I Got A Gold Medal
February 26, 2010 at 10:41 am
Last night this here blog won gold!! A very pleasant surprise indeed. We’d made it to the finalists at the 2010 Digital Media Awards in the Best Blog Category, but I really didn’t expect to get anywhere. Imagine my surprise this morning when I saw on the wires that we’d won a Gold Medal – came second.
The award went to Ronan Lyons and well deserved too. Check out his blog – it’s economic commentary and analysis – bleak reading, but tells it like it is. I commend Ronan because it must take a fair bit of time to put the thought and research in that he so obviously does. I also have a little snigger every time I see his name in print because my madser nephew who is 5 is also called Ronan Lyons. His larger than life personality kind of supercedes any impression of thoughtful economic analysis!
I was also glad to see Kavaleer win in the Best Animation category. I’ve been working with them recently on developing a social media strategy for their kids cartoon Garth & Bev. Check out the blog here. All design lovingly created by CookieWeb.
Tags: digital media awards 2010, social media strategy garth & bev
Ireland Goes To The Webbys
October 16, 2009 at 6:19 pm
To all of you who made it to the shortlist of the Irish Web Awards – congratulations. Be proud.
Have you considered entering the Webby Awards?
The Webby Awards are the global web awards that have been running for nigh on 14 years now. They celebrate all that is great about online. The Oscars of the Web World. And I think it’s high time that Irish sites got in it.
If you enter before 30 October, it costs $255 to enter a site. That’s €171.
Cars Ireland – you won the Best Practice Award last weekend. Did you know there’s an entire category dedicated to you (Automotive) in the Webbys?
Beaut.ie – you could be adding a hint of a blush if you were representing Ireland in the Webbys in the Best Beauty & Cosmetics Category.
The guys at Look & Taste would cook up a storm in the Food & Bev category. Think of the global exposure to make it to the shortlists guys…
There’s a much wider range of categories than any Irish award ceremony has. I went to the Awards in 2007 and that was the first year that Online Film & Video and Mobile got their own awards night to handle all the various sections within those. We have such cool start-ups located all round this island. I really believe it’s high time we dust off the ‘ah sure we’re Irish we’d never stack up against the Americans’ attitude and give them a run for their money.
Because money is involved.
That’s the main barrier unfortunately, because let’s face it, not many start-ups have a spare €171 lying around. A couple of years ago I had managed to get a large Irish corporate involved in sending the cream of the Irish to the Webbys. We were going to ask you to vote for who you think should represent us in New York, and the mobile phone company was going to pay for it.
Sadly the organisers of the Webbys didn’t like it. No not one bit. They felt that this would put off potential entrants from independently entering. So, they blocked us from running this super promotion and instead have seen dribs and drabs of Irish entrants instead of the huge numbers we would have delivered instead.
That aside, get on there now, dust off your reservations and enter the 14th Webby Awards. If you get shortlisted, I’ll come and cheer you on in NYC!
Tags: Irish Web Awards Winners, Webby Awards, Webbys
Most Accessible Website Award
October 12, 2009 at 8:49 am
Last week was a brilliant one. It began with a win on Monday for an amount of money that I’d been waiting for since July 2008. Quite a hefty sum too, nice to receive it in time for me to hand it straight over to the Revenue.
On Wednesday, a new maternity hospital opened in Malawi. This was the result of five years of hard work on the part of The Rose Project. That Irish charity fundraised and built a maternity hospital to help a country that is on its knees with some basic healthcare. It’s definitely something that we Irish can be proud of as The Rose Project is a small charity set up and run by Irishwoman Mary Donohue. It’s not in the media everyday. But it works hard and does great things. The hospital was opened by another Irishwoman we can be proud of – Dr Mary Robinson.
To cap it all off, on Saturday night at the Irish Web Awards, The Rose Project website won the award for Most Accessible Website in Ireland. This is the second year in a row that a site by Brightspark has won such a prestigious and coveted award. We’re delighted that our work is being recognised by the judges of the Web Awards and really pleased too that it brings further coverage to The Rose Project. Congratulations to The Rose Project on the win.
It’s notable that out of 22 awards handed out on the night, 9 were won by what I would deem to be ’small’ organisations who obviously chose well in how to spend their limited budgets. The other 13 were won by well-funded organisations or semi-state bodies – the likes of The Irish Times, RTE, IDA. I’m delighted to see that publicly funded websites in Ireland have improved so much. At the same time, I’m really proud for the people behind the following sites who really are living the ethos of today – to get more with less:
- Best Site in Irish Language – Nos Magazine
- Best Social Media Campaign - Count Me Out
- Most Beautiful Website in Ireland – Organic Supermarket
- Best Ecommerce - Curious Wines
- Most Innovative – Decisions for Heroes
- Best New Web App – Kildare Street
- Best Music – Nialler9
- Best Videocaster – Look & Taste
- Best Podcaster – The Persuaders
With the global web awards, the Webby Awards early closing date of 30 October 2009, I would strongly urge all the winners and indeed the shortlisters at Saturday night’s awards to enter the Webby Awards. Put Ireland on the global web awards map. Enter here.
Tags: Irish Web Awards 2009, Most Accessible Website in Ireland, Webby Awards
Brightspark Shortlisted for Web Awards
September 24, 2009 at 10:48 am
Delighted to see we’ve been shortlisted three times for two categories in the 2009 Irish Web Awards:
- Most Beautiful Website in Ireland – for our work on The Rose Project
- Most Accessible Website in Ireland – for our work on The Ability Awards and for The Rose Project.
My thanks to the judges who have deemed us worthy of getting this far. We’re in great company so I’m pretty pleased to make it to the shortlist.
Winners will be announced on 10 October.
Tags: Irish Web Awards 2009, Most Accessible Website in Ireland, most beautiful website in ireland
Vote Early, Vote Often
June 25, 2009 at 2:41 pm
The inaugural Techcrunch Europe Award nominees have been announced and there are plenty of Irish companies in there. It’s a public vote, so head on over and keep the flag flying for a lot of great apps and businesses.
The Irish are:
- Decisions For Heroes, Best Social Innovation (which benefits society), (Vote Here)
- Mobanode, Best Mobile Startup, (Vote Here)
- LouderVoice, Best Web Application Or Service, (Vote Here)
- Joe Drumgoole, Best Startup Founder(s), (Vote Here)
- Dial2Do, Best Mobile Startup, (Vote Here)
- Locle, Best Mobile Application, (Vote Here)
- MuzuTV, Best Entertainment Application or Service, (Vote Here)
- CoClarity, Best Enterprise/B2B Startup (Vote Here)
Good luck to you all. You’ll be getting my votes – all 468 of them!
Tags: Techcrunch Europe Award, Web2Ireland
Best Blogger | Net Visionary Awards
April 17, 2009 at 9:38 am
I’ve been shortlisted as Best Business Blogger at this year’s Net Visionary Awards. Hurray. And thanks to the judges for letting me get this far. I’ve been outspoken in the past about how I think the Net Visionary awards are a bit of a ‘how large is your list’ competition, so they’re very nice indeed for letting me get through to this stage.
Congrats too to the others who are shortlisted: Puddleducks, Mulley Communications, Murphys Ice Cream, and Peter Donegan Landscaping.
Vote for Brightspark blog. You can do it anytime before 30 April.
3 Reasons Why You Should Vote For Brightspark Blog
- It’s the longest running blog on the list. I’ve been happily blogging here since 2003. In web years, that’s like 47 years old.
- The only chick blogger on there. “Jobs for the girls” and all that…
- This blog is the only one that’s been shortlisted for both the Irish Blog Awards business category and the IIA’s.
Until we won large at the Irish Web Awards, I’d always felt a bit ‘always the bridesmaid never the bride’ at awards ceremonies. Good enough to get there, but not good enough to win. So here’s your chance to bring a smile to my face this May. Vote now. Tell your friends to vote.
And thank you.
Tags: Best Blogger Net Visionary Awards 2009
How To Find Out What’s Really Hot Online
April 16, 2009 at 3:05 pm
As Ireland’s Ambassador for the Webby Awards, it is my solemn duty to declare that voting for the People’s Choice is now OPEN!
[Removes itchy scratchy twinset and pearls, shakes hair down out of chignon...]
If you want to cast your eye over the most innovative stuff that’s happening online, shimmy on over to the Webby Awards and have a look at the shortlist for 2009. Not only can you vote for what you think is the best website, online film/video, mobile, or advertising campaign, but it’s a great way to see what will be hot on this little isle in approximately 2.4 years.
I was heavily involved in the Webby Awards and judging in 2007 and let me tell you that we are only NOW seeing some of the mighty developments in mainstream Ireland that I was being asked to judge back then. So think of it as an online crystal ball. Consider it doing your bit for the best on the web. Or just enjoy it as a form of interesting diversion from what you’re supposed to be doing right now.
STOP PRESS – Ireland’s much loved Balcony TV has been selected as an Official Honoree for the Music category. The Official Honoree distinction is awarded to the top 15% of all work entered that exhibits remarkable achievement. With nearly 10,000 entries received from all 50 states and over 60 countries, this is an outstanding accomplishment for the team at Balcony TV.
Vote now! You’ve got until 30 April.
Tags: People's Choice Awards, Webby Awards 2009
All About Blogs
February 27, 2009 at 7:00 am
Had great fun last week chatting to Robert Coyle of Bloom Advertising on Alex Gibson’s show – The Persuaders. We were talking about blogging in the run up to the blog awards. Here are some of the things I talked about. If any of these grab you, have a listen to the show:
- Being a blogger is not just about writing your own blog
- How I prepare my content; my blog process
- Blogrolls and what I think of them
- How I promote my blog
- Commenting etiquette
- Talking about some of the finalists in the blog awards including Red Mum, Iced Coffee, Sabrina Dent, The Sexy Pedestrian (my ‘one to watch’ who won!), Sourgrapes, and Cheap Eats (who also won the category)
Tags: Blogging, Bloom, Rob Coyle, The Persuaders
Website in a Week : Fin
February 17, 2009 at 12:13 am
This is it. It’s alive! Jobless And Proud.
One week later and David Jones will be on Newstalk tomorrow (Tuesday) morning at 7.40am. Do like the Angeles and stop whatever you’re at to listen!
UPDATE – switch on TV3 Tuesday lunchtime and you can see David Jones being interviewed. You’ve heard the voice, you’ve read the words, now see the man!
This Story Has Changed
This story has altered from being one of a man committing himself to paper and sharing his experiences… to one of people supporting people. At a time when I fear this country is being over-run by the new creed of ‘cute-hoorism’ it’s restored my faith and shown that there are a great many people out there who don’t subscribe to that. Who give.
My Observations:
- Efficiency. With very little time, there has been no messing around. But truly this project has run in the smoothest most efficient manner possible. I’m not praising myself there. I believe it ran so smoothly because everyone on the team believed in what we were doing. We were given free rein to unleash our creativity and show off how good we can be. There were no agendas about things, so sign off and agreement was reached pretty quickly.
- Everything seemed to be in tune with this little project. While all of this was going on, I was hearing news of friends losing their jobs. No, not 15% pay cuts. But job losses. It made the words of David’s book all the more meaningful. I’m hearing too many tales of people down the dole office being treated badly; the staff who work there don’t seem to know how to deal with people with MBA’s and former six figure salaries. I got to listen to the inspiring Lucy Gaffney speak on Thursday and she was telling how Newstalk (and other stations in the Communicorp group) now have a positive editorial policy. And all the time people were coming out of the woodwork offering themselves and their services for free.
- Exhausted in Dunshaughlin. All the while we’ve had David up and down (by bus) between Dublin and Dunshaughlin. We’ve done most of the web work remotely, ranging from Belfast to Cork, but David had to be photographed, recorded for podcast, and interviewed. The poor man is exhausted – but I know, exhilarated too! He’s a 57 year old who didn’t know what a blog was this time last week and has just now published his first post! He has shown a remarkable ability to learn so quickly, to take everything in, and importantly – not to knock it. Too often I’ve come across people who don’t get the web and they knock it because of that. But David has taken all things www in his stride.
I wish David Jones well in this next chapter of his career and yes I know that was a very poor pun indeed. I also wish these fine people lots of joy and success and I say thanks for being so generous, quick to respond, and for taking that asking call!
- Mega talented Rachel Earley for coming up with a kickass design, for putting her own portfolio site on hold to do this, and for being there for all the little iterations.
- David McDonald, the only one amongst us who has a clue what book design is about. His mention of ISBN numbers at an early stage instilled confidence in me!
- Gordon Murray for quietly answering every request that was asked of him.
- David Duignan for managing to capture the real David on digital film.
- Alex Gibson for recording him and making him feel at ease.
- Seamus from Corkmedia.net for making some intro’s.
Now goodnight, I have to be up early to tune in the wireless to FM 106 for the launch of Jobless & Proud.
If you have a blog, please link to the new site. If you have a spare fiver buy the book. It’s a good read.
Oh and we’re still looking for someone to skin the blog. If that’s you, please get in touch.
Adding an international dimension to this project, we’ve just got our blog skinner upper – Dennis Deery.
Tags: Jobless & Proud, Website in a Week
Knit Yourself A Cocktail : 21 Feb
January 31, 2009 at 6:41 pm
If you tick yes to all of the following, then stick 21st Feb in your diary 4-7pm, for that is the date of the 2nd Annual Ladies Tea Party (And Knitting Circle).
- Attending the 2009 Irish Blog Awards in Cork?
- A blogger – one of the female sort?
- A ligger?
Organised by the wonderful Sabrina Dent and kindly sponsored by Curious Wines, iFoods, and Piosa Cake, it looks set to be a nice little pre-event session to get us all in the mood!
You must register. And there are only 30 places. So get on over to the Ladies Tea Party registration spot now and add your name to the list.
