WHEN LOCALS ASK me the same question, it's probably time to follow up on their ideas. Over the past two days, four people in Cashel have asked me when I'm going back to the States. It's a fair question because people travel during the Christmas holidays and we have a little one who wants to see her grandmother in Pennsylvania. Then there is the economic issue about visiting America--every day the euro buys more dollars. It's like visiting a city-wide 50%-off sale now on in NYC. And the weekend papers continue this theme.
Dollar's status won't rebound. "What really matters is where investors want to put their savings and, currently, the answer seems to be anywhere but the US." Hamish McRae has another point that certainly has financial planners thinking. 1 "There is a rival currency covering an economic zone of comparable size to the US, the euro." McRae points out that the eurozone is growing faster than the dollar zone. Those diverging growth patterns will attract fewer investments to the States and "more people around the world will think--and place their assets--in euros."
Short Break to New York. The trick is to edit out the visual distractions, advises a travel editor with a wide range of experience.2
Phone scams in Ireland. A number of companies operate lucrative phone schemes in Ireland, particularly on pre-paid mobile phones and Tom McGurk says they "are currently creaming off millions, especially from kids. Last year we sent 80 million premium text messages costing 73 cent each." 3 There are thousands of breaches of the industry's code of practise involved in these scams.
Thousands of illegal bouncers. In England, Henry Porter found a "Home Office database concerning upwards of 10,000 security guards who may be illegal immigrants.4
Why Irish Transport Minister May Resign. Irish Minister for Transport Noel Dempsey has pledged to test all 180,000 drivers in the current driver testing queue by 30 June 2008. He said he will resign his ministerial post if he misses that target. But as Stephen O'Brien reports, "There is a core of provisional drivers who have no interest in getting a full licence." 5 So they won't take the test, which could be Dempsey's undoing.
Headlines of Marriages in Hotels. Several Irish broadsheets carry stories of couples now permitted to get married in hotels or public venues, instead of registering their marriages on grey metal desks in registry offices. The stories suggest the first hotel marriage happened in County Kerry last week. I don't think so. The practise has been a matter of record in South Tipperary for at least three months now.6
The Tux Industry. Fresh from his well-deserved night at the Irish Net Visionary Awards, Damien Mulley remarked how expensive it is to rent a tuxedo in Ireland today. The Tribune Magazine makes it fashionable by suggesting tips for men "to get it right on the night".7
Abandoning Aer Lingus. Word on the street is that "Aer Lingus chief executive Dermot Mannion is mounting a last stand in his protracted battle with the company's trade unions and could have just six weeks to restore investor confidence in his stewardship of he former state airline."8 Mannion has to deliver a cost-savings plan. The unions want to run the airline and won't agree to embrace all the cost-cutting measures laid out for investors. If the controversial PCI-07 plan does not unfold by early January, institutional investors will back away, Ryanair will control the dominant stake, European regulators will have a hissy fit, and travelers will face months of potential labour disputes. Aer Lingus looks like it's actually operated by a layer of supervision that winds its way through union ranks. You cannot run a business that way.
Joint Conferences Could Deliver Better Results. Damien Mulley explores the low turn-out of technologists at a three-day series of workshops last week-end. "The attendance list showed that more people had flown in from abroad than had made the comparatively short journey to the Liberties."9 I've sat in packed-out venues with others in the creative multimedia and web development industries when two industry groups came together to jointly sponsor and run major events. In my opinion, if the likes of Enterprise Ireland, the Irish Internet Association and the Irish Software Association collaborated to run elements of a MashUpCamp, you would easily attract hundreds of players to the event. But some of Ireland's leading technologists don't appreciate the typical conference formats that appear on the monthly calendars across the country. And others don't think the established organisations would embrace events that are loosely run and free to attend. If you want interested people clamoring to attend an Irish event, you need to deconflict the event from similar functions, like the Irish Java Technology Conference that ran close before the MashUpCamp. Every year, I'm on the receiving end of ring-around phone calls that cheerfully greet me on my mobile phone to entice my paid attendance. Both of these tactics might be worth considering if planners intend to roll out another MashUpCamp.
Doubling Realex. Gavin Daly reports, "Realex Payments, a Dublin firm that processes €4bn a year in payments for online retailers, is opening a London office as part of a plan to double its size in 18 months." 10 Realex is one of Ireland's most successful dotcom companies.
1. Hamish McRae -- "The dollar may recover, but the world will be different" in The Independent, 17 November 2007. McRae's column now runs in the Sunday Tribune in lieu of the displaced Richard Delevan.
2. Philip Gefter -- "36 Hours in New York" in the The New York Times Travel section.
3. Tom McGurk -- "House-trained Green ministers are not much use to anybody" in The Sunday Business Post, 18 November 2007.
4. Henry Porter -- "We're trapped in a prison and the walls are rising higher" in The Observer, 18 November 2007.
5. Stephen O'Brien -- "Demand for driving tests soars by 50%" in The Sunday Times News, 18 November 2007.
6. Photo of the wedding with Lara Quinlan, Senior Registrar, County Tipperary.
7. Ciara Elliot -- "Men in Black" in the cover story of the Tribune Magazine, 18 November 2007.
8. Ken Griffin -- "Mannion on borrowed time" in the Sunday Tribune, 18 November 2007.
9. Damien Mulley -- "MashUpCamp a roaring success, despite the numbers" in the Sunday Tribune, 18 November 2007.
10. Gavin Daly -- "Dublin payment firm plans expansion into Britain" in The Sunday Business Post, 18 November 2007.
Previously: "What the Sunday papers say"