Online social networking via airline travel September 29, 2006
Posted by firsttuesday in General.1 comment so far
Very interested to read on Guerilla Innovation about KLM, a Dutch airline, creating an online community for their passengers doing business in China.
Club China also encourages its members to share calendar and travel information in order to make it easier for them to meet up in China.
It’s a clever way to bring their customers together, but more importantly it recognises the traits that they share and encourages them to interact, effectively creating a community.
We find it amusing because most of the time when you come back from a trip, you’d be more likely to complain about the person beside you who kept getting up to go to the toilet, rather than talk about a new business opportunity. Best of all for KLM, when people are asked where they met, they’ll always bring up the airline, thus creating citizen advertisers in the process.
Perhaps Aer Lingus will dream up a similar service soon?
Technorati Tags: First Tuesday, Networking, KLM
Neat way to organise your business cards September 26, 2006
Posted by firsttuesday in General.2 comments
Mike Santoro points us in the direction of CardScan, a handy way to organise your personal contacts by electronically entering them into your CRM system. It looks a bit like a laminator, but it could free up some space in your rolodex or address book.
Technorati Tags: Business Cards, First Tuesday
Diversification increases your networking potential September 25, 2006
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We’ve started to read the Duct Tape Marketing Blog Channel. One of the most interesting blogs is ‘Referrals for Life‘. Last week Patrick Carney talked about the importance of diversity within your network. Highlighting the problem of restricting your networking to a similar socioeconomic group, he points out the following:
The problem with this is that when we surround ourselves with people who have similar contacts, it may be difficult to make connections with new people or the companies we desire to do business with.
By restricting yourself in such a fashion, you’re simply limiting the potential of your networking ability.
Technorati Tags: First Tuesday, Networking
Updated Enterprise Ireland Commercialisation Showcase brochure available September 22, 2006
Posted by firsttuesday in Research Technologies Commercialisation.4 comments
Those interested in attending the Enterprise Ireland Commercialisation Showcase next week or anyone who has laready signed up can download the updated brochure here.
The importance of building relationships September 21, 2006
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Interesting article called ‘The 10 Commandments of Networking‘ that is well worth the read. One very good point that comes out of it is that too many people go to networking events hoping for “immediate gains”. “Immediate gains” obviously translates as sales 
.
The author of the article, Mark McGregor, points out:
To get the most out of your networking experience, you need to build a relationship with people who you want to have contact with. Not all members will be able to help you, nor will you be able to help them. That doesn’t mean you should snub them!
Instead of going to events only to open your mouth with a sales pitch, you should often take the time to listen to what other people have to say about their business. Quite often it’s much easier to make a sale when you can relate how your product or service can help their business.
Looking at McGregor’s point about building relationships, you should always be willing to offer your fellow networkers free advice. People buy from people they can trust. If you can point them in the way of some free resources or offer practical advice from your own experience, you’d be surprised at how you stay in touch with those individuals. Your name will be first to mind when future businesses opportunities with those same people or their colleagues arises.
Technorati Tags: First Tuesday, Networking
Virtual colonscopy September 20, 2006
Posted by firsttuesday in Research Technologies Commercialisation.1 comment so far
One of the interesting projects that will be presented at this year’s Informatics Technology Commercialisation Showcase will be by Paul Whelan from DCU about Virtual Colonoscopy.
One of the most obvious benefits of the technology is that it does not require an anesthetic or a hospital stay. It reflects the purpose of the event in that Enterprise Ireland is committed to helping commercial potential tap into that pipeline at the optimum time.
You only have to look at the state of the Irish Health system today to see how the technology could make an impact. Current reforms of the health system are all about making the system more efficient. In essence this means freeing up hospital beds. More importantly, it means that people who need beds could stay in them as long as they are needed instead of changing the health system into a conveyor belt.
It also opens up an interesting discussion about the human body and how some people view many procedures as invasive. By developing new medical imaging technologies, not only can the health system itself be made more efficient, but the benefits for the human body could be far more reaching as it doesn’t need to recover from other procedures. Something of major importance to the elderly (a group that colonscopies are often performed on) and those in the middle of long treatments.
Technorati Tags: First Tuesday
Keep a pen handy September 19, 2006
Posted by firsttuesday in General.5 comments
Has anyone else noticed how few people seem to carry a pen around with them anymore? I was reading an article about networking by Catherine Franz which highlighted this. Her advice is to “keep a pen handy…for writing tidbits on the back.” Surprisingly simple, but how often has it been forgotten?
Think about how many people you meet at events, and the resulting number of business cards you pick up. Speaking honestly, quite often I take a number of business cards more so out of politeness than actual interest. The problem is though that the ones I’m interested in can get lost in the pile of random ones. All I would need is a pen to put an asterix on the important cards or jot down a couple of notes about why they are of interest.
Catherine’s advice is quite simple, but it’s the simple advice which is often the most important!
Technorati Tags: First Tuesday, Networking
Is the future of online retailing about leveraging social networks? September 18, 2006
Posted by firsttuesday in Research Technologies Commercialisation.2 comments
Another project at this year’s Informatics Technology Commercialisation Showcase which might be of interest to people is the E-commerce Recommender System. Here’s the blurb on the Serendipity Engine which is being presented on the day:
The Serendipity Engine is a next-generation e-commerce interactive management technology (IMT) designed to simplify the sourcing of merchandise on-line. The technology is designed for inexperienced online consumers who find it difficult to precisely describe their product needs. The majority of retailers provide a basic product search facility, however there is little tomatch the expertise of an experienced sales assistant when navigating the user through complex product spaces. The Serendipity solution will make the process of choosing a product uncomplicated and significantly improve online retailer conversion rates and revenues.
Despite the fact that online retailing is taking off in a big way, the current search facilities offered on most sites is quite poor. Amazon continues to lead the way as their competitors seem to struggle comprehending the value of the industry leader’s strategy.
Funnily enough it is probably the popularity of sites like Bebo or MySpace that will finally shine the light on the value of improved search engines, but more importantly focus on the underlying psychology of sales. That is as consumers we are influenced by the purchases of those around us – be it through recommendations or basic jealousy.
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More on broadband September 14, 2006
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It seems to have been a bit of a whirlwind fortnight since our event. Sorry to harp on about broadband, but since last Tuesday Ireland has come close to bottom of yet another league table, new research has been released on telecoms spend in Ireland this year and iReach paint a gloomy picture of current strategies currently being employed in the marketplace on their blog.
Floating near the bottom of the league, discontent in the dressing room and the future isn’t looking to bright either…maybe Roy Keane should be drafted in to turn things around 
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Ice Broadband snaps up Ildana September 12, 2006
Posted by firsttuesday in Telecoms.2 comments
Interested to note that Ice Broadband have snapped up Ildana Broadband. Fran Rooney, a director of Ice, spoke at our event – “The future of Irish telecoms” last week.
It seems that as we move into 2007 we’re going to see a lot more buying as selling in the telecoms marketplace as more companies look to enter the market and others seek to diversify their offering. With o2 and Vodafone expected to enter the broadband market over the coming months, one wonders as to whether they might make a fixed line purchase. o2 were linked with Perlico the other week and Vodafone signed a deal with the BT Group in the UK to get into the fixed line market.
The one thing that seems certain is that the next eighteen months will all see the major telecoms players concentrating on stopping customer churn. The tactics that will be employed will be to diversify standard offerings with value added services. The end result of which will be a customer who is less likely to switch service providers because it would be too much hassle in their mind to change given the number of services they are currently provided with by the one vendor.
Technorati Tags: First Tuesday, Telecoms
