UPDATED 30 NOV 07: Fixed broken URLs as pointed out by Will Knott. Now trying to change the settings on the mobile phone that caused the URLs to break.
ALONG WITH 13 third level creative multimedia students, I will head to Limerick OpenCoffee for the year-end meet-up of Irish start-ups, UL interaction design students, and guests. We are interested in hearing about James Corbett's final preparations for the Paddys Valley tour, Shane McAllister's feasibility study, Cian Ginty's issues with blocked internet access (in telecon at left), Paul Sweeney's telco conference update and Gabriela Avram's ideas for a joint undertaking we plan to make. I have to choose my weekly travels and media trips carefully and that has resulted in me missing important events in Cork this week. I know from experience that when I treat my body like a yo-yo and overextend my travel commitments, I get sick and lose weeks of productivity in recovery.
Thursday afternoon takes us into the Interaction Design Centre on the campus of the University of Limerick where UL and TippInst students will share some observations during a short lecture I will present. My ideas centre on mapping creative skills to employment opportunities. It is a theme I hope Keith Bohanna and Ken McGuire include in the Mar 08 Barcamp they are planning. I think the greatest untapped potential of electronic social networking in Ireland lies in the connections we can make between like-minded people at OpenCoffee and between creative students who are in creative educational programmes in Irish colleges and universities. Both myself (TippInst) and Gabriela Avram (UL) require students to immerse in social networking sites in exchange for academic credit. We think familiarity with digital connectivity is an important skill set for the knowledge economy. I want to share some of my essential tabs with students who are just beginning their examination of career prospects in the field of new media.
I believe a viable social networking presence makes you employable. In Ireland, that fact is very obvious in the cross-talk on the Irish Open mailing list and throughout many discussion threads on Boards.ie. With every passing week, I watch questions answered convert into contracts for services.
I believe all third level graduates need portfolio sites. We still have not achieved that benchmark in my current department but the best students have excellent online identities, complete with samples of work in written, visual, spoken and video form.
I believe all third level students should set up and monitor watchlists pertaining to their employment interests, their creative inspirations and their travel plans. Good watchlists tell you things you need to know before it is too late.
I am looking forward to ringing out 2007 with a desk piled high with unfinished work because I know the pile is worth money. Now it's time to drop into the Absolute Hotel for my final OpenCoffee session of 2007.
Follow updates in the ixdm78 channel and from Ian O'Donnell, Elaine Chan, Rory Condon and Katie Conway during the media trip to Limerick.
See photos in the media trips photostream.
James Corbett --"Irish coffees, flying boats and racoons"
John Naughton -- "Social Networking in Meatspace"
Don Norman -- "Tech Design with Thought"
John Breslin -- "Opening up the social graph"
Gabriela Avram -- "A Jaiku-born Exchange"
#ixdm78 -- "What idea struck you?"
