Archive for the ‘irishblogs’ Category

Bringing back the blogging mojo

Saturday, August 6th, 2011

I’ve been so busy with work the past year that the blog, what was the number one thing in my life when I was a total saddo, has suffered. Not just the blog though, creativity as such has generally suffered. In the past few weeks I had enough free time to start blogging again but I didn’t really have any grá to do so.

A factor definitely is I’m still in wind down mode but the lack of “creative” writing for months probably has made it harder to start typing nonsense again. The past few months, all typing has been around meetings, scheduling talks and so on so that maybe is what the brain associates with it now.

So how does one get back to writing for fun and getting something out there? There are some cheats or shortcuts that are working for me right now.

A trickle helps
The fluffy links, irregular as they are still at least make me feel less guilty. The body of the blog is still warm, were it dormant for months, I’d probably move on completely. Twitter in a way probably promotes this let the fucker die mentality as the bits you could trickle out on the blog are fine for Twitter.

Mix and match little bits
When I started, a bit like Fluffy Links, I’d link to something and add a comment. I’ve started to do that. A quote from a movie (such as The Killing) and a music video you recently watched. Maybe it doesn’t have you writing profusely but it has you thinking and considering.

Easier bits – Interviews
I’m in the middle of emailing people questions and collating answers about a few topics. Banging out some questions on a topic, sending it to others and soliciting their opinion is easy enough to do. A bit of processing of the data, presentation and packaging and you have good enough content without writing a while tome. When you’re done, you have a reward. A small accomplishment but a good one nonetheless.

Go down that rabbit hole
Finding and learning is a reward. On the Kubrick theme, I watched Barry Lyndon this week and a tune from it was very familiar and I didn’t know why. Why did I know this? The Chieftains, Mná na hÉireann.

And when I Googled that I found out the Christians used it as the backing track to their song “Words”. But it got me looking at music by Seán O Riada which sprung to something else to something else and now a complete and total clatter of topics and ideas are swirling around. That’s how you get new cocktail combinations or new food combinations. By the way, Peanut and Celery soup is beyond divine. Rhubarb gin and tonics are the bomb too.

Get the “inspired” bit in the brain going
I think the part of the brain that does the “ah ha” bits when you are blogging and combining these new things together to make something new (and so fires nice neurochemicals about), is close to or maybe is at the same part of the brain that goes “wow” when experiencing new relevations from a book or documentary. It’s slightly artificial but maybe to get yourself going, you can kickstart things.

With that in mind, I installed the TED iPad app and started watching some random TED lectures, areas I might not be interested in. Algorithms, I despised maths, yet that TED talk was fascinating and all kinds of sci fi esque ideas came to mind from it. They’re gutting buildings in New York to fill with servers to tilt the stockmarket, they’re going to build islands in the middle of oceans to allow software programmes to be more efficient? We are overlords to pieces of math now? Wow. A robot bird that flies like a real bird? Wow again. And off we go writing.

Experience
You can then always log and describe the process that got you to your current destination. Which is what his post is about. Oh look: Log. Weblog. Blog. And all of a sudden you have lots of words and freed lots of different ideas into one space. No matter the grammar or the structure for now. You can get back to that later. Now in the middle of writing that experience you seem to have come up with a few other ideas or tangents that could make it into another few posts.

Done. Not sure am I back as yet but I’ve started.

Billie Jean

Saturday, August 6th, 2011

Billie Jean by Aloe Blacc & The Grand Scheme

The perfect mediocrity

Tuesday, August 2nd, 2011

The Killing:

You have not yet learned that in life you have to be like everyone else. The perfect mediocrity; no better, no worse. Individuality is a monster and it must be strangled in its cradle to make our friends feel confident. You know, I have often thought that gangsters and artists are the same in the eyes of the masses. They are admired and hero-worshipped, but there is always present an underlying wish to see them destroyed at the peak of their glory.

Via Jim

Fluffy Links – July 30th 2011

Saturday, July 30th, 2011

Declan Burke, or as we know him: Declan Burke, has a new book out called Absolute Zero Cool.

Digital subscriptions for the FT are the main growth area for them. Kind of makes sense. Good content seems to get subscriptions.

Aww, kid gets lost at a conference, goes straight to a superhero for help.

Angel Tube station has a thought of the day on their notice board and now it goes online.

A flying unmanned drone that can crack into your wifi or mobile. William Gibson will love it.

A few ways to simplify sign-ups/forms.

Colours – Grouplove

Fluffy Links – Sunday July 10th 2011

Sunday, July 10th, 2011

The network defeats the hierarchy.

Brian O’Driscoll. His brand and how he protects it. Absolutely compelling piece from MKC about BOD’s sponsorships. You again have more respect for the man after reading it.

OnlineAdvertising.ie are giving away 1 Total Google Adwords Account Optimisation every 2 weeks for a limited period.

From the people that brought us Cava in Galway is Aniar. Looks good. Missed out on getting to it the other night.

Percolate. Nice idea to filter links from Twitter etc into easy reading.

Onesheet, the new MySpace, the new SoundCloud?

At last, Blair is blunt about Gordon Brown killing New Labour. We’ll forget the Iraq lies though…

Deaf Dogs trained in sign language.

Fluffy Links – Sunday July 3rd 2011

Sunday, July 3rd, 2011

Róisín Dubh is an original 3-issue comic book series out in Ireland right now.

And on comics. Irish Comic News.

Some great music to check out from Cian Nugent.

I’m fascinated by Amazon, a company that seems very switched on to what they’re doing and have built a lot of new technology to do what needs to be done to push themselves forward. You rarely hear of anyone bar Bezos and Wogels their tech guy but there has to be a whole ship of clever people in there. Here I like this interview with Bezos about trying things out and learning what happens. Thinking ahead 6-7 years as well is fascinating.

Hacking Gamification. Presentation from Kleiner Perkins on Gamification. While the g word is totally abused these days, it’s still worth looking at for all startups.

Colourmusic – Yes

Via Suzy, The Others

“The Others” from Laura Maye on Vimeo.

Fluffy Links – Friday July 1st 2011

Friday, July 1st, 2011

Robot Flaneur. Tune into a city via Google Streetview. Randomly be transported to another part of the city to discover.

Mangina Jones doing two shows in Project Arts next month.

News/media. Flow and stock ideas.

Congrats to Whoseview.ie who got 1.1M visitors in Q2 2011. Hard slog is worth it.

Twitter for newsrooms. Handy resource.

Violent video games are free speech in California. Sex is not.

Vodafone has commissioned the Vodafone Collective @ Live at the Marquee and this video has someone doing a painting, on a model.

IMELDA MAY LIVE AT THE MARQUEE // VODAFONE COLLECTIVE X ISABEAL FERGUS

Fluffy Links – Sunday June 26th 2011

Sunday, June 26th, 2011

Work is calming down in the next two weeks so volume of blog posts should hopefully go way up.

Want to fund an Irish album? Lots of ways to do contribute and you get different rewards depending on what you donate/sponsor.

Nice social media resources from Howard Rheingold.

Amazing, genuine, super positive reviews of Ryanair.

It’s years old (8) but this article on website relaunches/redesigns is worth noting.

Great video on advertising, very relevant still.

F.lux for those on computers too long.

Fusion Family’s : Dr. Sadler

Fluffy Links – Saturday June 4th 2011

Saturday, June 4th, 2011

Calendar.ie, a site with the list of public holidays for Ireland (and a printable calendar).

Crawford College of Art multimedia final year multimedia and visual communication students have an exhibition starting June 10th. Hope the website isn’t a testimony to their skills.

IGNITE (in UCC) is a free 9 month business incubation programme which has been designed specifically for graduates who wish to set up new businesses and turn innovative ideas into new products and services. Applications are now open from graduates of any discipline, from any 3rd Level Institution for IGNITE – beginning in October 2011. Information evening is on June 13th.

CruiseCamp 2011 is a go.

CruiseCamp is a fun and informal business networking event with a difference. Setting sail on the fabulous Moonriver Pleasure Cruiser at 7pm from the bridge in Carrick on Shannon you will meet business owners from around Ireland while cruising on the river Shannon

Bus Éireann are sponsoring Alan Bennett to travel around the country on Bus Éireann services to events, gigs and festivals and report on them. Blog here.

How NOT to recruit an independent IT contractor.

Yes please. Weyland-Yutani T-Shirt

Ai Weiwei portrait projected on to Chinese Consulate.

All watched over by Machines of Loving Grace, the docu from Adam Curtis is high on smug and low on data but the music is great, here’s one track:

Pizzicato Five – Baby Love Child

Fluffy Links – Sunday May 22nd 2011

Sunday, May 22nd, 2011

Want to get rid of the kids this Summer? For a while anyway. Kidscamps is a national listing of camps for children during school holidays.

Prosperity’s 2011 Digital Salary & Employment Survey is out. Nice to see some folks making 130k a year in the digital space in Ireland.

Saw a review of this on The View the other night. “Iron”, by ‘one of Scotland’s brightest dramatists’ (The Times) is a psychological thriller about a woman, serving life for murdering her husband. Running in the what used to be The Lighthouse cinema. It’s a very very long play I’m told though.

Tonnes of deal websites in Ireland now. Get them all on one page with DealPage.

Learning from what works with waitresses for tips. Standing really close or being cold, both seem to work.

Really like The Index, the blog by Laura Slattery on the Irish Times website.

All Watched over By Machines of Loving Grace. New Adam Curtis BBC series on why we’re zombies run by computers.

The Album Leaf – Over The Pond