suggestion for you. If this were the Simpsons I’d start singing about a Monorail about now.

Chugging is the fracking of the charity world. It does get you back something of worth but it is controversial, it angers many people and there can be a poisonous fallout over it. If you want to see how the general public feels about chuggers, do a search on Twitter for the phrase or look at the Twitter account @chuggerwatch (I have no affiliation with them, it’s obvious as they are nice to charities)

When I met an organisation that employed chuggers a few years ago they told me if I can find an easier way to get money as quickly, they’ll do it. Shortcuts have gotten this country and our society into trouble in the long term and the quick buck means chuggers blocking you, making you shake their hand, asking for high-fives or hugging you. It will make you first disliked and in time despised by the general public. Don’t forget the massive data protection issues too as these strangers gather banking details in your name.

The organisation I met told myself and other active Twitter users that they would never employ the tactics of asking for handshakes to stop people. Now they do. As people become immune to the usual chugging tactics, stronger more intrusive tactics are needed. Fracking came from the oil industries that drained mother earth dry. What next for chuggers?

The fallout of an industry ignoring more aggressive chugging is that all organisations may be mistrusted and all forms of on-street collections could end up being banned. Politicians in this country will always use a sledgehammer to crack a nut, it is their nature to over-react. If you want to be the BP of the charity sector, I have a suggestion for you…

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