I’ll never forget meeting up with Denis O’Mullane, Lisa Murphy & Jonathan Amm in Cafe Gusto. It was indeed a meeting of “unlike minds“.
Last Tuesday, I joined them in the Café that Denis built on Washington Street, downtown Cork City. It was my first meeting with Lisa & Denis. We got together to discuss Cork. I guess we all have vested interests in the future of Cork.
I’d already written my dissatisfaction with the image of this place where I live (and am growing to love). I’m disgruntled you could say. I’m also committed to changing its reputation, so that I can relax and be proud of the place where my child will grow up.
But alone I’m useless.
A solitary voice bleating away into a vacuum. Collaborators matter so much that nothing decent will be done by me without the active co-operation of others. ”Collaborating Cork” – I hope.
The meeting was wonderful: we got on well. We found an shared interest in the future of Cork and all we had to do was buy into the idea of doing our best to transform Cork. All four of us are big networkers; we use Twitter and other tools to link people, to build little communities of like interests. As we chatted about what Cork is like, how difficult many Irish people find collaborating, how lots stay in their silos – a stranger interrupted. She butted in and told us she we collaborating with at least 40 pubs in Cork. She was interested in our conversation. A new link was made. A ball began to roll in my head. I began to sense that the notion of re-branding Cork was a mover.
The next thing that happened was on Twitter. #TransformCork began to be used. You can see a few of the recent tweets here.
I’m going to continue this story here. I’ll add new material when I have time. The most important thing is to do this now. Transform Cork is going to become a movement… Citizen Branding lives…
