Business Post News Clips

Bernie Goldbach in Cashel | Snap from Business Post magazine.

I READ PAPER copies of newspapers during the weekends because it helps me see things from the perspective of a layout editor. It's an exercise with information architecture.

Kathryn Thomas (pictured at her Audi gig) took a page in the Sunday Business Post Magazine and mused about how she might document her trip to Chernobyl with Adi Roche. [1] I'd look no farther than how Christian Payne documents those kinds of trips. Actually, I'd get an Audi Estate with 100,000 miles on the clock to push off from Budapest to Kiev and then towards Chernobyl. I'd document the journey with Audioboo, Bambuser, Flickr and Instagram. I'd set up a Flattr campaign to encourage viewers to drop micropayments into a tip jar and I'd eat only what my Flattr money compensated.

On a totally unrelated note, I'm experimenting with the format of my blog posts to see how media elements and horizontal rules affect Sound Gecko's text-to-speech processing. I don't expect anything beyond this sentence to be processed by Sound Gecko and that means a new Zemanta extension probably does not get harvested by Sound Gecko.

Irish Sunday Business Newsround

There's more to the Business Post news below the fold. I made a short video about things that piqued my interest.

 

Personal Insolvency in Ireland

Bernie Goldbach in Cashel | My photo of a happier note.

THE IRISH CABINET has approved guidelines to be used by banks and other creditors when meeting citizens with claims of insolvency. Although some of the guidelines suggest penal servitude to opposition politicians, I know they also reflect reality around our kitchen table.

Even before government guidelines have been published, the Free Legal Advice Centre reports, "banks have refused to allow people who have made debt settlements to spend money on dental work, car reparis, or after-school activities for their children." [1]

Another leaked guideline involves childcare expenses. If the job taken doesn't offset the cost of child care incurred, the current draft guidelines allow for banks to decide "a resonable standard of living" for people entering debt-settlement arrangements. [2] When you're sitting in front of a bank manager with your spreadsheet and grocery shopping receipts, you'll probably cave in to the demand to cutting child care if that's suggested. [3] And you might have to cut your Sky TV subscription and give up a family pet for adoption.

Sunday Newsround with Personal Insolvency Inside

Presentation Primary School Clonmel Easter Newsletter 2013

Words by Patricia Mulcahy | Colouring by Mia Goldbach.

HERE'S OUR EASTER Newsletter for 2013 (Thank you Noelle :). It details recent events at Clonmel Presentation Primary School.

A hard copy was sent home with each child this afternoon and I'm posting it to Bernie's Blog TODAY!!. I've just learned how. Very simple. Attach to an email and off I go! This is one very happy IT coordinator. Please enjoy our news :)

Production Notes follow.

Milestone number one: Email an image / file to a site: Tick!

Advantages: We've also made the website more current, less cumbersome, more user friendly :) Thanks Bernie!

Technical Note: Sometimes content in Word documents shift around when opened in different versions of Word. That's one reason Adobe Acrobat is often used to distribute newsletters and formal proposals.

Download Presentation Primary School Clonmel Easter Newsletter 2013.doc

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Editor's Note: I walked away from Tricia as she independently sent her post from Outlook to Typepad. While in the car, I saw the blog post publish. A few hours later, our junior infant asked that I illustrate this blog post with Mia's colouring of the newsletter she brought home. Kids like to have their stuff published online.  ^BG

How Many Irish Business Suicides

Bernie Goldbach in Cashel | Photo of Independent Mattie McGrath.

I READ PQ PAGES (pages containing answers to Parliamentary Questions) on politicians' websites. One of local TD Mattie McGrath's PQs about suicide from debts was rebuffed by the Irish government and I believe it needs answering.

Mattie McGrath raised the question through parliamentary channels, asking the Irish Minister for Justice "to provide in tabular form, for the last five years, the number of cases listed before the Commercial Courts where the death of a party to a case is recorded as either being caused due to death by misadventure or suspected suicide." According to Jerome Reilly in the Sunday Independent, "Ceann Comhairle Sean Barrett wrote to Mr McGrath on February 3 saying that "with regret" he had to disallow the question. I think it's a valid one because I'm aware of local suicides arising from bankruptcy, NAMA proceedings and financial stress directly related to government austerity policies. Not putting these matters into the public eye reduces the moral imperative needed in Ireland to adequately deal with depressed assets.

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Jerome Reilly -- "Incendiary Dial Query is blocked" in the Sunday Independent, March 3, 2013.

Bernie Goldbach teaches creative multimedia in the constituency of Mattie McGrath.

Sunday Tech News

Bernie Goldbach in Cashel | Photo of Sunday Business Post.

THE BUSINESS POST in Ireland offers several leading thoughts about technology on the near horizon that I am bringing into our creative multimedia programme. You can click on the image to see a video that explains more details.

I'm posting these trends forward by five years to see how accurate Dick O'Brien's prognostications are.

Tech I Can Use

Irish Horse Burgers

Bernie Goldbach in Cashel | Click image to get video.

WHEN I LIVED in Germany, horse burgers sold briskly in Kaiserslautern's Saturday market. Horse burgers are in the Irish news for another week but largely because you shouldn't find horse meat in Irish burgers. 

I looked through a single Irish Sunday paper alongside the digital version of the Wall Street Journal as I created both an audio and video newsround. The Irish horse burger story has made the front pages of most Irish Sunday papers during the past two weeks but hasn't trickled over to the WSJ (as far as I have noticed). The issue is one of traceability with a hint of fabricated veterinary inspection stamps.

My Sunday Newsround

 

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Bernie Goldbach has a collection of newsrounds from Ireland.

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Irish Tablet Sales Soar

SALES OF TABLET computers are soaring in Ireland, according to research figures studied by Adrian Weckler. [1] we have two tablets in our home.

Laptop sales in 2012 fell by 12% in Ireland, according to figures from GfK. People are buying tablets instead with one in five Irish adults now owning something like our Motorola Xoom or Apple iPad. If our experience is typical, those buying a tablet won't get more than three years of use from a tablet before its operating system fails to update. When that happens, you are stuck with versions of apps that will look older and operate with less capability than their updated versions. This end-of-life limitation happens more comprehensively than with a computer of the same age.

We bucked national trends by giving the grandparents a film camera and traditional photo box. They were delighted to get something that will eliminate motion blur from their snapshots. And they appreciate the ease of getting prints from their local chemist.

Meanwhile, overall sales of digital cameras in the Irish market have fallen 18% in value and by 21% in the number of units sold. People tend to use their smartphones to take photos today. Recent figures from Amarach Consulting show almost two thirds of Irish adults now own smartphones. I don't think Amarach tracked the number of working handsets their respondents have. In my case, I carry four working and unlocked smartphones in my bag representing four different operating systems. I work with several people who use two or three screens throughout the business day to monitor conversations, trends and streams of information.

If you need to work quickly when trends emerge, you shouldn't hide the Analytics behind a browser tab or inside an email marked as "important". The truly important stuff needs to grab your attention by landing front and centre on a screen where you can quickly act on it.

(Props to @adrianweckler for his continued excellence in business journalism. Photo of our Xoom and Moleskine work table.)

1. Adrian Weckler -- "Tablet sales soar as laptops slump" in The Sunday Business Post, January 6, 2013.

Dublin One of Top Five Places for New Year's Eve

Bernie Goldbach in Cashel | Photo of Temple Bar.

SPEAKING FROM EXPERIENCE, Dublin deserves to be named as one of the top five places to spend New Year's Eve. Temple Bar is well-lighted for the occasion.

It's old news by this time because several months ago The Lonely Planet travel guide listed Dublin as one of the best places to ring in the new year and every street in Temple Bar (see photo) is in a welcoming mood. [1] Others include Prague, New South Wales coast, Chiang Mai in Thailand and the French Alps.

Another High Culture event for the new year in Ireland is Castlecomer's annual Wellie Race. We've seen that several times, once observing a horse-drawn cart catch fire in the middle of the opening parade. Recommended.

Losing Our Joie de Vivre

Bernie Goldbach in Cashel | FT on the kitchen table.

AUSTERITY MEANS fewer champagne corks and lower cost Christmas toys in many parts of the European Union this December. It's front page news on the Financial Times this weekend and part of my Audioboo.

There is a moroseness, "a sadness among the French population at the moment," says Paul-Francois Vranken, chief executive of Vranken Pommery Monopole. [1] The gloom has deepened during the past two weeks with Irish newspapers watching the open spat between the French socialist government and prominent French citizens. Faced with paying 75% of their earnings over to the State as taxes, a number of well-known Frenchmen are handing in their passports and setting up residency in lower tax regimes such as Belgium and England. And although socialists in Ireland are watching this happen, they continue leading a crusade to squeeze upper income earners through a wealth tax or a higher margin on earnings above EUR 100,000. This would damage wealth creation if implemented as a government policy.

Reading FT for News

I explain this in a short audio (above) and in a YouTube clip below the break. I'm thinking about techies like Loic Le Meur and wondering how all this socialism might affect their entrepeneurial spirit. And for the record, I've been a regular FT reader for a decade.

 

Sad Newsround from American Kill Zone

Bernie Goldbach in Cashel | Image of our carriage lantern.

FRONT PAGE NEWS encapsulates one reason why growing up in Ireland is safer than growing up in the States. I expand upon a Financial Times headline in the 10-minute audio clip below.

I don't expect Americans to change the relatively smooth pathway to cultivating a personal arsenal because that right is enshrined in the American Constitution. I don't expect to see a welcome boost to mental health care in an upcoming national budget. And I don't expect broadcasters to change their style of reporting about tragic assassinations on school grounds. Not in my lifetime.

But I feel I give my kids more of a lifeline during their school years by having that education occur in Ireland. The biggest threat they're likely to face is by riding a twenty-year old bus or by taking a spin with a boy racer. They're unlikely to hear "pop-pop-pop" in the hallways of their schools unless there's a celebration with balloons or food.

The story of the Sandy Hook tragedy will unfold for weeks but when it comes to regulating access to bullets, identification requirements at gun shows, or the sale of assault weapons, I doubt the articulate and well-financed lobby of the National Rifle Association will be defeated by legislators who need their next round of campaign donations.

FT Newsround of Killings

Related articles

Sunday Newsround

Observer Times Post Newsround

Sunday Newsround from Ireland

Irish Sunday Newsround

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Bernie Goldbach is saving newsround items.