via Dylan. DuckDuckGo. A new search engine that is the total opposite to Google and Facebook when it comes to logging data. It doesn’t at all. The anti-filterbubble.
Are Universities (the places that are good at learning) any good at social media and all that lark? No.
Do you b***h and moan about the Late Late on Twitter? Seems they see it as helping their ratings. Interview with their exec producer. Viewer numbers should be compared more to the population growth though.
EI want to fund you up to 50k. Terms and conditions apply. Seems sending in “I’m Damien Mulley” is not enough detail in an application for money.
Watched this documentary about the Eames (blocks anyone outside of US from watching unless you have a proxy). It’s fascinating and inspiring. A 90 year old architect in it describes being “really f**ked off” when desert at one of their dinners was a few vases of real flowers and it was a visual desert. It’s hilarious. The architect is Kevin Roche, Irish born, Cork reared and went to the States and designed the UN Plaza amongst many other things. And he has a book out.
Getting Things Done. The philosophy. Want to sort your inbox and your business/personal life? The methodologies from GTD and other areas to calm the noise and get quality work done is being taught by Keith Bohanna on February 7th. Full details. Tickets. 15% discount for code: choochoo15
The hand is the cutting edge of the mind. Civilization is not a collection of finished artefacts, it is the elaboration of processes. In the end, the march of man is the refinement of the hand in action. The most powerful drive in the ascent of man is his pleasure in his own skill. He loves to do what he does well and, having done it well, he loves to do it better. You see it in his science. You see it in the magnificence with which he carves and builds, the loving care, the gaiety, the effrontery. The monuments are supposed to commemorate kings and religions, heroes, dogmas, but in the end the man they commemorate is the builder.
That quote is from about minute 42 of the below. The whole video is worth watching and the whole of the series too.
The usual excuse I’m using in recent years gets another outing. i just don’t have the time to meet as many people and read and keep up with what people are doing. So this list is, like others before it, one done with a very blinkered take as only what I see, can I view.
Des Traynor
Des of Contrast and Intercom.io has over the space of the past few years gone from the amazing user interface expert everyone was advised to talk to, to the guy that shares so much about building amazing web products. Des has a quiet confidence when sharing knowledge that’s sustained through the years and has now turned into wisdom, something that only time can do. Given the rapid appreciation of Intercom.io by people, it’s only a matter of time before investing in Des will give you a nice return on that investment.
Martha Rotter and Stewart Curry Martha and Stewart are working on Idea magazine at the moment and I expect 2012 to see them fleshing their work on this out to more places. The idea of write only once, publishing to lots of places is ancient in terms of the web but the actualisation of this idea isn’t properly happening yet. Hopefully their collaborations on this will bring this more to life in 2012. Martha also featured before.
Dylan Collins
I know Dylan Collins a few years at this stage and he’s someone I respect and admire. Actually, a line like that is normally an excuse to initiate a personal attack on someone. When you talk to Dylan or just listen to him talk you realise that he has a way of viewing things that allows him to see patterns and movements in things that if he gets involved he can change and accentuate. A fascinating quality and one that has allowed him to have an obscenely successful track record. Dylan has been working with other companies in 2011 but for someone with his personality structure he’ll need to be working on his own projects in 2012.
Enda Crowley
I know Enda since he was a kid. So that’s like 3 months or something. Enda has wanted to be in a start-up for a long while like so many others but changing colleges, working with some gifted people and persistance might see 2012 being a good year for him and his very bright co-workers. There are plenty of people circling around young programmers hoping they can feed off them but if they keep their heads down, don’t resort to doing press to talk about how awesome they are and release a product, there’s great potential. Then they can do the celebrity young tech startup media circuit…
Willie White
I know Willie White via Project Arts. You need to sit down and have a cigarette after talking to Willie. Multi-layered, full deep conversations are the norm. A whole history of art and creativity in each sentence. With Alexia and Willie, we worked on the Dublin Tweasure Hunt which was a nice bit of fun. Willie is now the big kahuna burger for the Dublin Threatre Festival so I expect he’ll have even more people to reply to my emails with “As per the court order Mr. Mulley”. If the work he and his crew did to help new artists is anything to go by then the 2012 Theatre festival will be great. More tech involvement Willie!
Adrian Weckler Adrian is now Digital Editor/Assistant Editor in the Sunday Business Post and piloted the new website, paywall and lots of digital conversion work in the past few months for the Business Post. The Sunday Business Post may well be the first Sunday to go digital-only if the rumours are to be believed. Adrian is going to be the head man for this change given he’s Mr. Internet in there. Maybe this is why he’s rocking a rockstar haircut these days?
Gina Bowes
I first met Gina via her work in eircom in the social media team there. In a world of corporate bullshit it was refreshing to hear someone directly call something bullshit and lots of other reality based words. Gina is already a star, a clever and hard worker who has moved on now to help other brands in the area of social media. 2012 should definitely be her year and let’s see what she can blow up/change.
David Scanlon
I could link to all the posts that show I’m not a fan of Enterprise Ireland but I’m sure we’re all sick of that bleating. EI has changed quite a bit in the past few years from the way they communicate to the way they are changing to what marketplaces want. The change from middleware or bust to cloud and games was in fact a screeching lurch more than a glacial pace but changes finally happened and lots of changes are still to come. EI are now actually a model for semi-state usage of social media and even they can whack their client companies on the head as they are walking the walk. One of the people in there doing this is David Scanlon and David and his colleagues are bringing people together, external and internal people and showing the positive outcomes of using online media. 2011 has been a year where EI got deserved attention for their work and i would think the efforts in 2011 will pay off even more in 2012.
A lunch will be held in Chapter One on Monday 30th January 2012. Executive chef Ross Lewis, who cooked for the Queen on her recent visit to Ireland is holding this lunch and all proceeds will come to Barretsown. Tickets are limited, and are priced at 100 per person to include food and wine. Bookings can be made by contacting info@chapteronerestaurant.com
Monster list from Robin Blandford on areas of data analytics that real companies have real issues with. A whole industry of data play right there for you. Data wizards will be massively valuable in companies in the next few years.
I like this from Marc Andreessen about online shopping, up to now it’s been very clinical and now at all like the social experience of shopping in a shopping centre or city centre. How do you change that?
The new generation of e-tailers are much more appealing to normal people–people who like to go the mall, have fun with their friends and try on clothes and compare clothes, and go home and brag to their roommate what they got on sale, and all the rest of it. A lot of new startups are not only very viable but also growing very fast because they provide a very different experience.
This ain’t going to help websites at all. Encrypted search results on increase, means a website doesn’t know how they were found…
Speakers at the 2012 conference include Leena Gade, Chief Racing & Test Engineer with Audi Sports, Ward Van Duffel, Managing Director of LEGO Education Europe Ltd, Tony Hill,Director of the Manchester Museum of Industry & Science … keynote speaker is Carol Lynn Parente, Producer of Sesame Street. The winner of 11 Emmy Awards, Carol Lynn Parente will be talking about Sesame Street’s work to bring STEM education to its young audience.
Record sales of violent video games very worrying Mitchell O Connor
Fine Gael TD for Dun Laoghaire/Rathdown, Mary Mitchell OConnor, has today described reports of records sales of the new Call of Duty video game in the lead up to Christmas as very worrying.
In a week that saw needless bloodshed, both at home and abroad, the high sales figures of this violent video game are very concerning. Sales are estimated to have generated 1 billion in just 16 days. It is being lauded as the fastest selling entertainment product of all time, ahead of films such as the Harry Potter movies and Avatar.
I really fear we are entering an age where such violence will be commonplace. Undoubtedly, society has become desensitized to acts of violence. There are a number of reasons for this, but violent video games certainly play a part. Life is precious and such games present people as obstacles and violent acts as having no consequence. Over exposure to such violence, be it in video games or otherwise, can distort reality.
Having worked as a teacher and as a principal, I am aware of how impressionable some young adults can be and I think it is really important that rules governing the sale of such games are enforced. I also think it is important that parents are mindful of buying adult games in situations where younger children might gain access to them.
These video games provide no educational or social benefits. For me, the gift of a book will always provide real and lasting benefit. In Ireland, we are very fortunate to have exceptional authors both for children and adults and we need to support them more. It is also hugely important that literacy levels in this country dramatically improve. The Programme for International Student Achievement (PISA) shows our literacy levels have fallen from 5th in the developed world to 15th.
Enda has wanted to be in a start-up for a long while like so many others but changing colleges, working with some gifted people and persistance might see 2012 being a good year for him and his very bright co-workers. There are plenty of people circling around young programmers hoping they can feed off them but if they keep their heads down, don’t resort to doing press to talk about how awesome they are and release a product, there’s great potential. Then they can do the celebrity young tech startup media circuit…