HEATHER JAMES AND CREW ran an OpenCoffee meet-up in Sligo at the same time we ran ours in Limerick on Thursday. The synchroncity suggests we should connect in real time, using the Absolute Hotel's free and open wifi and our video conferencing capabilities with Online Meeting Rooms. Both Sligo and Limerick have the same idea: to swap referrals and leads, meet interesting people, connect with established Chamber initiatives. We used to have an airy cafe in Limerick but times are tough now--even some of the faces at left have radically downshifted. It's not a technical meet-up when people come together for OpenCoffee. These OpenCoffee sessions are a cross-pollination of people from an assortment of professions. Heather describes these meetings as "a community of practice, a type of learning group." Done correctly, Irish OpenCoffee sessions share expertise while participants learn about each other.
I've heard feedback similar to what Heather shares, that some people attend OpenCoffee once, leave underwhelmed, and never return for a second serving. I also know hundreds of people lurk on LinkedIn's OpenCoffee Ireland group to pick up snippets related to doing their jobs better. Personally, I think you get higher quality leads through personal face-to-face networking than by scraping electronic lists. In fact, my weblog suggests as much because its numbers of page views increase when I travel more than 50 miles from home base. Expect to see some aggregated content emerging on the OpenCoffee.ie website before Christmas 2009 as a development project reaches its delivery date in a third year project management module at Tipperary Institute. The Motion-powered aggregation will showcase a pulse point for Irish start-up when it becomes public.
Why not follow @opencoffeesligo or use the #opencoffee hashtag to alert interested people?
Fact: Heather James is knowledgeable in some matters. The LinkedIn Irish OpenCoffee Group is http://www.linkedin.com/groups?gid=85170
