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!

Key to success

I was reading through some notes from a seminar I attended given by Larry Mays of Boardwalk Marketing Group in the US.
One of his "keys to Sucess":
Key to sucess is to understand what has changed and modify behaviour accordingly.

He was speaking of business in the recession.

Tyrone Crystal Closure

It is with genuine regret that we learn of the closure of Tyrone Crystal today. Real people and real jobs. We wish them well and hope they can find suitable employment.

The Crystal business has changed dramatically over the past few years particularly in the area of wedding gifts. The big slow down in the retail sector has obviously had an impact also.

Mullingar Crystal would be delighted to accomodate any of the "prizes and awards" needs of any of Tyrone Crystal's customers.

Visit our website, www.mullingarcrystal.com or give us a call on 044 9331572

Rural Design Awards 2010

Winners of Westmeath's first rural design awards announced

The Rural Design Awards Scheme recognises and publicises exemplars of good building design based upon sustainable principles within the county. The purpose of the scheme is to promote good design practice, increase public awareness of the value of good design in the countryside and to highlight the importance of energy efficient approaches.
The winning projects will, over time, become examples of best practice which will in turn be used to inform future design.

Owners of the winning properties and their respective architects were presented with an innovative piece of Crystal Art designed by Mullingar Crystal.

“Of course you can!”- Katherine Mansfield

“Of course you can!”- Katherine Mansfield

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Hang in there!

Mullingar Crystal have had an excellent start to the year with sales very strong through January and February. Part of the reason for this is that some of my competitors have ceased trading over the recent past. The cake may have got smaller but our slice has got bigger!

The message if you are struggling? Hang in there!

Say Thank You

In the last week, four Mullingar Crystal customers have taken the time to say "thank you". 3 of them by email and one even went to the bother of sending a card.

Its only a small thing, maybe we are a bit childish, but its a great feeling when your work is appreciated. The spirits of all involved are lifted.

I have made a conscious effort to say thank you to any supplier who does a job well.

Try it today.

Definition of insanity

Einstein's definition of insanity:

"Doing the same thing over and over again and expecting a different result"

A picture paints .....................

I have taken this image directly from Seth Godin's website. I think it is just excellent.

Check out Seth's website.

LAMA Awards

Mullingar Crystal is a proud sponsor of the Local Authority Members Association (LAMA) Awards, which represent elected councillors nationwide.
The Local Government, City & Council Awards were created to honour exemplary projects within the community; they seek to generate recognition of the efforts, accomplishments, and positive contributions of the individuals, companies and local government authorities who make these happen.

Congratulations to Ceol, who won the Best piece of Art/Sculpture category sponsored by Mullingar Crystal last night at the Burlington Hotel Dublin.

The National Trade Only Show at Coventry

Mullingar Crystal recently exhibited at the National Trade Only show at the Ricoh arena in Coventry.

We were very pleased with the show. The quality of exhibitor was very high as was the quality of attendee. We had a good corner stand located at the centre of the action.

Our CrystalArt range received many compliments and the phrase used most often by visitors to the stand was that "it was nice to see something different".

We showed some of the examples of recent jobs we had done and this seemed to impress. Best of all was the fact that so many mentioned that we were very reasonable on price.

Hope it all turns in to more business!

Tomorrow (as adapted by Scott mc Kain)

I recently attended the PPAI expo in Las Vegas. One of the many inspiring speakers was Scott Mc Kain who finished his excellent presentation with the following poem.

Tomorrow
He would be all

That a mortal could be…

Tomorrow

No one would be kinder

Or fairer than she…

Tomorrow

Each day he would stack up

The letters he would write…

Tomorrow

She would think of the customers

She would fill with delight…

Tomorrow

But the fact is they died

And faded from view

And all that was left

When living was through

Was the mountain of things

They intended to do…

Tomorrow
--Anonymous

Adapted by Scott McKain