A bright Outlook for Ireland...dotconf

I attended a conference in Dublin yesterday called dotconf in The National College of Ireland, Dublin. The NCI building is in the heart of the IFSC and not having been there for years, it was like visiting another city. People, average age about 30, were making their way to work, many drinking coffee on the way as the Luas rolled by with its "ding ding" sound just adding nicely to the bustle.
The enthuasism of the speakers was inspiring starting with Mark Little (@marklittlenews) who set the tone for the day. While some of the speakers were a little "teckie" for me, people like Dermot Daly (@dermdaly) of Tapadoo, made it very real. Des Traynor (@destraynor) of Contrast was very entertaining and gave some really good advise which in a nutshell was: if the project, no matter how fancy, is not going to make money, forget it!

The afternoon session advertised "deep dives" and I was glad I didnt bring my wetsuit!
Deep dives apparently are a quick way of going into a subject, in my case, I chose "How to build a Twitter App in 10 minutes" ( which I still have'nt managed) and then "usable language" which was a common sence approach to designing your website.

As with any conference, if you take away just a couple of ideas and make them work then it has been a day worthwhile.

I hope you will see the fruits of the day come to life over the next few months as I strive to give customers of Mullingar Crystal and Bill Butler Promotions better service. @bernardjflynn

Seth Godin, looking at the bright side.

I love the optimism from Seth Godin's blog today:

Greetings have traditionally been an acknowledgment of the other person. "I see you." "Hello." "Greetings."

Then, we moved on to, "how are you?" or even, "how's business?"

Recently, though, our performance-obsessed, live-forever society has morphed the greeting into something like, "please list everything going on in your life that isn't as perfect as it should be."

In a business setting, this causes bad prioritization decisions. The owner of the bar says to the manager, "how was the night?" and the response is, "the cash register came up $8 short." Suddenly, there's an urgent problem to be solved. How to replace the eight dollars and who do we fire?

If the question instead had been, "what's up?" (as in literally up) the answer might have been, "well, there's a big party at table 12, another going away party. They've been buying champagne all night. And Mary told me she set a new record for tips. And the new beer we added on tap is..."

Highlighting what's working helps you make that happen more often.

Perfect is overrated. Perfect doesn't scale, either.

I'm not proposing you endorse theft or ignore the bad news. But it's clear that one more going away party on table 12 is going to make up for that one piece of bad news, every time.

Greetings have traditionally been an acknowledgment of the other person. "I see you." "Hello." "Greetings."

Then, we moved on to, "how are you?" or even, "how's business?"

Recently, though, our performance-obsessed, live-forever society has morphed the greeting into something like, "please list everything going on in your life that isn't as perfect as it should be."

In a business setting, this causes bad prioritization decisions. The owner of the bar says to the manager, "how was the night?" and the response is, "the cash register came up $8 short." Suddenly, there's an urgent problem to be solved. How to replace the eight dollars and who do we fire?

If the question instead had been, "what's up?" (as in literally up) the answer might have been, "well, there's a big party at table 12, another going away party. They've been buying champagne all night. And Mary told me she set a new record for tips. And the new beer we added on tap is..."

Highlighting what's working helps you make that happen more often.

Perfect is overrated. Perfect doesn't scale, either.

I'm not proposing you endorse theft or ignore the bad news. But it's clear that one more going away party on table 12 is going to make up for that one piece of bad news, every time.

The Toughest Order

Last week, a returning customer when asked which pieces he wanted for his awards uttered the words "I'll leave it up to yourself, you come up with something".

That then becomes the toughest order. You (me in this instance) have to get it right.

Time and effort goes into showing that you are good at what you do but also the customer must be foremost with regards to their budget and target audience.

On this occasion, the recipients were delighted, and why shouldn't they, it was the most difficult job of the week!

The Sunday Business Show

I am reviewing the papers on The Sunday Business show on Today Fm with Conall this Sunday.

Happy Customer.

A good customer of Mullingar Crystal, who is running an awards ceremony in London today, noticed to their horror yesterday morning, that they had mixed up the winners and runners-up awards. They contacted us and asked what they could do. They sent their email at 12.18 yesterday and UPS delivered the new awards to the hotel in London at 10am this morning.

Result: everybody happy.

Well done to the engraver who did the job so well and to UPS who delivered on their promise.

March 2010 by Bernard Flynn

A quote for our time

Just came across this quotation attributed to George Orwell:

"In a time of universal deceit, telling the truth is a revolutionary act"


Politicians and Church leaders, take note!