Here are some of the photographs I took today at Ummera.   They tell a story – at least I hope they do… [Full set on Flickr]

Twitter introduced me to LikeMinds2010. @drewellis just asked me “What did you think? We want to improve things for our online audience.” I began my response, but it was too hard to do justice to Like Minds via Twitter.

My first impressions of Like Minds:

(1) I found out about Like Minds by accident, at the last minute.  This meant I was always playing catch-up. I already had plans for how I was going to spend Friday & Saturday. Meant I tuned into Exeter while strolling through the streets of Cork.  I was tuning in and doing research at the same time.  Exciting and frustrating.

(2) My first contacts with Like Minds was via #likeminds. Hash tag contact: I could look at the stream of tweets from people travelling to Exeter from USA, London, even Bristol. This got me into the mood. I started following a few people.  Why did I pick those particular individuals? Probably because there seemed to be a mixure of information and personal stuff in their tweets. I was curious to find out whether these new media heads would be friendly to outsiders.

(3) The amount of background stuff was awesome. The Like Minds website and live streaming resources were so impressive.  I began to treat Like Minds as a case study in cutting edge use of media. With very little information, I imagined, empathised, fantasisied… I decided I would treat Like Minds 2010 as a case study in my education.

(4) I realised gradually there were many layers to Like Minds. This was not simply a conference: it was some sort of movement. It was also a partnership between commercial heads (big brands and marketing companies) and non-for-profit people.  Public and private sector.  And there seemed to be a fundraising for good causes element.  Like Minds got more and more interesting the more I found out.  And I was able to suss all this out while rushing round the streets of Cork, doing my normal business.

(5) A few people contacted me via Twitter. They seemed perfectly normal enthusiasts. I felt I would have been among some of my own kind if I was in Exeter.  I’m puzzled: why Exeter?  There is a story here.  I’m the kind of person who’s most interested in the behind-the-front warts-and-all story.  The biography of Like Minds is somewhere waiting to be written. I now realise that LikeMinds2010 has a history and context.  It’s an event in a story that began in the past and intends to change the future.

(6) Better declare an interest: I spent the best years of my life in UK. 30 years 1975-2005.  I love the place.  I have reasons for coming back to Ireland.  But I still love so much about UK that I come over all nostalgic, almost tearful whenever I dwell on how much I miss places like Devon.  I’m attracted by Like Minds because it might give me an excuse to pop over (hopefully on Ferry Julia from Cork to Swansea).

Enough @drewellis… you have opened up a floodgate…  My readers won’t all share my passion for new media, media people and building communities of conversation. I have a meeting with Mary Corbett, Life Coach, in Radisson Hotel in 45 minutes.  But thank you so much for tweeting me back.  I would love to stay in touch with you.

I’m always on the look-out for the next big thing.  Suppose I’m one of those horizon watchers.  That’s how I picked up intelligence about a gathering of new media heads in Exeter.

@chrisbrogan tweeted to say he was on a plane to London.  I wondered if that at London Ontario Canada or London England? That was how I found out Chris was on a plane crossing the Atlantic. I assumed he’d be going to London.  Great surprise to find it was Exeter.

If Chris Brogan from USA was in Europe, who would he be talking to? What’s up? That sort of curiosity led me to Like Minds 2010 via #linkminds on Twitter. I started following that hashtag, and sent a few tweets to others on their way to the conference. It was only after I’d latched on to an individual I trusted that I bothered to find out who was sponsoring the conference.

Isn’t this the way the world works these days?  You begin with someone you trust. You follow them. You grow your world through a pathway of strangers…

Which brings me to the photographs of Paul Clarke.  Yesterday morning, he tweeted a link to his opening shots.  A Flickr set is here. I wanted a feel of what was going on in Exeter, some images, more than words.  Tweeting Paul I was able to open a line of communications. We discussed copyright and creative commons. Paul kindly made his photos available for me to show them to you.

The un-conference is over now.  But it’s given me plenty to think about.

2.0 Prodution did the video work to support the event… @rokkster highlighted their role.

I was also in touch with @robertpickstone, @sarknight, @jeremygould

BNI has been one of my marketing campaigns. I’m not yet a member, but I’ve been honoured to sub for a number of businesses. The meetings in BNI CorkCity Chapter & Cork Phoenix Chapter have been at either 0645 or 1200 in Ambassador Hotel & Jury’s Hotel Cork.

I love the opportunity this gives me to practise the skill of presenting to a room full of business networkers.

The format includes each person making a one-minute presentation in which they get across their business & referrals they’d like others to get for them. Read Ivan Misner if you’d like to know more about BNI and business marketing.

Last Friday, I represented Paul O’Neill form Corcoran Catering Equipment Services.

Paul Allen Automotif Tyre & Service Centre made a presentation that was different. He wrote and read out a poem that told a story about his business. He got great applause for his enterprise: not everyone makes such an effort to make a memorable impression. I went straight up to Paul and asked him if I could publish his poem here. He generously agreed.

I should declare an interest. AutoMotif serviced my car recently. I also bought tyres from them. I was very impressed, but that’s another story… Here’s the poem:

“I was just popping
To the village for shopping
I took my wife’s car
As it wasn’t too far
Little runts in tow
I thought I’d drive slow.

But as I drove along
All singing a song
I heard a big bang
It was a pothole that sang
And then for flips sake
Daddy step on the brake

So I pushed on the pedal
And heard only metal
For they squealed and tore
Yes, the brakes were all wore
I then got the skids
And I feared for the kids

For the tyres were dead
Flip, they must have no thread
Then I got nervous
When was the last service?
The steering was swaying
Time to start praying

For I saw the big truck
And thought oh holy Flip
Next was, the bang on my head
I’d fallen out of the fu king size bed

Then on my face, there did come all the smiles
The car’s been to Automotif, and is good for ten thousand miles.”
AUTOMOTIF TYRE & SERVICE CENTRE
Where your little ditty
Will not be a pity

Now, isn’t that a fine piece of advertising!
Well worth sharing?

I’ve recently written a great pitch for work with a potential new client.

The problem was I didn’t know the client personally.
I had no rapport to begin with.  It was like pitching into the abyss. The client didn’t even ask for the pitch.  I simply made my own assessment of the client’s business interest, and pitched to that.

It’s been a disaster.
Complete failure to get past square one.  The ‘client’ rejected the proposal without seeming to consider it in detail.  Judging by the email reply I got, I hadn’t even communicated the key feature of the proposal.  I don’t think I’ve ever bombed so badly – not even a chink of light left open for a follow-up face-to-face discussion. And we didn’t even get around to discussing how much the proposed work would cost the client.

I’m incredibly disappointed.
I so wanted to do the work.  It was one of the best projects I’ve ever designed.

However, there is a good side.
The design is inspired: the  template can be used with another client – when the rapport is there.  The project was conceived with a collaborator: we have had the experience of working up the proposal together on Google Wave.  We are much more ready to pitch other proposals to others.  The work of thinking, talking-over & drafting the proposal was quick: not a lot of time has been invested.  What we invested were our professional skills.  Life goes on…

I got this blogpost out of it…
Turning adversity to advantage is one of my strongest traits, thank goodness.

Sometimes a blog post gets to me.  it  creeps under my guard and impresses me so much I feel like commenting.  When there are already comments there, I feel I’m joining in a conversation…

Here’s the blog that set me off… “Fire Your Director of Social Media” by Paul Dunay.  Paul interviewed Brian Wallace VP of Digital Marketing and Media for RIM.  This is what I said in my comment.

“Greetings to you all from Cork Ireland, where I’m considering all your points.

I found you via Twitter, but while reading your post and comments my tweetstream moved on, and I can’t remember who gave me the link. [Isn't that the world we live in! Ideas, inspirations fly in for somewhere, and you easily lose track of where they began.]

The word that came to me was “Catalyst” – certainly not “co-ordinator”. I found the view that “it’s also good to have that one person who mulls through everyone’s content and lightly sculpts it into the company’s trademark voice” wonderful. Horrific really. No way could you do anything valuable by developing such a voice, I’d say.

What’s needed …
… I submit is diverse voices, a multitude of voices, all of which smell different – as if they truly came from individuals. The crowd outside your organisation is suspicious. We expect bull. We expect your company voice to lie, over-promise, under-deliver. Our starting point is scepticism. You have your work cut out to grow a garden of flowering voices within the business. But it’s worth striving for.

I suggest…
… you’ll have a hard time if you stay within the notion of developing within. It’s in the meeting of the internal folk with external customers, stakeholders, suppliers, and lurkers that hope lies. Use the outsiders to develop your insiders. Cultivate the external as much as you cultivate the internal staff for all departments.

Enough. Never meant to go on and on. Probably repeating myself. But thanks. It’s fun to be sparked off.”

This experience fits into a project I’m working on.  So it was good to clarify a few thoughts.  What do you think?

I was sitting in Douglas Shopping Centre today, drinking coffee with a friend.

Along passed Philip Carter, whom I knew from BNI.  He joined us and told us all about his new business.  It’s a water business which is running in Galway.

The details grabbed my attention.  I was ever  so impressed.

“Tell me Philip, all this stuff you’re  telling us, is it written down?  Have you a written record of all this business development for future reference?”

Pause…  ”Or is it all in your head?”

It turned out Philip was carrying round all that business intelligence in his head.  I have a disastrous memory.  I write everything down.  I can’t trust my memory, so  I outsource it to my Moleskine Notebook.

“Have you a mobile phone with an audio recorder on it?  How about dumping the story on to your phone, in bits, so that it isn’t lost? You don’t have to write it up – you’d have it safe for someone like me to turn it into valuable writing for your business.”

The penny dropped.

Very few entrepreneurs are writers.  Their skill is inventing, pulling businesses into existence, and making them work.  Writing is a different skill.  But every business needs writers.  Writers need material to turn into valuable content.

So how about recording your work, your business history, on your mobile phone?  A skilled writer could then turn your voice recording into an impressive document for you to use on your website, blog, Facebook page.  Efficient eh?

I’ve often wished business leaders would come out with their ideas in public.

Many of those who’ve made it to the top of organisations are very talented thinkers.  They’re not simply organisational twisters who reached the top. They could be thought leaders outside their business.

It’s not as if we have too much good thinking…

Michael O’Leary, RyanAir, is in the news today.  Of course he is an incredibly successful publicist.  He’s also showing the power of business people to think ahead.  Lots of business leaders simply support all the political parties in order to keep lines of communication open.

I’d like to see more active engagement by them in public debate.

Today I looked at a website from a company selling technical services.

Found this phrase “… you need to improve your companies services…” I went to see my business coach to recover.

She said “think about the people who won’t see the mistake.” To which I said “Yes, and only do business that part of the market!  Who would buy a high-spec engineering service from a company that made such a spelling mistake?”

One of the problems with websites is that people focus on getting on to the front page of Google Search.  Search Engine Optimisation (SEO) is not the right place to start.  Better to remain un-found until your website is right.

If you are on page one, and have your fly open, you would be better on page 161.

[PS: you can find Trevor Coultart's image here

http://www.flickr.com/photos/coultart/3746701667/ and his blog here http://trevorcoultart.wordpress.com/]

I ran a seminar this morning.
About 12 students, all dancers.  This was the second in a series of seminars broadly about how to market yourself. This blog post is in response to a request by Galadrielle Heinrich (Ireland France Chamber of Commerce) for info on what I covered during the seminar.

My purpose was to help students by raising a number of issues:

(1) what kind of a world are you preparing for?

(2) what will the audience of the future be like?

(3) what will the performing artist of the future do to market themselves?

I wrote no presentation.
I prepared for a conversation with the students. The special resources I used were websites, blogs and Twitter. The session lasted 50  minutes. I thought of recording it on my iPhone but, in the excitement of the moment, forgot that intention.

At the end of the seminar the students asked for a part 2 on how to open up your presence, how to begin presenting your brand via social media. That’s now scheduled for next week.

I recommended Chris Brogan.   “Trust Agents” by Chris Brogan & Julian Smith influenced how I shared my view of the world.  “We live in an age characterised by mistrust”, I suggested.  This is a positive development, one of the result of mass education, I said.  By the body language of the dancers, they too were sceptical of traditional advertising hype, and broadcasting.  I think I encouraged them to check @chrisbrogan on Twitter.

It emerged that most had Facebook but no one had Twitter.

The best part of the seminar…
…I think, was the case study of what you could do if you were looking to hire an unusual dancer.  I’ll add that into this post soon.

(to be continued)