XCake iPhone meetups in Belfast and Dublin [updated]

Mentioned earlier but now gathering a little steam. These meetups are mostly informal and designed to help build a little community around what we have here on the island. XCAKE BELFAST: Thursday 19th Feb, 6 pm. Roast, Lisburn Road, Belfast. I’ve confirmed they have WiFi and will be happy to have a cluster of seats … Continue reading “XCake iPhone meetups in Belfast and Dublin [updated]”

Mentioned earlier but now gathering a little steam. These meetups are mostly informal and designed to help build a little community around what we have here on the island.

XCAKE BELFAST: Thursday 19th Feb, 6 pm. Roast, Lisburn Road, Belfast.
I’ve confirmed they have WiFi and will be happy to have a cluster of seats taken up by coffee-swilling nerds. I’ve been told of ten people who have expressed interest in going to this – let’s make it busy and kick-ass.

XCAKE DUBLIN: Tuesday 24th February, 7 pm. Radisson SAS Royal Hotel, Dublin.
This is only an hour after the BizSpark Innovation Accelerator being held by the DigitalMediaForum and in the same hotel so people interested in both might be interested in attending both. There’s folk coming all the way from Belfast and Kerry coming to this so you should consider it too.

Digital Media Breakfast, 8 am Thursday 5th Feb

I twittered @antonmannering isn’t there a breakfast thing happening next week? (yes, this is a lead in…) Anton Twittered @cimota That’s right there’s a Digital Media Breakfast in Belfast next Thursday 8am. Exact location TBC (Probably Ten Square or similar) 🙂 I twittered @antonmannering did you say there’s a Digital Media Breakfast in Belfast next … Continue reading “Digital Media Breakfast, 8 am Thursday 5th Feb”

I twittered

@antonmannering isn’t there a breakfast thing happening next week? (yes, this is a lead in…)

Anton Twittered

@cimota That’s right there’s a Digital Media Breakfast in Belfast next Thursday 8am. Exact location TBC (Probably Ten Square or similar) 🙂

I twittered

@antonmannering did you say there’s a Digital Media Breakfast in Belfast next Thursday 8am. Exact location TBC (Probably Ten Square) 🙂 Cool

Did you get it?

I’m going to OpenTurkey, mnahhhhh!

And I’m only in 8th place!!!!! Andy McMillan Dave Rice Davy Mac Simon McCartney Jackie Pollock Steve Wilkin Stuart Gibson Matt Johnston David Braziel [UPDATED!!!] Here’s the Belfast Open Coffee Club thread. Join up. Related posts: London, City of the Future Belfast OpenCoffeeClub A little bit of appreciation goes a long way

And I’m only in 8th place!!!!!

  1. Andy McMillan
  2. Dave Rice
  3. Davy Mac
  4. Simon McCartney
  5. Jackie Pollock
  6. Steve Wilkin
  7. Stuart Gibson
  8. Matt Johnston
  9. David Braziel

[UPDATED!!!]
Here’s the Belfast Open Coffee Club thread. Join up.

The trip to OCC BBQ, part 2

Talks ”How to start your own WISP from scratch” by Martin List-Petersen Martin was a smart guy filled with enthusiasm and had a lot of interesting things to say. It inspired me to start looking at mesh networking again though, as Martin says, with mesh you lose 30% of your bandwidth. “Multi-platform video content” by … Continue reading “The trip to OCC BBQ, part 2”

Talks

”How to start your own WISP from scratch” by Martin List-Petersen
Martin was a smart guy filled with enthusiasm and had a lot of interesting things to say. It inspired me to start looking at mesh networking again though, as Martin says, with mesh you lose 30% of your bandwidth.

“Multi-platform video content” by Mairin Murray
Mairin showed considerable enthusiasm for her subject, highlighting her experience with delivery of video content and the change from corporate content to user-content and talked about the future – the development of platforms for content delivery.

“Distributed content – how it is changing the world of training, education and working with clients or trying to promote ideas that go viral.” – E. Alana James
I missed the point of this talk. There were some points, like how it’s easier to use a mobile in Africa than it is to get clean water and good food. I didn’t see much relevance.

“Energy?” – Phoebe Bright
This was interesting from the statistics on energy conversion (though I’d like to see their figures). It really made me think that I should be rigging up an exercise bike to a battery. We’re heading towards an energy crisis.

”GlobalDMX – a Global Digital Media Exchange” by Michael Walsh
This one made me think the most as it covered the serious problems with digital content distribution networks and the fear that the ‘analog’ content owners have with them. Some things are broken.

“Zimbie demo/talk” – Sean Lyons
RSS feeds being fed into Instant Messenger. Not really inspired. I want it the other way round. A presence bot online which will feed all content I receive into an RSS feed for later consumption. Yes, I’m time-shifting my conversations. Nothing wrong with that.

The Raffle
I threw a tenner at the Raffle and we ended up winning two Raffle prizes – a copy of Microsoft Office for Mac (which is funny) and the hamper from Spicendipity (which there’s going to be a fight over). Bonus!

“Dragons Den” competition
There were a couple of presentations that were Dragon’s Den quality. There was an elevator pitch about a specialised bag for Hurling gear. There were two American women who were pitching something that I couldn’t quite grasp – something about education and the other was custom hand-made furniture. The fourth pitch was WeddingDates.ie which was a pretty good pitch though I think her optimism in the organisation of wedding venues (who tend to use paper ledgers) in relaying booking information was seriously misled. The last pitch was for a software-configurable radio system – pitched at totally the wrong level and containing only information relevant to tech-heads – none of whom were judges. The winner was the affable bloke with the Hurling Gear bag.

21:30
Due to the cold and the lack of red wine, the Belfast contingent decided to repair to the Derg Inn for beers and pudding.

00:00
We’re heading back to the cottage. It’s only 23:44 right now – but that’s the plan. I’m tired and we’ve an early start ahead of us.

The trip to OCC BBQ, part 1

Would you believe it’s 14 miles from Terryglass, the location of OCC BBQ to the nearest source of cash? This is odd because every hole in a hedge up north has cash machine facilities. 18:30 After arriving at the cottage (which is lovely), we ventured into Terryglass and had a sit-down meal in the Derg … Continue reading “The trip to OCC BBQ, part 1”

Would you believe it’s 14 miles from Terryglass, the location of OCC BBQ to the nearest source of cash? This is odd because every hole in a hedge up north has cash machine facilities.

18:30
After arriving at the cottage (which is lovely), we ventured into Terryglass and had a sit-down meal in the Derg Inn (while Evert worked on his WiFi provision). A short walk later and we were down at the Terryglass Quay admiring the boats and reminding myself to join a yacht club – though that’s something for next year. Why would I want to join a club like that – I think it’s important to cultivate some pre-technological skills and the ability to handle a boat is one of them. I’m fine with oars – but have no experience with sails and, you never know when it might come in handy.

On the technology side, I’m finding Push email to be a frustration more than a benefit. This is mainly because I only have Push available for my .Mac/me.com email address and not for my other accounts. I want to be receiving updates from quayperformance.com more often and, frankly, couldn’t give a toss about the mailing list stuff I receive on my me.com account. So, looking at that when I get back will become a priority and it may mean moving quayperformance.com to host.io as it’s a bazillion times more flexible there.

07:40
At about 01:10 I gave up the ghost while the others stayed up. Much wine, cheese and beer was consumed which probably led to some nightmares during the night but this morning everyone seems pretty chipper (those of us who are actually awake). As I mentioned, the cottage is lovely but some of the amenities, like the shower, would frankly wake the dead.

Though we’ve not actually attended the event itself yet, I’m really glad I organised this little trip. Even just between the five of us there’s a surprising number of ideas and inspiration and it’ll be interesting to see what’s going on down here in Ireland.

08:38
Today is the main event itself and we’re getting ready in our own ways. There’s some ambient music in the background and every ow and then a few cheers from a group of children (from an iPhone game being actively developed here).

I’ve spent a little while this morning reading over some Cocoa code and trying to work out where the code needs to go to make things work. I’m going to have to make a more formal effort with learning the code if I’m going to achieve anything.

I’m guessing that around 10 am we’ll start to see some movement towards the main event. There’s a few people I’m really wanting to talk to – but all will become clear as time goes on.

This month is going to be bumper….

June was pretty busy with me racking up 99 posts in 30 days. Currently this is the 41st post in July, in 8 days which means around 5 per day which means, if I keep this up, there could be nearly 150 posts on the blog this month. I think people would get sick of … Continue reading “This month is going to be bumper….”

June was pretty busy with me racking up 99 posts in 30 days. Currently this is the 41st post in July, in 8 days which means around 5 per day which means, if I keep this up, there could be nearly 150 posts on the blog this month.

I think people would get sick of reading very quickly so this is just a warning. In fact it could be worse…

  • iPhone 2.0 software is being released this week. There’s going to be a lot of playing with this while I figure things out.
  • AppStore is being opened this week. Just browsing the App Store is going to be an adventure in itself and looking at apps which have, til now, been under NDA.
  • MobileMe is coming Half a dozen web apps which should change completely the way…uh…okay, I’ve been doing this all along…
  • Applications will become VIRAL. Trust me. There’s going to be apps on my iPhone, apps on HerIndoors iPhone and apps on friends iPhones. It’s going to be messy. And cool. And some people will be able to afford pimp cars.
  • iPhone 3G will be about this week and there will be endless comparisons to the old one and against other models. Nokia N95 users will still tell us they have it better.
  • No less than 5 apps will be downloaded to my iPhone. No less than this. Maybe more. And games. And grainy photos of same.
  • This weekend is the 12th July and I’m in Northern Ireland. This guarantees roads will be closed and I will be annoyed. And lots of pollution-spewing tyres will be burned.
  • OpenCoffeeClub BBQ is on next Wednesday and I’m going. I’m going to be speaking to some interesting people and eating lots of half-cooked meat.
  • I have a job interview tomorrow. Big step.
  • I’ve been getting in contact with lots of ex-pats who have been successful in technology, digital content, software and media. Should be heaps to talk about.
  • I have a stag do to attend sometime between now and month end. Mine…
  • I’m getting married on 1st August.
  • HerIndoors is considering switching to a HTC Touch Diamond
  • My honeymoon is a two week cruise around the Baltic. Stopping off at Stockholm, Helsinki, St. Petersburg, Tallinn, Wernemunde and Copenhagen. On the way over we’re stopping for a night in London to see Wicked.

My…the next month is just packed!

Coworking Microsupport

Microfinance see Microcredit. –noun the lending of very small amounts of money at low interest, esp. to a start-up company or self-employed person. The problem with Microfinance and Microcredit is that, at the end of the day, someone ends up owing someone else money. And that’s a shaky way to get started in anything. The … Continue reading “Coworking Microsupport”

Microfinance

see Microcredit. –noun
the lending of very small amounts of money at low interest, esp. to a start-up company or self-employed person.

The problem with Microfinance and Microcredit is that, at the end of the day, someone ends up owing someone else money. And that’s a shaky way to get started in anything.

The concept of Microfinance for small businesses in return for equity in the business has already been successfully applied via Paul Graham’s Ycombinator.

Y Combinator does seed funding for startups. Seed funding is the earliest stage of venture funding. It pays your expenses while you’re getting started.
We make small investments (rarely more than $20,000) in return for small stakes in the companies we fund (usually 2-10%).
What happens at Y Combinator? The most important thing we do is work with startups on their ideas. We’re hackers ourselves, and we’ve spent a lot of time figuring out how to make things people want. So we can usually see fairly quickly the direction in which a small idea should be expanded, or the point at which to begin attacking a large but vague one.

This seems to me to be a different slant on the pre-Bubble concept of ‘code for pizza’. I knew a couple of smart guys back pre-2000 who worked full time for companies in return for pizza and promises while in receipt of unemployment benefit – they were doing the right thing after all – making a real concerted effort to get off the unemployment line by trying to be employable. None of them are gazillionaires right now (which shows the benefits of contracts over promises).

While Northern Ireland has had the concept of the incubator for years (the first one I visited was the Fujitsu/University of Ulster funded incubator where I met the guys who were ‘Osarius’ who have now all moved on to bigger and better things), it was definitely in a larger scale. There were desks, offices, stationery. That’s not the sector I’m interested in.

With the work being done for the co-working space in Northern Ireland, it is my intent to fund a desk or two and provide some desktop computers (intel iMacs) in order to foster some idea of Microsupport for potential startup companies. It’s not about funding their pizza or foozball lifestyles because people who want to get things done will find a way – this is operational expenditure. The hard part for this sector is the capital expenditure. By providing up to date hardware and taking advantage of the bountiful free time that ‘young people’ have, I think there could be an excellent environment created in the co-working space to foster new and cool innovations coming out of Belfast. David Rice wrote that the co-working initiative is designed to espouse this single concept:

Bringing silicon valley thinking to Belfast by creating a cutting edge work space for digital and creative workers.

It’s my aim that one of the rooms in the upstairs be allocated to ‘incubation’ for a few potential movers and shakers out there who need that extra bit of support to get started. I don’t care whether they want to become movie makers, software engineers, web developers or digital artists – as long as they don’t just sit around surfing the web, it’s got to be better than nothing. I’ve not really talked about this with David, Andy or anyone else central to CoworkingBelfast so they may throw their hands up and tell me to piss off – but this is the concept. Most of the individuals involved in CoWorking Belfast are young men who probably would have loved to have a co-working space available to them especially with some up to date hardware starting up.

What would Co-Working Belfast get out of it? Another raison d’etre. Karma. Kudos. Reputation. And the feeling of doing the right thing. Maybe if they’re a success they’ll help fund the next iteration of CoWorking Belfast or whatever the new fad of the day is.

There are other similar methods of support out there which have a similar model but are not the same and therefore I think this brings a certain uniqueness. For example, Google’s Summer of Code provides a $5000 stipend for student developers for summer (around 3 months) of work on open source projects. Google funds around 400 students each summer this way (putting the bill at around $2 million) but then they are Google and have infinite money. There are also business incubation services in Northern Ireland available through InvestNI but the pitch is for the slightly later stage when the individuals know what they’re doing and need the incubation from hatchling to maturity.

To extend the metaphor, I’m talking about supporting the egg itself – until the egg cracks. It’s never been easier to start up a business and become the next Twitter, Youtube, Big Word Project or 37Signals and it is these kinds of business that we should be fostering. I think that the people involved in starting the co-working space in Belfast are best qualified to determine who uses the ‘hatchery’.

The co-working space itself won’t make Belfast like Silicon Valley by it’s presence, but by it’s vision.

Belfast OpenCoffeeClub

The Belfast Open Coffee Club met tonight and managed to pull in more people than ever – twenty or so – and I was both pleased and disappointed that there are just too many smart, interesting people in the room and not enough time to talk to them all. If I didn’t say hello to … Continue reading “Belfast OpenCoffeeClub”

The Belfast Open Coffee Club met tonight and managed to pull in more people than ever – twenty or so – and I was both pleased and disappointed that there are just too many smart, interesting people in the room and not enough time to talk to them all. If I didn’t say hello to you directly, then I apologise. There were some people I wanted to grill mercilessly but I didn’t even get a chance to say Hello. You know who you are.

16:30 – Co-Working Belfast
A 20 minute walkaround the site puts some reality on the bones of what we’ve been thinking about. I’m liking what I saw in our review of the site (and I’ll post the recording video of our walkaround if people want to see it to get a feel for the site – it’s a 5 minute 58 MB .mp4 file and I’ve added a Youtube embed below which will give you a BlairWitch-esque view of the building). I’m pleased that we’ve got enough people to actually make this a going concern but the serious questions about what kind of support we will get from Belfast City Council and InvestNI are still unanswered.


5 minute YouTube video

The site itself needs a lot of work but it’s big enough for the purposes. There’s work that needs done ‘structurally’ in terms of the removal of a stud wall and the creation of some partition and there’s going to need to be significant investment in terms of equipment – desks, chairs, locks – never mind computing infrastructure. But, in the end, I like it.

That said – it’s not a site like some of the others we’ve seen – which have artistic ceilings and look more like art studios than workplaces. It’s going to be grassroots, it’s basic but it’s sustainable and provides what I’d consider to be a basis for future movement.

19:00 – OpenCoffee Club
There were too may clusters of people talking to allow me to cover them all here but the ones which I witnessed were:

  • Will King, Darryl Collins and David Braziel – talking about the integration of location-significant data. I saw some demos showing heatmaps of Flickr pics over Northern Ireland, crime statistics, wifi points and some neat ‘cluster’ widgets which allowed information to be collected in easily understood ways.
  • I spoke perhaps at length (and with a bit of spittle) about the purpose of the Belfast OpenCoffeeClub in the formation of Northern Ireland’s future progress in technology. I was, of course, preaching to the converted so I have to apologise to Russell and Lee who had to listen to me rant about what the future might hold and how it was vitally important for the grassroots organisations to present themselves sensibly and with direction to government in order to achieve change. The people in that room were , in effect, the Digital Circle. We had application designers for desktop, mobile and web, GIS specialists, creatives, movie makers, animators, musicians, wireless enthusiasts and, last and least, me.
  • Andy and I spoke for a few minutes about Co-Working Belfast and I do feel a little guilty about stealing the spotlight at times and speaking too much. It’s an area I’m incredibly passionate about and sometimes that enthusiasm is a little hard to contain. We received some encouraging remarks but I think there’s some more marketing and work required before we can say that CoWorking Belfast will be filled to capacity.
  • The subject of the OpenCoffeeClub BBQ was also discussed. Philip will be driving a 7 seater people carrier down and we have half a dozen people to go in it. Some people need to be back earlier than others but we shall work through that – the plan at the moment is to drive down on the Tuesday afternoon, stay over, attend the BBQ, then stay over again and leave first thing in the morning in order to get back for a decent hour (lunchtime). I’ll be organising accommodation tomorrow. Confirmed names for the car are: Philip, Matt, Andy, Damien, Stuart and Mairin. Will is also going down separately.
  • There were other discussions of potential TechLudd, CreativeCamp and other copies of events happening around the world. I think it’s great but it would also be nice to do something original. More on those as we get more information.

As 21:00 came, I had to leave due to family commitments but it was extremely encouraging to see so many people there and I’m sure that if circumstances has been different, we’d have seen half a dozen more.

Roll on next time!

BOCC Tomorrow

Tomorrow evening, Belfast Open Coffee Club will be meeting at Charlies (the green umbrella shape in the middle of the Google Map link there). I’m speculating that topics will include: OpenCoffee BBQ on the 16th, iPhone 3G and O2’s information flow, game development, Ruby on Rails (and whether it scales), the FailWhale, Digital Circle and … Continue reading “BOCC Tomorrow”

Tomorrow evening, Belfast Open Coffee Club will be meeting at Charlies (the green umbrella shape in the middle of the Google Map link there).

I’m speculating that topics will include: OpenCoffee BBQ on the 16th, iPhone 3G and O2’s information flow, game development, Ruby on Rails (and whether it scales), the FailWhale, Digital Circle and a whole heap on Co-Working. Topics that I don’t think will get a lot of airplay would include Big Brother, the US election nonsense and Starbucks closing an additional 500 sites in the US.

It would be swell if you could make it.

And, Today is my birthday. Happy birthday to me.

Someone must stop them…

2008 is beginning to look like the year of the grassroots gathering. Belfast Open Coffee Club (BOCC) has been growing, we just had BarCampBelfast 08 and NiMUG have been having monthly meetings as well. On top of that we’re promised some sort of TechLudd-type meeting towards the end of the year and the XCake people … Continue reading “Someone must stop them…”

2008 is beginning to look like the year of the grassroots gathering.

Belfast Open Coffee Club (BOCC) has been growing, we just had BarCampBelfast 08 and NiMUG have been having monthly meetings as well. On top of that we’re promised some sort of TechLudd-type meeting towards the end of the year and the XCake people will have a meeting by the end of the summer. And lastly, BLUG have woken up.

With all these geeks meeting and greeting, they’re going to gain social skills!

They must be stopped!