Even then it was mostly a Dublin centric organisation.

I dont know the details, but it looks like ISA and ICT Ireland have recently secured sufficient funding to drive their organisations.

To do this they are, very likely, bound to have a national focus in developing the industry.

At a E800 membership fee, then it is not for developing the software industry in Ireland. A fee at this level for well established companies.

I am a steering committee member of IT@Cork.

I have seen first hand and heard from so many that IT@Cork brings great value to many people and companies, big and small. This is through professionally organisationed and run, high value information based events with good attendance and networking opportunities.

I can’t speak for the ISA but IT@Cork is an IT Professionals networking organisation. We have over 230 member companies and we are actively growing that number. Our members are from all over Ireland and range from banks to telcos to fmcg to one man bands like me! The current chair of IT@Cork is Donal Manning - the IT Manager of Heineken Ireland, for example.

We run evening events about once a month (we had 15 last year) which are free to members where we invite speakers in to speak on topics as diverse as RSS, storage, and Sales and marketing tips. Drinks and finger food are provided afterwards as well as an opportunity to network.

We run a mini conference half-way through the year - last year we had Rod Johnson speaking at it. This year we have Salim Ismail, Shel Israel, Fergus burns, Walter Higgins and Rob Burke discussing Web 2.0. Again free to members and €50 to non-members.

Our annual conference is the highlight of the year - last years annual conference we had Charles Handy and Robert Scoble keynote - a spectacular day. The conference is pay in because of the calibre of the speakers but it is a reduced entry for members.

I won’t bore you with details on the blog, the podcasts, the newsletter, etc.

Membership is €110 for companies of 1-6 employees - so low cost to join and amazing quality networking and content in the events.

Whatever about the membership fees, it all comes down to whether joining groups like these does anything to help you grow your business.

I don’t care about what order i get to speak at, I care about growing my business. Does ISA do anything that might help you grow your business ?

I haven’t seen an ISA position statement on patents, but given the predominance of “old school” companies you could guess their position might be “conservative”.

IT@Anywhere Dublin branch sounds good.

Obviously more nonsense from the ISA. So how come Oracle and Microsoft get to be members?

Consider this a formal invite to join IT@dublin

Proof if proof were needed that you can create a society that supports the needs of its users and encourages them to join.

Who’s on for setting up the sister organisation IT@dublin?

It was apparent to me that the people I was speaking with had little or no background in software, and so had no idea what I was talking about. And, of course, they had no criteria with which to evaluate the quality of my pitches.

More importantly, they seemed devoted to the idea of letting members get first priority at giving talks. That’s acceptable, I guess, but it certainly doesn’t encourage a thriving exchange of ideas.

And, despite the fact that Capulet’s work with at least 10 Irish companies, we couldn’t join, because we’re not based in Ireland.

Obviously, I was pretty turned off by the whole thing, and will look elsewhere to give a talk the next time I’m back in Ireland.

Also, the ISA needs an RSS feed for new member announcements.