BASED ON SEVERAL well-written pieces inside the Irish Sunday papers today, the World Irish Forum should attract global attention for the country.
I draw my conclusion mainly because nothing from the Global Economic Forum at Dublin Castle reaches the front pages of the main Sunday broadsheets. But inside the papers, a lot of column inches gets devoted to "the power of the online Irish network" [1], the velocity of new firm start-ups, and coverage of John McColgan launching WorldIrish.com. [2] I sniffed around the beta version of the website and watched several Vimeo movie clips about the idea of connecting together disparate people who have an interest in Ireland but at the moment, the current offering feels like an exercise in sharing Johari Windows. I'll reserve proper judgment until I see the API that the WorldIrish team promises. Do that right--along with proper RSS feeds--and the WorldIrish concept will scale and grow. There's a video below the break.
If one of the basic premises of the Global Irish Economic Forum is believed, small networking groups like OpenCoffee have a major role to play in Ireland's renewal. That self-organising group attracts people from start-ups that are less than five years old. The vast majority of new jobs in the US and Ireland come from companies less than five years old. We need to nurture that cluster of companies and in my mind, that means listening to their founders and hooking up in meaningful networks.
I wish the best for how World Irish fits into this picture.
1. David McWilliams -- "Let's harness the power of the online Irish network" in the Comment and Analysis section of the Sunday Business Post, Ocboter 9, 2011.
2. Mark Paul -- "Diaspora network gathers in funds," in the Sunday Times, October 9, 2011.
Last Week: "October Sunday Newsround", October 2, 2011.
One Month Ago: "Ireland and Indian IT", September 10, 2011.
One Year Ago: "Running Nokia N8 with HDMI Screen, Mouse and Keyboard", October 8, 2010.
Five Years Ago: "David Stewart. RIP", October 12, 2006.
