IT for Healthcare and Connected Health Events @ CASALA, DKIT

Posted by Dan Barry on 20 July, 2011 in Conference | Connected Health | IT Services | Uncategorized - (Be the first to comment)

CASALA( Centre for Affective Solutions for Ambient Living Awareness)  based in DKIT will be hosting its 2nd symposium in September. The symposium is a forum for academic, business and clinical leaders across the island of Ireland with common interests in driving change and creating opportunities to the benefit of people’s health, wellbeing and living environments.

Ambient Assisted Living and Connected Health Symposium, 15-19th September

http://casala.ie/aal-symposium.html

In addition, there will be a workshop to help you gain deep insight into the complex market dynamics, product and service positioning and communication challenges.

Technology and Ageing Workshop with Laurie Orlov, 15th September

http://www.casala.ie/blog/14-upcoming-events/76-Technology%20and%20Ageing%20Workshop%20with%20Laurie%20Orlov.html

10 Things I learned at Microsoft’s WPC Partner Conference 2011

Posted by Paul Browne on 18 July, 2011 in Cloud Computing | Conference | Event | Managed Services | Microsoft | Networking | Saas | Uncategorized | US - (1 Comments)

We’ve just spent the week working with the 13 Irish companies at the Enterprise Ireland Stand at Microsoft’s World Partner Conference in LA. That’s not counting the 20 or so other Irish Software companies that also attended the event.  It’s a big conference (about 15,000 attendees from around the world) and the quality of the people that we met was equally impressive.

From an ‘Ireland Inc’ point of view, what struck me how many people that knew about our current economic situation, but also how many people knew about the shining star that is the Irish Software sector. Invariably, these conversations were followed by a question ‘how can we help?’.

On a more personal note, I wanted to capture my thoughts on what worked, what didn’t work for the companies while it’s still fresh in my mind;

  1. Know why you’re going;  Going to an event like WPC isn’t cheap – a week of your time, even before conference ticket and travel costs. Be very clear about why you’re attending and who you need to meet.  Answers ranged from Market Research, to initial partner contacts, to seal relationships built online in the previous 12 months. (more…)

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Happy Birthday

Posted by John Magill on 22 June, 2011 in Uncategorized - (Be the first to comment)

We missed a significant birthday last week.   On the 16th June 1911 the Computing Tabulating Recording Corporation was  formed through the merger of four companies: The Tabulating Machine Company, The Computing Scale Company, The International Time Recording Company and The Bundy Manufacturing Company.  Shortened to CTR the company manufactured a wide range of products, including employee time-keeping systems, weighing scales, automatic meat
slicers, coffee grinders and punched card equipment.

Based in New York City, the new company had 1,300 employees and offices and plants in Endicott and Binghamton, New York; Dayton, Ohio; Detroit, Michigan; Washington, D.C.; and Toronto,  Ontario.   In 1914 the owner of CTR, Charles R. Flint, hired the number two executive from NCR, Thomas J Watson to manage the business.   NCR had already been around for 30 years by this time!   It was he who introduced the famous company slogan “THINK”.  And it was he who on February 14, 1924 formally changed the name of the company to International Business Machines Corporation, later to be abbreviated IBM.

As with many things in life one has to wonder how many of our current generation of companies will become centenarians?

Open Your Life Blood And Not Just Your CRM System

Posted by Paul Browne on 13 June, 2011 in Dublin | Event | Uncategorized - (Be the first to comment)

This is a guest post from Dave Feenan (LinkedIn), organiser of the CloudArea events at the NCI Dublin

With many challenges facing us today, the old mantle of “Cash is King” still holds true. Yet smart cash remains untapped in all our organisations.

We are all comfortable with the term CRM, whether it is a spreadsheet or one of the more recognisable branded solutions provided by many of the major players. The challenge lies in how this data is used to gain business advantage, cement relationships, enable decision making, access analytics and more importantly to do this all is real-time. There is still a belief that CRM is just a database of interactions, notes, observations and a first stop on the journey of internal search for client or prospect information.

An enhanced sets of collaboration tools, better visualisation, Cloud delivery options whether public or private, interlinked with the growth of social media platforms have changed the game. By joining us on Thursday 16th June from 1300 to 1800 at CloudArena’s – It’s CRM Jim, but not as we know it”, IBM, Microsoft and Fujitsu amongst others will discuss and present the many permutations of accessing and enabling data to communicate and interact with the world.

The objective of this CRM showcase is to bring together knowledgeable speakers to facilitate an interactive series of talks and discussions on the following CRM related themes;

  • Social CRM – the use of social media within CRM to enhance customer relationships
  • Collaboration – how CRM solutions can improve and strengthen collaboration across the customer supply chain – integrating all the customer touch points
  • CRM as an Open platform – how your CRM solution can be a ‘platform’ for other related applications
  • Analytics – the use of quality data to measure the quality of customer engagements and identify areas for on-going improvement – how to I measure the success of my CRM initiative
  • The success of my CRM solution depends on my linked up business strategy
  • Quality data – an important cornerstone of a successful CRM solution otherwise garbage in garbage out

The series of talks will start with a ‘beginner’s’ guide to CRM to ensure that the important principles are understood and to avoid an repetition in the later talks. This also allows each of the following speakers to present on the important principles and trends from each of the above themes. Following on the success of the previous Cloud showcase, we trust that you will find this an informative and thought provoking afternoon on the future trends in CRM.

Your Data, Your Life Blood, Your Smart Cash.

To register for this free to attend event http://www.cloud-arena.com/register.html

Enterprise Ireland Career Opportunity

Posted by Sinead Buckley on 17 January, 2011 in Uncategorized - (Be the first to comment)

Enterprise Ireland is seeking to recruit a dynamic senior leader to lead its engagement with the Food sector and to lead Enterprise Ireland’s contribution to the implementation of the Harvest 2020 report.

The Divisional Manager for the Food sector will be a key member of the senior management team and will work in close collaboration with industry, relevant agencies and government departments in the development of the Food sector in Ireland.

The person appointed to the role will demonstrate, at senior level, the ability to create and execute a challenging vision and strategy for the future of the Food sector. Experience in leading change and managing and developing a team to deliver key targets and objectives are among the key requirements for this role.  Strong commercial acumen in addition to deep knowledge of the Food sector is essential.

Please visit http://www.enterprise-ireland.com/careers for a full job description and details of the application and selection process. Closing date for applications is 21 January 2011. Queries in relation to the role should be emailed to hrconnect@enterprise-ireland.com.

US Webinar Series

Posted by John Magill on 22 September, 2010 in Links | Training | Uncategorized | US - (2 Comments)

For those people who don’t subscribe to our American blog you will  have missed the following notification.

As part of International Markets Week Enterprise Ireland is proud to offer a series of Webinars (September 28-October 1) led by experts from a variety of fields.

   (more…)

IT Entrepreneurship: The German Perspective

Posted by Manus Rooney on 26 July, 2010 in Germany | Links | Software | startup | Uncategorized - (Be the first to comment)
In conjunction with the 100th anniversary of Konrad Zuse, the German computer pioneer, a German university class was asked in a straw pole about their career plans. Surprisingly for me, there was a real disinterest within the group to start their own business after university. Most preferred to follow a career instead in a multinational like BMW, Bosch, SAP or similar. If you asked a similar class in Ireland, I am sure the response would be entirely different. How could a nation driven be entrepreneurship and innovation have such an outlook?

Taoiseach announces €359m investment in research, innovation and jobs

Posted by Grace Labanyi on 16 July, 2010 in Research | Uncategorized - (Be the first to comment)

‘PRTLI Cycle 5, the largest investment in research in the State’s history, will make Ireland Europe’s innovation hub’ – Minister O’Keeffe

The Taoiseach, Brian Cowen TD, today [Friday July 16th 2010] announced a €359 million investment plan for research and innovation which will create jobs and new enterprises and drive Ireland’s economic recovery.
The Government’s Programme for Research in Third-Level Institutions (PRTLI) invests in physical infrastructure and research projects in our higher education institutions. Under Cycle 5 of the programme, announced today, the Government will invest €296.1 million, with €62.6 million coming from private non-Exchequer sources.PRTLI Cycle 5 will run between 2011 and 2016 – the period of the revised capital programme. Click here to read more

Engagement through Gamification

Posted by Ruairí Ó hAilín on 7 June, 2010 in Apps | Mobile | Software | Telecom | Uncategorized - (2 Comments)

One of many interesting talks at last week’s DevDays Mobile/iPhone developers event, was a session entitled “Engagement through Gamification” by Chris McClelland of Ecliptic Labs.

Not a completely new idea, but great to spend some time listening to someone who has put a good deal of thought into it. I’ve read about people using games controllers for education and other non-game applications, but here the focus was on the social interactions in gaming and taking those into the “real” world.

The idea is that people are more likely to participate in a community if they are engaged using some or all of the basic human triggers common in games – the desire for reward, status, achievement, self expression or respect whether it is driven by competitiveness or even by altruism. Chris went on to give examples of social media companies who use these triggers in their products and also to outline some software frameworks that can be used to provide much of the functionality if you don’t want to build your own.

Dev Days Logo

A question to readers of this blog – are there elements of gamification that you could use to engage your customers further? Apart from the obvious areas of social media and elearning, could it apply to enterprise applications? Should you incorporate a leaderboard into your next release?

Reference: Chris recommended a book called Total Engagement on the subject of gamification.

DevDays: Mobile developers from across the island gathered in Belfast and Dublin last week for DevDays 2010 (http://devdays.info). I attended the  Dublin session although the agenda was similar at both events. There were talks on Facebook integration from Tapadoo.com, Connected/Mobile Health solutions, Card Payments in iPhone Apps separate to the AppStore, adding location to your apps from OS3.ie , good/bad product strategy from Des Traynor of Contrast and the importance of good design.

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Bizcamp 2010 – What happened

Posted by Brendan Fay on 4 June, 2010 in Event | Social Media | startup | Uncategorized - (Be the first to comment)

Just following up on my previous blogs from Bizcamp 2010 and the Panel Discussion . The event which was held last Saturday, 29th May was a huge success. Great venue – Guinness Storehouse with over 250 attendees. 40 presentations were given on the day which varied from an excellent presentation from Des Traynor of Contrast – ‘Product Strategy for the Business of Web Applications’ to Una Coleman of Event Elephant’s presentation on ‘International Marketing’. To see a full list of all the presentations given on the day just go to the Bizcamp website (pdf) -

You can find one of the presentations on Slideshare which was given by Ed Fidgeon-Kavanagh just to give you a flavour of the quality of presentations given on the day here.

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