Archive for the ‘Ireland’ Category

2013 – The year of being outraged

Monday, December 30th, 2013

All of those end of the year articles streaming out of many media orifices towards the end of this month looking at back at what 2013 was. One of them to me was a year of being outraged and Twitter was at the core of it. While that game has always been around on Twitter, 2013 was certainly a peak and media and agitated personal lives definitely contributed.

Some asshole does something assholey and someone that needs to move their frustration out of their head into the public finds themselves being outraged. Just like we have “the Final Number One Single of the Year” now we have the final outrage of the year and it seems to be Justine Sacco. Now of course not only do you read about the outrage and every media outlet both professional and amateur (though these are only labels, not levels these days) telling us all the same story but now they’ve figured out you can analyse this to death as if it was a soccer match. “How did the pigeons in the council estate react Jeff?” See, why go and work for a story when you can just post-match analyse what’s been handed to you via a Tweet?

Screen shot taken from Willow.

FuckGivingEngines

Already linked to this piece by Allen Pike about negativity will always come after you. in another post but worth pointing out here too:

As your audience grows, the chance of any given action triggering criticism asymptotically approaches 100%.

Without doing too pop-psychology about this but it probably says something about the people and the network that people now do Twitter searches to find spoiled kids at Christmas so they can out them. Everyone nowadays wants their Gotcha moment which of course they can share with others for approval. Micro-rewards of replies, Favs and RTs means it will happen again and again.

But it’s not a Twitter thing, hunting like animals to find validation for your own personal issues is wildly encouraged by media outlets. Controversial opinion pieces in the Irish Times are great for generating outrage which are great for generating comments which are great for generating page views. Outrage has always been there, Gerry Ryan, Gay Byrne and Letters to the Editor thrived on that. Now it’s en-masse and automated. Now we have article comments. And your tweets now get featured in print editions of newspapers too. “Here is what an outraged Twitter thinks”, nice reward cycle.

Many media outlets have community janitors to wade through rivers of bile when really, who fucking cares about the opinion of someone in the comments? How does that better the lives of the readers? After all the work editing and sub-editing articles to get the right timbre and message and then some dope says “you smell” in the first comment.

Aside: I actually find it hilarious though that the people who give out about the comments on the likes of the Irish Times wet themselves when their carefully constructed Letter to the Editor gets printed, which probably gets stuck on the fridge.

If you keep reading the comments or worse reply to the comments in some of these spaces, it makes me wonder about you and not the trolls. If you keep following people on responding to bigots on social networks giving sisyphus a run for his money, I wonder about you more than the Twitter fools. I see these people that get outraged and incensed when someone who by their nature will never change says something that they will always say. Don’t agree with a right-wing Catholic, just use the block button. I probably use the block button two or three times a day on Twitter, it makes me a little saner. Try it. I block all those lame-ass meme accounts too. I actually think I have more in my block list than my follow list. You control your stream, have you not heard?

You’ll probably lose friends too but when someone starts a conversation says “Oh my God did you see what David Quinn said” just get in “I don’t care”. Again, makes life a little saner.

Leave a comment if you want, I may delete it but I very probably won’t read it.

The 58 step process for moving the Molly Malone statue

Thursday, November 21st, 2013

From the RPA Tender on this. Fascinating. 58 step process for moving the Molly Malone statue and moving it back.

And the GPS coordinates of all the lamps, lumps and kerbs that need to be moved and moved back in Stephen’s Green.

Somehow reminds me of:

December 2013 mentoring sessions

Sunday, November 17th, 2013

I normally do mentoring sessions with some Enterprise Boards toward the end of the year. They are normally only available through those orgs and client companies get preferences. This year I thought I’d do some public mentoring sessions. One in Dublin and one in Cork. Dublin on December 5th and Cork on December 6th.

Length: A mentoring session will run for 50 minutes.
Cost: Around €45
Location: City Centre of Dublin on the 5th, Cork City Centre on the 6th. (Will email with location beforehand)
Prep Work: Know what questions you want answered and know I can mostly only help during that 50 minutes. Bring a laptop or tablet.

I’m good at giving advice on Digital Marketing, PR stunts and tech startup feedback. Cursing too.

Interested?
You can reserve the Dublin mentoring sessions by clicking here.
You can reserve the Cork mentoring sessions by clicking here.
Then email me with the time you chose.

Please note: I’ll be wearing a Christmas jumper, you don’t have to.

MulleySantaTheFuck

7 words

Tuesday, July 30th, 2013

An idea totally ripped off from NYU’s Journalism School where they ask guests to summarise themselves in 7 words. I asked a few people for their 7 word bios and got great results.

Liz Nolan, lover of chocolate and music, presenter on Lyric FM:

Failed cynic, fusspot mama, insatiably longing for…?

*

Allan Cavanagh caricature artiste:

Drawing faces since hand could clasp pencil.

*

Kathryn Reilly, Sinn Féin Senator:

Ballyjamesduff born and raised. Senator. Nickname: Biddy.

*

Pat Phelan, CEO of Trustev, Corkman:

I solve problems on a global scale.

*

Dylan Collins, man of many tech investments, foodie:

Blows up companies while listening to rap.

*

Rick O’Shea, yer man on the radio, Twitter addict:

Wifey
Books
Kids
Food
Travelling
Vino
Universitychallengemastermindonlyconnect

*

Fiona Kearney, Director of Glucksman, super-awesome Cork person (again):

Curious about this and other worlds. Lover.

*

Annette Clancy, consultant, creative, OIB: original Irish blogger:

Curious, creative about what lurks under the surface

*

Suzy Byrne, and trouble is never far away:

Nosey Feminist passionate about rights and wrongs.

*

Liam Geraghty, documentary guy, hand in everything including puppets:

Wields a radio mic like a lightsaber.

*

Jim Carroll, the original Irish Times blogger that makes lists that infuriate. *ducks*

I ask questions that no-one else asks

of 2012

Monday, December 31st, 2012

Not a list of things as such. Random tab closing for the year.

All of Suzy Byrne’s posts of 2012 were worth reading. Low volume, top content. Like this.

In Digital, I think Kieran Flanagan had the most influence on what I read in digital. Rabbit holes were dived down into from his own content and links to others.

Alan Rice’s gotcha for the Psychic’s live was brilliant.

Broadsheet was a multi-visited place for me daily in 2012. I really expected them to do well at the Web Awards but hey, I only run them and (badly at that according to the accounts).

Jim Carroll had his hand in many pies in 2012 and again sent me on wondrous journeys from his links and the music he played on Phantom.

General Assembly was my favourite new learning model for 2012. Handy stuff that you pay for and respect.

Internationally Daring Fireball and Kottke were about the only feeds I subscribed to. But worth it.

Music. I went back to radio. Maybe it was because I wasn’t at any main computer but many but streaming 2FM, Lyric and Phantom was my 2012 music. With Jim and Pearl gone from Phantom, I stopped listening to them though. And the breakfast show turned into some kind of smashy and nicey post-ironic mess too.

Twitter has become the front and back channel. While media didn’t want to cover stories for monetary (fear of being sued to death) or editorial reasons, Twitter became a distributor of “alternative” content and even when there was self censorship, the DM backchannel was used well to distribute news. Like that of the over-the-top cease and desists from … oh you know who 🙂

Roll on 2013. Odd numbered years are better.

Aer Lingus bringing in WiFi on flights?

Friday, August 3rd, 2012

Aer Lingus are currently running focus groups around Ireland and are asking people would they go for WiFi on flights.

Price:
€20 for a transatlantic/longhaul flight.
€10 for a UK/Europe flight.

They’re also looking at a method of reserving a price on tickets for 24 hours for €5 per person per flight. (Thanks Ralph) Wonder can you do this before a Heineken Cup match?

Edit:
Indo coverage and mention of WiFi on flights.

Fine Gael wins election, Enda wins Taoiseach (according to Google)

Sunday, February 13th, 2011

Using the Google Keyword Tool that shows you search trends it seems that when it comes to searching for party names in Ireland Fine Gael romps home with Sinn Fein and Fianna Fail joint second, Labour Party and Green Party joint third. This data is a few weeks out of sync so will change again right before the election.

IrishElection2011PartySearches1

Of course if we use the more general Labour and Greens searches, this changes the table but that brings in everything from child birth searches to labour court type searches:

IrishElection2011PartySearches2

Leader searches:
Enda Kenny, then Gerry Adams, John Gormley and Eamon Gilmore at same level, then Micheal Martin.

IrishElection2011LeaderSearches1

What about Jedward? They kinda own searches:

IrishElection2011LeaderSearches2

And also being with the elsewhere

Tuesday, October 26th, 2010

This blog post from JP Rangaswami, a conversation with Mark Little about #cementgate and the weird machinations of my brain are the catalysts for this blog post.

David Maybury tweeted one morning (and I was awake for some reason) about a cement truck parking at the gates of the Dáil as some kind of protest. The “pics or it didn’t happen” brigade including myself kicked in. They took his tweets and retweeted them, sent his pics all around the world and even demanded from news outlets like Morning Ireland and Newstalk what they were doing about the incident. I think it was Morning Ireland that started calling it #truckgate and the crowd told them it was #cementgate, we the public found this news and this is how we are calling it. Do keep up. “We” the masses found the news via David, named it and sent it out and they could be part of it like the rest of us. And the news spread around the world, pushed by the scattered Irish. BBC, CNN and the New York Times all covering it eventually. And calling it #cementgate.

In the next few hours the Internet pointed out it was the same truck that was around Galway. That the Gardai had impounded the truck before and they also caught out the liars who said that Gardai had to jump out of the way when the truck rammed the gates. A YouTube video showed the truck slowly drove to the gates and stopped with no cops there to get out of the way.

A couple of days later I bumped into Mark Little in Dublin and chatted about what happened that morning. Mark mentioned that maybe David might never report a story like this again but someone like him will. We all have the tools now to do the same, we have a device with a connection to the Internet. The way I see it, we have a connection to people who are more experienced than us who can direct us to do the right/best thing. Take a picture, do a video, this is how you change a tyre, this is how you address a wasp sting. Give us the raw feed and we can do the rest including fact checking while you point or if you have the experience, you can report. Share group memory, shared experience and someone tapping into it.

As I started writing this post I read JP’s post on social objects and how we are documenting all these things now with phones and web apps. Maybe the positive with these tools is we are becoming more observational of our surroundings at times, because of these tools. That would make a nice photo. Let me check in to this location. Let me ask people on Twitter is there anything to do around here, oooh there’s an amazing hidden café here. Yet there is also the fact that these tools disconnect us, as per this bang on description from William Gibson:

He was elsewhere, the way people were before their screens, his expression that of someone piloting something, looking into a middle distance that had nothing to do with geography

Cementgate truck

To me David Maybury was being there but he was also being with the elsewhere. He saw the truck, heard the sounds, the background noise, the smell of the ozone from the truck post shut-off perhaps and he was on Twitter responding to people, sharing the imagery and being asked about the event. Twitter for me can add another layer of data and insight into an event I’m at. It can lead me down different paths instead of the regular worn ones. So by describing things, like diarying did years ago but in the new multimedia way and connecting people to it, an event or a building can become more colourful and maybe I become a better observer as a result. So does being digitally connected elsewhere make us appreciate here?

Full day on social media in Limerick on October 14th

Friday, October 8th, 2010

€40 for Limerick City Enterprise Board members. €150 for everyone else. You can book it here.

Limerick City Enterprise Board asked me to give you a heads up on the above course that’s on next week. As a member you get the course at a massive discount. Check out the other courses (not done by me) on SEO and LinkedIn too which also come with a big discount.

Mulley in Donegal next week

Friday, October 1st, 2010

Mediabox have booked me to do a “social media” seminar in Donegal on Thursday. And it’ll be with a castle in the backdrop. Glenveagh National Park’s Visitor Centre is where it takes places. Well done to Joanne and crew for putting together the seminar and charging people sfa for it too. Seminar and lunch is €65 and a tour of the castle.

And of course I’ll have to try the food at Harry’s.