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November 28, 2009

Wired's Top 50 Websites

The first few are not very interesting:

Google
Yahoo
MSN
Apple
Wikipedia
Amazon
YouTube
Facebook
Twitter
The Pirate Bay
the NYT
Firefox
Adobe
Digg
reddit
eBay
linkedin
Flickr
Craigslist
deviantart
WordPress
Huffington Post
Drudge Report
Daily Show (even more boring now they don't serve in UK)
CNN (gawd - almost asleep here)
Guardian
WoPo
Techcrunch
WSJ
TED
vimeo
Firendfeed
hulu
paypal (come on guys nothing interesting ...)
Stumbleupon
Blogger
Dailymotion
MySpace
O'Reilly
last.fm
Delicious
Drupal
Ask
Blizzard
CNET
Skype
Fotolog
mixi
Spiegal.de

Hmmm - that was not interesting

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November 28, 2009

All I know about deer in 10 minutes

I few weeks ago I went to see the Sika deer in Gortin Glen Forest Park.  I spoke to John Millmore about the deer and then this morning headed into Radio Ulster and the Your Place and Mine programme to talk deer.

Duration 9:26

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Filed under  //   deer   gortin glen   podcast   your place and mine   ypam  

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November 25, 2009

Slugger Awards - What Geldof Had to Say

Bob Geldof made a plea (via video) at the Slugger Awards for a fair deal in Northern Ireland for the provision of local news in the digital age.

“You’re all aware, I think, finally what’s been going on with new media in Northern Ireland and basically what’s been going on is that the old media have managed to get a lock out on any new funding coming into Northern Ireland for finding out what sort of local news or new ways of delivering it that maybe possible."

"Below the Radar ... is a superb production company, a Northern Irish production company is part of the Ten Alps group [founded by Geldof] and they wanted to go with the Belfast Telegraph; they wanted to contest the option for auction for delivering local news in NI.

“And we found out that somehow not only us, but everyone else who wanted to compete had been excluded and it’s preposterous – it seems to be ok that England, Wales and Scotland will get millions of pounds flowing their way to test out new ways and new media for delivering local news but not Northern Ireland. It’s like it’s ok for NI to be the also-ran in the UK, not to get money for new companies, or new ways for delivering new media."

See what Geldof had to say on the Below the Radar web site

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November 24, 2009

Slugger Awards

The Slugger Awards Held were tonight in the Black Box in Belfast,

For full coverage of winners etc check out www.sluggerotoole.com

Download the MP3 here

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Filed under  //   podcast   slugger awards   sluggerotoole  

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November 22, 2009

Knockmany Chambered Cairn

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For the Radio Ulster programme Your Place and Mine I visited the Knockmany Chambered Cairn just outside Augher.  Professor Mark Bailey is the Director of the Armagh Observatory and Edith Logue works for the NI Environmental Agency.

You can read more about Knockmany here: http://star.arm.ac.uk/Knockmany/ on the Observatory website.  After broadcast, I’ll add audio recorded at the chamber.

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November 18, 2009

Breakfast with BBC Trust

This was published this morning on my Digital Circle Ning blog which is only available to members.

Every so often the full membership of the BBC Trust meets in Belfast. This is one of the out of London meetings shared by Northern Ireland, Wales and Scotland. In addition to meeting BBC staff, they meet with other stakeholders and interested parties to garner opinion and thoughts about the BBC and how it operates and the view from the Nation.

This morning I had breakfast with the Chair Sir Michael Lyons, the local chair Rotha Johnston Trustee for Northern Ireland plus others from UTV, News Letter, Screen NI, Ulster Museums and Invest NI.  Yes, the discussion was wide ranging from commissioning to how Northern Ireland is presented on screen (factually and in entertainment and drama), is there sufficient balance between News and Business coverage, what is the role of BBC Online’s news Service? 

When people sit in a room and discuss BBC commissioning, the focus always falls on television commissioning. Perhaps because it has the biggest budget, perhaps it’s because it has the most people working in it. My criticism – which was accepted – was that the BBC does not have a strategy for engagement with the digital content industry, not just BBC Northern Ireland, but in the BBC as a whole.  Officially 25% of the BBC Future Media budget should go to external suppliers.  In Belfast it did from the year that rule was introduced (I was managing the budget and worked with a bunch of suppliers).  I expect that it still does.  But there is a bigger challenge.  The big budgets  are found in what is called Network production in television and in radio.  The big budgets are in London and we (the DC industry here) need to be engaging with the BBC to access those budgets, prove our creativity and compete with any other supplier in the UK.  

But the BBC has a partnership responsibility here. 

BBC in London believes that it is approachable and open to ideas.  As a Nations producer and editor within the BBC, approaching London Central was difficult enough.  From Belfast as an external supplier, it remains almost impossible. 
 
But I also think we restrict ourselves in what we are supplying and what we are expected to supply.  Yes, it should be web sites and technology platforms.  But it must also be content – what I (and they) call Editorial Content.

And it needs to be sustainable.

I know that Peter Johnston Director Northern Ireland and Rotha Johnston (no relation) the Northern Ireland Trustee are both keen on developing a business and supply modal here.  I know Alistair Hamilton of Invest NI shares that intention.

But we need some leadership, a road map and a sustainable conversation.  Digital Circle will engage, and engage constructively.

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November 17, 2009

Slacktivism

This week's Belfast Telegraph article

It's called “Slacktivism”: a mix of Activism and Slacker describing how some people support a cause by doing no more than signing an online petition, or joining a Facebook group or taking part in a Twitter-storm. 

Slacktivism is a pejorative term, but the motivation behind a person’s engagement in an issue can be positive.  Most of us are not in a position to change public perception or opinion even if we had the time and resources, even the inclination to put our boots on and take to the streets. Following the Iranian elections in June supporters of the Iranian opposition did take to the streets in protest.  Some Twitter users outside Iran added a green tinge to their profile photo to show support to the protesters. Some even changed their profile location to Tehran believing that this would hinder the Iranian authorities.  We were told Iranians were using Twitter to arrange protests, the government was trying to monitor them and it was though that the more people on the platform with a false Tehran location the harder it would be to track the real organisers.  Who knows whether it did or not.

In October newsrooms were prevented from reporting information about Trafigura by threat of severe legal action (http://www.belfasttelegraph.co.uk/news/local-national/commons-protest-as-trafigura-gag-lifted-14530143.html).  It was a Twitter-storm that brought the story into the public domain showing the “super-injunction” to be impotent.  While some registered outrage others became online detectives digging up the information that the public was being prevented from knowing.  This was not slacktivism, this was mass collaboration that confounded the legal status quo. But every hash-tag helped.

Signing up to a Facebook page in protest or support doesn’t take much effort.  People have been hoodwinked.  As a part of a psychological experiment, Anders Colding-Jørgensen created a Facebook protest group that went from 125 to 27,500 members in two weeks. The cause, “Save the Stork Fountain” was a totally fictitious protest against the demolition of a famous Danish fountain.  He wanted to understand if political campaigns like that could work.  His conclusion was that they don’t. People sign-up to the headline not the issue.

Some Twitter and Facebook campaigns might be superficial and transient but Slactivism is surely better than apathy. It is us Slackers 40th birthday present to the Internet.

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Filed under  //   Belfast Telegraph   Social Media   Twitter  

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November 17, 2009

Mintel Report on Social Networking in Ireland

Mintel reports this week that social networking continues to grow in popularity among Irish consumers, with penetration reaching 67% in December 2008.

The growth of this activity has brought with it an innovative and engaging way for companies to increase brand awareness, develop and maintain a relationship with their target audience, and crucially create an opportunity to generate sales. Several Irish companies have recognised the potential that online social networks offer them and have acted upon this by setting up profile pages, for example, to get the b2c conversation started.

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November 14, 2009

Orchard Acre Farm

Orchard Acre Farm near Irvinestown in Fermanagh has been run by Teresa and Hugh since 1989. It runs courses, classes and events on growing and cooking "from plot to pot".  Winner of environmental awards such as a 2009 Sustainability Award their philosophy is "We work with Mother Nature not against her.We don’t tell people how to live their lives. Guests, students and visitors to Orchard Acre Farm simply come here to learn for themselves and have an enjoyable experience in a beautiful unspoilt part of North West Fermanagh. We are happy that some of our visitors  leave without ever knowing just how really green their visit was."

I visited the farm in September and interviewed Teresa.  The report was broadcast on BBC Radio Ulster's Your Place and Mine today

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Filed under  //   Eco Tourism   Farm   Fermanagh   podcast   your place and mine   ypan  

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November 10, 2009

Doing Business with China

A friend who held a senior post in the Department of Trade and Industry (now Business Innovation and Skills) in London, now has his own company, Levering Limited, and shares his time between the UK and Asia where he now spends much of his time.  He is working from there with businesses in China largely on Outsourcing.  Mervyn has first hand, up to date knowledge and experience of 20 Chinese cities and many local innovative, talented hi-tech companies - all with robust IP protection and excellent English language skills.  He is also a Global Star Certified Adviser to the International Institute for Outsource Management.

Mervyn and I are doing some business together on providing services from China to the UK and Ireland.

Businesses from here who I have spoken to in the past have not been terribly impressed with outsourcing to India; they find it hard to manage the work with the agent in India and the work being done there. No one that I have spoken to has done work with China.  However, with someone here (me) and someone there (Mervyn), I think we can offer a more efficient service. You would be dealing with me face to face, me with Mervyn on Skype and Mervyn face to face with the suppliers in China.  Yes there is an extra link, but one that until now appears to be missing.

So if you are looking to outsource anything below on, for example, IT, Content/Media, Business Process, contact me and we will have a face to face conversation on sourcing a suitable partner in China.

  • Software and Application Development across all industries, including Testing and Maintenance
  • New Media and Content Management, including Games, eLearning, Web Design, Flash and 3D Animation
  • Translation and Localisation
  • Full Range of Enterprise Solutions, e.g. Logistics and Supply Chain Management, Customer Relationship Management, Database Entry and Management, Infrastructure Management, HR, Accounting,
  • Product Lifecycle Management
  • Telecoms, including iPhone apps
  • Financial Services
  • Embedded technology
  • Semi conductor chip technology
  • R&D
  • Plant design and automation

A partnership with China could substantially enhance your organisation's competitiveness, as well as potentially helping to access the world’s largest, fastest growing market.  The overwhelming majority of Fortune 500 Companies have outsourcing partners in China - an increasingly attractive outsourcing destination for companies of all sizes.

Drop me a line: ds at davysims dot co dot uk

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Filed under  //   Business   China  

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