Learning to Grow Remote

I will be at the Grow Remote Ireland Summit 2023 to learn how to leverage remote working for the start-up culture in County Tipperary. I help graduate 40 students every year and all of them need to know how to leverage remote working in their futures.

This two day conference happens in Portlaoise, starting with on Thursday the 8th of June. It brings together "the remote working community, leaders in government, business innovators, and employers to explore the future of work", according to Tracy Keogh, the ebullient advocate for remote working in Ireland.

Looking at the list of speakers and panel members, I believe this event will blend remote workers with people from the hybrid community.

I first heard about the advantage of remote working during the Congregation Unconference in 2018. That's when Tracy Keogh shared her passion with bemused listeners. Two years before COVID shut down Ireland, Tracy was explaining how to instill a remote work ethos into small business and large corporates. In a rural setting of Cong, County Mayo, where most business happens face t0 face, the idea of getting results from a remote workforce in Ireland seemed like a fanciful notion.

Then COVID hit and business processes needed a remote dimension.

Remote Work Ireland offered a happy place for a fast-emerging community of local remote employees. People shared stories and participated in training courses. The IDA and SOLAS came on board to lend credibility to the process. And this training imperative informed my judgment as I prepared Honours Degree students for gainful employment.

Today, I believe rural Ireland needs to be at the forefront of removing location as a barrier to employment. The IDA hammers home that message to multinational companies as they seed greenfield campuses to host large production facilities. At the SME level, remote working has significantly enhanced the economic prospects of communities far outside the large population centres. And because employees can work from home, young professionals can find new homes outside of the pressure points of Dublin, Cork, Galway, and Limerick.

Like several of my colleagues attending the Remote Work Ireland Summit, I want to be part of an audience that listens to frank and open conversations about challenges facing people who aren't in tea room conversations. I know that in-person chats often lead quickly to project specifications. If you're not part of the casual chat, you don't know what you've missed. I want to hear more about setting up and maintaining effective back channels. I hope to learn from people who use AI to foster threads of conversation that inadvertently pass by people who would like to know about plans affecting the heartbeat of the company.

Speakers I'm Profiling

I can attend just one day of the Grow Remote Ireland Summit 2023 so I'm doing some research beforehand to learn more about people who have redefined the future of remote work.

Darcy Boles](/) Head of culture Taxjar. Exited to Stripe. But kept her hat.

[Aaron Bolzle](https://www.linkedin.com/in/abolzle/) Founder of Tulsa Remote - the new economic development model that Bloomberg, CNN, WSJ wrote about.

[Dee Coakley](https://www.linkedin.com/in/deecoakley/) Boundless

[Emer Currie](https://www.linkedin.com/in/emer-currie-a12371/)

(Siobhan Curtin)[https://www.linkedin.com/in/siobh%C3%A1n-curtin-02509b3/] eBay

[Shane Evans](https://www.linkedin.com/in/shaneaevans/) Zyte

[Greg Guisti](https://www.linkedin.com/in/greg-guisti-500a763/)

[Chris Herd](https://www.linkedin.com/in/chrisherd/) Firstbase

[Bernard Joyce](https://www.linkedin.com/in/bernardjoyce/)

Tracy Keogh. I get so much creative energy from Tracy. She has attracted some of the industry’s best thinkers.

[Robert Mac Ciolla Phadraig](https://www.linkedin.com/in/robert-mac-giolla-phadraig-a795495/)

[Colm Markey](https://www.linkedin.com/in/colm-markey-mep-96b52614/)

[Mairead Ni Mhaonaigh](https://www.linkedin.com/in/mairead-ni-mhaonaigh-427b723a/)

[Michelle Nolan](https://www.linkedin.com/in/michellenolanlexconsultancy/)

[Brendan Noud, Learn Upon](https://www.linkedin.com/in/brendannoud/)

[Louise O'Reilly](https://www.linkedin.com/in/louiseoreilly/)

[John Riordan](https://www.linkedin.com/in/johncriordan/) GrowRemote [Caroline Reidy](https://www.linkedin.com/in/thehrsuite/)

HR Suite [Toby Shannan](https://www.santafe.edu/people/profile/toby-shannan) Shopify Board and ex COO

[Stuart Trotter](https://www.linkedin.com/in/stuart-trotter-67197a2a/) Liberty Insurance

[Chase Warrington](https://www.linkedin.com/in/chase-warrington/) Head of Remote at Doist

Adrian Weckler. Journalist. Podcaster with gravitas. Visitor to all 50 US States.

[Bernie Goldbach teaches digital transformation for the Technological University of the Shannon.]