Cork Open Coffee - Robust discussion
Written on April 13, 2007 by Conor O'Neill
We had another good turnout this morning at Open Coffee and covered a lot of ground from technology companies not building good links with content companies to quite a long discussion about aims and metrics associated with Cork Open Coffee.
Haydn made some strong points about the fact that many web businesses are very heavily involved in content (the classic User Generated Content) but they seem to focus on business networking in a technology realm. He feels that we should be building relationships with content and media companies like newspapers. Given that a lot of the acquisitions in the web-space in the UK have been by media companies, I think he dead right.
John held a long conversation about where we are going with OpenCoffee, how we will measure success and what practical steps we intend taking to bridge the divide between “the talent and the money”. Even at a local level he thinks we could be doing a lot more to build both the profile of OpenCoffee and of ourselves as “the talent”. I have some plans for building the LouderVoice name locally but, thinking about it, perhaps we could do it as a group.
One suggestion to aid this, which I like a lot, is that OpenCoffee should be the source of controversial and provocative statements made publicly about business, startups, technology, funding and academia e.g. “the entry criteria for Comp Sci and Engineering in Irish Universities is too low and is damaging our ability to build world class companies” or “technology investment in the Munster region has shown minimal return for investors over 10 years, so why are we different?” “EI should retract the offer of €175m to Irish VCs as they are clearly not able to raise matching funds. The money should be redistributed in €100k chunks to any start-up with a half-decent idea”. IF we get these messages out to mainstream media, I think we might get a smidge of attention!
Other suggestions included inviting in one-off guests (as opposed to guest speakers) to tell us informally about themselves, their businesses and give us the benefit of their experience. I have one VC who has offered to talk on the investment process and scene in Ireland, but there were several other suggestions including bringing in non-technology people who had invested in technology previously and had been burned. What had they learned? What could we learn from that? What needs to change for them to be interested again?
And finally, my favourite suggestion of the day - “OpenCoffee Goes Large”. We have decided to pick an upcoming OpenCoffee event in another country and attend it. Everyone is welcome to join us. It will be somewhere we can get to/from in a day for minimal cost. I suggest we start with London for a multitude of very obvious reasons. If there is an OpenCoffee in Poland, we think that could be a future destination too. And no, we’re not forgetting Limerick or Dublin!
This will not be a junket, it’s a mission with a purpose - to build our networks further, make valuable contacts and help build our businesses (or future businesses).
I’ll contact Saul to get the ball rolling and I’ll do a mailshot to all previous attendees of Cork Open Coffee to measure interest and find a good date to do it. I’m thinking sooner rather than later so perhaps early May? Thursday 3rd?
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Excellent post Conor and lots of stuff for us to chew on for Limerick OpenCoffee too. It’s great to have you guys acting as guinea pigs down there
Seriously though, terrific idea about going on tour with OpenCoffee. I know you’re interested in the Coworking initiative so perhaps this is something we could tie in at a later stage.
I wonder where Jeremy Fain, who organised the French tour of the Valley is located. He proposed the building of some links between Ireland and France so perhaps we could start there? I notice that OpenCoffee Club Paris seems to have a lively membership.
Poland is also an interesting suggestion, especially considering the growing ties between our two countries.
I’d love to do the London gig, it is a great idea but will be in the US on the 3rd
Here’s hoping you connect the Cork energy through Ning’s OpenCoffee as well.
Maybe we could co-work on the plane.
Following on my proposal this morning re:
“OpenCoffee Goes Large”, Cork City is twinned with the following European cities.
* Cologne, Germany
* Coventry, United Kingdom
* Rennes, France
* San Francisco, U.S.A.
* Swansea, Wales
* Shanghai, China
Also … Cork City Council will provide grants to Cork City based groups who are willing to pursue activities to promote the twinning links between any of the twinned cities subject to certain conditions.
Lets write ’some conditions …’
Thanks guys,
Bernie, everything we tag gets picked up by Ning. Anything else I should be doing there?
James, Paris is an excellent suggestion as it also fits in the the “low cost” model.
John, top ideas! We’ll have to come up with some new Cork twinning locations as none of the above are doing OpenCoffee yet. I will contact Paul, an entrepreneur I know in Poland to see if he is interested in setting one up in Kracow.
Co-working on a plane - the ultimate hotdesk
You couldnt make it the friday could you?
I will actually be in london on that day.
looking into changing my flight. I love the idea, thanks conor
We kinda have to go the day London Open Coffee is on
What I saw happen with personalbee is that the development effort was predicated on being taken up by another company like technorati - whreas five years ago thr exit strategy was an IPO, in these more difficult times financially, the exit route was to integrate with a firm that has pain, ie technorati don’t know how to get outside their core space. With the extreme difficulty of getting funding in Ireland that strategy seems even more appropriate and entrepreneurs I think should find a way to talk as equals to the media companies and others struggling with convergence, and strike mini-deals. OK we’ll develop this on but we expect xyz in a year’s time (not an IPO but an exec level job, a mini-buyout, all the R+D costs refudned plus 50% whatever. it won’t be millions again but it could be influence, salary, big contribution to pension fund etc
Mark Pesce gave a presentation almost two years ago to the Austrialian Film Television and Radio School. This video has done the rounds so apologies if most of you have seen it already: http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=-1720068211869162779
Titled “Piracy is good” it gives a very good insight into an alternative economic model for media distribution. Just following up on the content conversation..
Meant to be “Piracy is good?”.. slip of the keyboard. I’d be up for May 3rd. Aerlingus get into London Heathrow for 9am versus 9:30am for Ryanair to Standstead (which is further out) - Meetup starts at 10am. I’d suggest if you can’t make May 3rd to propose another (Tom?) like May 10th or 17th..
This is an awesome post - and thrilled OCC is provoking these kinds of questions. Please bring them to the wider community on the forums at http://www.opencoffeeclub.org — and I love the “go large” idea, very cool. Could be Amsterdam and the NextWeb Conf is the place….
[...]  Cork Open Coffee mentioned at Argolon [...]
I’ll open a topic on the forums.
I thought we’d dip our toes in the water with London in May and then start looking further afield. We can get to Gatwick return for €30 but AMS is over €100 in June.
Haydn, I think you have a very important point there.
Rather than looking for straight investment, perhaps early partnering is another approach. No real risk for the partner beyond some basic support and if it works out then everyone benefits without huge outlay.
[...] was over at the Open Coffee morning Friday and just had a quick interchange with Joe Drumgoole about Bar Camp Dublin. In both [...]
Excellent point on value of breaking out of the geek ghetto and networking with more traditional content and media producers themselves. Along the lines of tech/content convergence, interesting change to note at Enterprise Ireland in California — they had been working media & entertainment out of L.A. office with Maggie Da Leo and telecoms/mobile out of Silicon Valley with Diane Roberts. But, they’re now going to amalgamate both under Maggie in L.A., home to the big entertainment media producers who want to see their content distribute across multiple delivery platforms, including web and wireless.
p.s. look forward to attending OpenCoffeeCork on May 25th, when visiting from the US of A!
Michael, your comment really highlighted how little we deal with the content business. I didn’t even know there WAS an EI office in LA! I thought the Valley was the be-all and end-all of EI on the West Coast.
I know “convergence” is a bit of an old idea at this stage but it really is finally happening. Those who can bridge the two worlds are in the ideal position.
One of the charms of the intimate gatherings is you can actually make eye contact with everyone. While not wanting to deflate the energy of “Go Large” I’m going to stay local in these coffee chats. But my local area extends 310 miles from my front door.
I should be heading up to Limerick for May 3rd and I believe the WIT guys are toying with entering the fray so there’ll be plenty for us all to choose from if we want to take the odd foray from our local venue.
Any woman involved in these OCCs?? I am in Limerick and would like info on next mtg here. Not an entrepenuer yet but have harboured instinct for quite a while. I am an accountant but not your typical one, am interested in setting up a bookkeeping service for companies. To help them with their day to day requirements and be an offsite accounts aid, rather than get involved at the very end and pick the bones. The practice I am working for now does provide this sort of service but charge exhorbitant fees. Was thinking I could provide a better quality of service at a more reasonable price, as I have worked in industry for 12 years and practice for 1yr. What do ye think?
Hi Janet,
Women are thin on the ground in Cork OCC. We had three at the first, one at the second and none last week! Hope that changes. I think Mary Gilmartin attends all the Limerick ones.
I like the sound of your idea and I think both you and us could gain from your attending.
The next Limerick one is May 3rd and I hope to head up to say hello to everyone. The next Cork one is this coming Friday 27th in Luigi Malones at 10am.
Hi Conor,
following on from last week’s meeting (11th May), I think the enclosed will be of interested to some of the OpenCoffee participants. UCC is hosting a Seminar titled “Research for SMEs – How to Benefit from new Funding Programmes†on the 28th of May in UCC.
The event may be of interest, as speakers will include three of Enterprise Ireland’s NCPs for FP7 as well as industry case studies. The objective of the seminar is to encourage SMEs to engage in collaborative research projects with academics from UCC both nationally and within FP7.
Space is limited so please book early.
To register contact:
Linda McCourt, TTI Project Executive,
021 4903925, l.mccourt@ucc.ie