Copacetic

Silicon Republic reports on a Survey from Edelman that tells us that trust in the Technlogy industry is running at 65% but trust in the blogger community is at a lowly 7%.

Given that the  blogger community is dominated by technologists I find those numbers hard to stomach. Perhaps the selection set who gave feedback don’t read blogs?

Danah provides a refreshingly down to earth account of her experience at Davos, The World Economic Forum. One section of her writeup is very relevant to all us budding entrepreneurs,

Another thing about Davos was that it became painfully clear that most business people are unaware of their role in the system. The conversations of the conference were heavily focused on environmentalism, inequality, terrorism, and doing good to solve the world’s problems. What I found was that many powerful people desperately want to help solve these problems but they seem unaware of their role in perpetuating some of the ills. It was weird… I couldn’t tell if such folks were clueless or delusional. I still need to chew on this a bit more. But it was fascinating to see that most businesspeople at Davos genuinely believed that they could help the world.

That’s us, BTW.

I’ve been twittering lately, its bad stay away…

Fantastic night last night at the inaugural TechLudd, big crowd turned up (I’m never good at these estimates, but my guess is at least 70 100 people) Microsoft paid for the beer (big shout out there, thanks Clare and Martha) and Ireland’s current crop of Entrepreneurs provided the entertainment and conversation. Marcus took a bunch of snaps which are now up on pix.ie.

Full marks to Anton and Sabrina for doing all the heavy lifting. Looking forward to the next one already…

Ireland’s two top bloggers are having handbags over on twitter. What a hoot!

Techludd is today, quick rush over to the site and register for the last few places, its free! Meet interesting people in the Tech Sector, Drink beer, get your name in the papers.

Whats not to like?

See you there at 7.00pm.

I note in a new version of iTunes terms and conditions,

Usage

(viii) You may not use The Products as a musical ‘Ringer’  in connection with phone calls

First of all this is fair use, second of all its unenforceable, third of all its a classic example of the record company regouging for every new format of a piece of content you already own.

Music executives should have their eyes taped open while they watch Larry Lessig’s talk on copyright at TED.

TwoTitsAndaVote.com launched this week to give a lobbying voice to women in Ireland who are at risk from breast cancer.

We’re pleased to announce the launch of our first campaign: Better Access to Breast Health Care. With diagnostic services in hospitals being suspended and discussions of four month waiting lists for breast ultrasounds in the Oireachtas, it’s time to let our politicians know that we, as women voters, demand better access to breast health care, now.

The site design is excellent and a lobby organisation in this area couldn’t be more timely.

Goto the Camtasia Store and get a quote for Camtasia studio, USD $299.00. (This is an electronic download price). Now select your country as Ireland, and get a new price in euros of  €259.50.

Now go to xe.com and get the current dollar/euro exchange rate. hey presto, the actual price in euros (if you do a straight conversion) is €201.22.

Now return and reselect your country as the US and let your credit card do the exchange instead. Even with VISA’s crappy rates you still save money on the Camtasia rip off.

I had a long conversation with Niall Larkin today in the Digital Depot. We ranged over a bunch of topics and as part of it I found myself talking a little about the PutPlace journey. Some of this may be useful to people starting their own companies so I repeat it here (at the risk of boring Niall ;-)). I’m pretty sure I’ve said most of this before I one place or another still it bears repeating:

• Incorporate: Create a limited Liability company at the earliest possible opportunity. It gives you the opportunity to write of a bunch of costs against future tax payments, allows you to claim back VAT easily and gives your a track record. People much prefer a 2 year old company to a 3 month old company for all kinds of good reasons. There are plenty of companies who can do grunt work of CRO filings so shop around.
• Get on an Incubator Program : Anybody who tries to start a new company these days without joining one of the many excellent incubator programs has rocks in his head the size of Gibraltar. In Dublin I know of two, the M50 program at Tallaght and the HotHouse program at DIT. Both are excellent. (Please add a comment if you know of others, I came across this list via Google). What does an incubator give you? A space to think in the company of like minded individuals, training, sometimes money and a fast track to HPSU status with Enterprise Ireland.
• Get a CORD Grant: Most incubator programs have access to CORD (Commercialisation Of Research and Development) grants via Enterprise Ireland. If you can tick the “I plan to generate exports and employment” boxes for EI CORD funding should be straightforward. Its important to get CORD early as it is essentially a refund of tax paid in the previous tax year. If you wait you may end up trying to claim for a year you spent navel gazing without any tax payments to claim against.
• Get Seed Capital Relief: If you are investing your own money and you fit the EI profile for a HPSU then you can claim back 40% of what you invest from the Revenue Comissioners, tax free under the Seed Capital Scheme. The other key stipulation is this is a refund of tax, so you have to have paid the equivalent amount of tax in the previous 5 years and have the evidence, i.e. your P60 to prove it.
• Get Your Own EI Development Advisor: I can’t begin to tell you how important it is to engage with EI early and often. Within 8 months of kicking of PutPlace I was asking for my own DA as opposed to the group DA assigned to my incubator program. It took another 12 months before we recieved EI grant approval. EI learns by omosis so you need to meet and pitch them several times before your idea will stick. Top tip: Go and meet EI rather than listening to the Blogosphere, everybodys experience is different and people are ten times more likely to complain than praise on the web.
• Find a Co-Founder: Yeah, its cool to be the man, I own my own company, I’m the CEO and CTO… Well actually it isn’t. All you one man bands out there need to find another person to complete your skill set. If you are an uber-techie, find a business development person, if you are in sales, find a geek to build your system (and make sure you don’t blindside him/her) etc. etc. I can’t tell you how frustrating it is to have every trip you make to the toilet be on the critical path.
• Ship Something Small: Build the smallest thing you can. No smaller than that, no even smaller. Have a big vision, write it down, put it in a box, put the box in a cupboard and think what can we build in 6 months, then aim to build it in three.