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Digital Ideas at The Digital Festival

February 22, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Shel Israel Speaking at BlogOrlando
Creative Commons License photo credit: whiteafrican

DIGITAL IDEAS should be in plentiful supply in Dublin this Wednesday with The Digital Festival taking place in the Berkeley Court Hotel in Ballsbridge. Early bird tickets are long gone but there’s still the possibility of buying a full-price ticket for €375 (plus VAT) before Wednesday.

What does the €375 get you?

How about a day with the following speakers –

  • Peter Kim, MD of the Dachis Group, speaking on “Social Networking & Social Business Design in 2010 and beyond”
  • Tim Duggan, Founder & Director at Mercury Girl Inc speaking on the revolution of Apps and how the explosion of production, engagement with and use of apps alter the communications landscape.
  • Shel Israel, speaking about real world stories of how Twitter has dramatically helped companiesgrow, provide greater customer service and changed the dynamic of the human conversation
  • Martin Bailie, Planning Director at Glue London speaking on digital consumer insights.
  • Russell Davies, The Open Intellegence Agency, speaking on blogging and business in a connected world.
  • Brent Hoberman, co-founder of LastMinute.com, delivering keynote talk on “Digital Growth – Opportunities for the future and some lessons from the past.”

You can download the full running of the day (PDF) here.

Speaker list does look quite good, with each allocated 50 minutes on stage, three talks in the morning and three in the afternoon, sandwiching an hour for lunch and wrapping with an open panel discussion with all speakers. Those interested in getting more details about tickets can check the site or phone +353 1 284 6096.

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IFTA Wins For Secret Of Kells

February 21, 2010 By Leave a Comment

The Secret Of Kells

THE SECRET of Kells bagged itself two more awards in advance of the Oscars next month, this time picking up the Best Animation award and Rising Star award (for director Tomm Moore). The feature-length animated movie was also in the running for Best Irish Film, the award won by The Eclipse.

Win or lose at the Oscars, The Secret Of Kells has firmly installed Cartoon Saloon on the global animation map and is proving wonders for the Kilkenny company. It’s Academy Award nomination for Best Animated Feature has seen some of the Kilkenny crew travel to the US for a few intensive weeks of promo and pitching and has also seen then the movie gain a limited US cinema release.

The lads (Tomm and Paul) are blogging their Oscar journey, keep up to speed on Tomm’s blog.

Onwards and upwards (and good luck on the 7th!).

Check out the full list of winners at the IFTAs here.

Filed Under: Movies Tagged With: , , , , , ,

Nominations Open For Net Visionary Awards

February 17, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Irish Internet AssociationWHILE the Irish Blog Awards and Irish Web Awards might be my response for “best industry awards night in Ireland”, one of the big awards nights for those involved in the online world in Irish business, the IIA Net Visionary Awards, are now open for nominations (and have been since Monday). This year is the 12th year of the awards.

2009 saw Damien Mulley named Best Business Blogger, Krishna De name Best Business Podcaster, Puddleducks.ie awarded Best Online Retailer with Mark French & Ciaran Bollard of Muzu.tv presented with the Overall Net Visionary Award.

The awards were realigned in the last year or two to coincide with the IIA’s annual congress and this year they will take place on May 20th at the Crowne Plaza Dublin Northwood hotel. It’s free to get nominating in one of fifteen categories open to the public, the deadline for nominations being March 26th. You can spy all the open categories here or get your nominations in here.

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Can’t Pay? Won’t Pay! Artwork

February 11, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Can't Pay? Won't Pay!

SURROUNDING YOURSELF with fantastic creatives (i.e. incredibly creative people) can be great for your health. It can be great for your sanity. It can inspire all kinds of creative thoughts of your own, bring ideas to life and much more. Of course, if you’re like me, it can leave you with a cap, a white face, a pencil moustache, incredibly large sideburns, a pink check shirt, electric green overalls and outrageous accents.

But in fairness, I wouldn’t have it any other way.

One of those creatives is fellow deviant, Paddy Dunne, who has produced the latest masterpiece. For the last few stage productions for Devious Theatre, myself, Paddy and John (Morton) have worked the angles and cameras coming up with funky setups and promotional imagery for the likes of Stags and Hens, Accidental Death of an Anarchist, and next month’s production of Dario Fo’s Can’t Pay? Won’t Pay! The phrase “I’ll just photoshop it in” took on a life of its own many moons ago, but “photoshop it in” he’s done and he’s created this gem.

Of course, we won’t mention his PPAI Designer of the Year nomination last year but you’ll find reference to it in the programme if you make it along to the show.

Can’t Pay? Won’t Pay! opens in Set Theatre, Kilkenny, on Wednesday March 10th and runs to Sunday March 14th. Tickets, priced €13 are available from our online sales area. The early bird tickets (which were available at €10) have been snapped up but we’ve got plenty to go around. From March we’ll be taking a break from the stage for a few months, directing our theatrical sights into other areas online and off and this latest production brings a close to our Dario Fo season so we urge you to come out, you won’t be disappointed.

For more on the show, check DeviousTheatre.com.

Filed Under: Theatre Tagged With: , , , , , , ,

Last Day For Blog Awards Nominations

February 5, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Today is the last day for nominations for the 2010 Irish Blog Awards. This year the awards are hitting the road again, taking place in the Radisson Blu in Galway on Saturday March 27th.

As usual I’m leaving it until the last minute to get the nominations in, and if you’re like me then you’ve got until 3pm today to get yours in.

Of course if you’re looking for a nice arts and culture blog, take a gander at The Devius Theatre Company ;)

Check out the Blog Awards site to make your nominations.

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Kilkenny Company & Movie at The Oscars

February 2, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Oscar Nominated, The Secret Of Kells

THE SECRET of Kells has been on a good roll of late. Hell, it’s been on a good roll since the movie premiered last Spring. Of course, nothing says “good roll” than rolling on up to the Oscars as Cartoon Saloon’s The Secret Of Kells has been nominated for Best Animated Feature Film at the 82nd annual Academy Awards. See full list of nominees here.

If Glen Hansard can do it, maybe the “luck of the Irish” can rub off as the Tomm Moore directed movie goes up against Corlaine, Fantastic Mr. Fox, The Princess & The Frog and Up (which I loved in the cinema).

Congratulations to Tomm, Paul and everyone else at the Saloon who worked on the production, both in Ireland and overseas. It’s great to see another company from Kilkenny making a serious mark on the global stage.

Filed Under: Movies Tagged With: , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Speed Networking comes to Kilkenny

February 2, 2010 By Leave a Comment

business card stack
Creative Commons License photo credit: petter palander

SPEED NETWORKING, by definition, can be described as

A method of making a potential business contact by briefly talking to people at an organized event and exchanging contact details.

We’ve all been there, we’ve all done it. Networking opportunities are available every day of the week and we’ve had and seen some great successes out of contacts made on Open Coffee mornings, BarCamps, PodCamps, BusinessCamps, CreativeCamps and more. While the bigger events usually mean a day trip away to Dublin / Cork / Galway or elsewhere, a new dedicated speed networking event has been announced a little closer to home.

Kilkenny Chamber of Commerce intend holding it’s first of four speed networking events in the Kilkenny Ormonde Hotel on the 9th February 2010 from 6-8pm. There is no charge for Kilkenny Chamber of Commerce members or Kilkenny County Enterprise Board clients.

Those interested in attending the first of the speed networking nights should contact Billy O’ Neill at (056) 7752767 or email billy.oneill@kilkennychamber.ie or visit www.kilkennychamber.ie.

Of course, if you don’t want to wait until next Monday, why not join the table at Kilkenny Open Coffee this Wednesday morning at 11am in the Kilkenny Cafe at Market Cross Shopping Centre. Admittedly I’ve always preferred the informal networking opportunities presented by the likes of Open Coffees and BarCamps to those of organised networking events but with more and more people starting to go out on their own, it can pay to get out and get talking, whether formally or informally.

Filed Under: Business Tagged With: , , , , ,

Airport Parking, Online, Too Easy?

February 1, 2010 By Leave a Comment

Dublin Airport Parking

GONE ARE the days of getting out of the arrivals area of Dublin airport, crossing the road to the pay stations for the car park before getting on the bus, and passing out at the total displayed on the machine for your few days parking.

Gone too, seemingly, are the days of needing to use your credit card to get in and out of the car park in Dublin airport to validate payments made online.

In fact, so easy was the process that I had to follow up with airport parking online this morning to make sure that I’d been charged for the weekend’s stay in Long Term Red and that they realised the van was in fact now out of the carpark and not lingering in section D12 any more.

Admittedly it’s been a while since I’ve had to drive to the airport, I would usually opt for JJ Kavanagh’s door-to-door service for the airport spin but seeing as I was heading away on Friday and needed more time in Kilkenny than a bus schedule would allow me, it made sense to make the drive to Dublin Airport. Parking was booked and paid for by credit card on Thursday night and on arrival on Friday lunchtime, there was no need for cards or tickets or receipts – simply pull up at the barrier, your registration is scanned, transcribed and displayed on the barrier screen and in you go.

No problem I thought, just don’t lose the credit card in Scotland as you’ll need it on the way out.

But no. On returning last night, albeit close to three hours late and one failed take-off attempt in Aberdeen in horrendous snow and ice, I joined the queue getting out of the car park and no sooner had the barrier come down in front of me then it was up again. So quick was the process that I went off with the receipt of payment for the car in front of me and though the barriers had actually stayed up and maybe there was a fault.

Following things up this morning and all was well in the world, checkout confirmed at the Red exit for 8:54pm, card charged the right amount and payment details available for printing on the the DAA site, fears of parking charges building up allayed. Certainly makes the whole parking thing a hell of a lot easier.

Filed Under: Technology Tagged With: , , , , ,
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