OpenCoffee Club BBQ - Don’t Forget The Jalapenos

Jalapenos might not be high on the agenda at the Opencoffee Club BBQ but what you might find in Terryglass on Wednesday July 16th this year are

• Over 40 like-minded people with backgrounds as entrepreneurs, people in startups, investors, those with a love of technology and business and beyond…
• Talks on providing wifi in remote areas, Twitterfone demos and giveaways, location-based services, mobile applications and likely loads more besides.
• Childcare services on the day (great to see this as it was one of the points raised out of CreativeCamp in Kilkenny in March)
• Food, beer, a pub, a lake and the opportunity to network with a terrific bunch of people.

Hopefully the weather stays good and there’ll be some outdoor activities or talks as well. While I haven’t quite figured out if I’ll be able to attend (might get up for the afternoon as I’m gigging that night in Kilkenny) you can register your own interest here or if you are interested in giving a demo or a talk then use this signup link.

Kick-off is 11am on the day and ends “when the last person goes home”. As such, Evert & co. have been nice enough to provide a list of accommodation in the area as well.

If you're new here, you may want to subscribe to my RSS feed to keep up to date with kenmc.com. Maybe some of my earlier posts will interest you too! Thanks for visiting kenmc.com!

Get Your Grill On With Open Coffee BBQ This Summer

The Open Coffee collective is moving away from coffee and biscuits in a cosy hotel / coffee shop / business centre / technology centre for one day this summer and switching the biscuits out for burgers, sausages and everything BBQ’able.

• Where: Terryglass, Tipperary (Lough Derg)
• Why: Sure why not? An outdoor gathering of Open Coffee attendees, fans and anyone up for a lake-side networking session and chinwag, possibly under the watchful eye of the country’s All Ireland BBQ Champion!
• When: This summer, but you have to vote for your preferred date between June and July.

Whatever date it falls on will likely be midweek at some point in June or July which will mean you’ll need to free up some hours out of the office (should be no problem to regular Open Coffee attendees). Plus, word has the area will be that bit quieter midweek.

I think I can safely say I’ve been to Terryglass on just one occasion, but wouldn’t mind going back for a feed and a meetup in the summer. Anyway, didn’t you know that fresh air is good for you?

Evert has all the details here so click on to find out more.

Attending Limerick Open Coffee via Online Meeting Rooms

Thought I’d throw this up as I’m not long off a session at OnlineMeetingRooms.com with Bernie Goldbach, Joe Garde, Conor O’Neill and Antoin O Lachtnain (author of Making an Impact Online: Creating a Website That Really Works Without Breaking the Bank (Business on a Shoestring)).

The invitation was made to participate in the meeting with the bulk of questions coming from Tipperary IT students calling on various aspects of Antoin’s book, myself adding two cents on photography online for music and hotels (which hopefully made sense). Whatever about the content, the technology available via Online Meeting Rooms provided a perfect opportunity for me to link up with 4 others in various locations (Conor in Cork, Bernie in Limerick, Joe and Antoin in separate locations in Dublin - myself in Kilkenny) and enjoy streaming video and audio, along with an interactive drawing board (multi-user) and separate chat window for making notes, sharing links etc.

My own set up via the iSight (running OSX and surfing via Firefox) was a breeze, Joe guiding me quickly through the Flash setup to get the camera and audio up and running. The option of Flash video of course means that the solution, catering for up to six people at present, is browser and platform independent. Of course, I had already poked around through the screencasts on OnlineMeetingRooms.com and figured out what to do once the meeting room went live but chatting with Joe added a nice personal touch to it.

The whole event also meant I got to sit in on some of the activity at Limerick Open Coffee and get involved in the discussion there, saving a few euro on diesel in the process. The overall experience was very enjoyable, great quality audio, great video too depending on your bandwidth and web cam quality though Bernie had no real difficulties on a shared WiFi node at Absolute Hotel. I think the iSight camera wins hands down in terms of quality though I think Conor mentioned something in discussion about becoming more accustomed to online video as a means of delivery and I think I’m the same, having tested out various means of video calling amongst the KilkennyMusic.com crew.

If you need to step away for a minute (as I had to do at one stage - when nature calls, nature calls) you can disable your video and / or audio feed while remaining within the window no problem. Prior to joining the full swing of things at 11:30am I was happily listening to the background banter between Conor and Joe while wolfing breakfast in the office, posting quietly in the chat window (nobody really needs to see you eat breakfast at your desk).

When all is said and done, the experience was a very enjoyable one, something I would have no problem in getting involved in again. Thanks to Bernie for the invitation and Joe for setting it all up.

Grab An Open Coffee In Galway

Ina is hosting Open Coffee Club Galway today, Friday September 7th (just under 11 hours from now, it’s shortly after midnight). Coffee and chat served in the Forster Court Hotel on Eyre Square (well, Forster Street - see location map here). If you’re in the neighbourhood, drop in from 11am onwards. There’s no car park at the hotel if you’re driving but hotel guests (assuming patrons) guest discounted access to the multistorey on Forster Street.

Open Coffee Club Galway will run on the first Friday of every month. See Ina’s post here or check Upcoming.org for more details and maps.

Don’t forget too that there’s now a dedicated blog running for Cork OpenCoffee Club

40 Minutes Of Video Form Open Coffee Cork

I’ve been watching Conor O’Neill, Will Knott, Tom Raftery (who never tweets from his mobile), Conn Ó Muíneacháin and other talk up Twitter, Jaiku, Facebook and some of the spin-off conversation in the aftermath of yesterday’s DOCC.

Great point from Tom raised in relation to podcasting (about 15 minutes in), something I haven’t thought of when we’re recording the Sound System / One Take podcasts for KilkennyMusic.com. When you’re starting to record a poscast, release a tweet asking for questions, responding to them during the recording process. That would make certain sense to us anyway, bringing a live element - or at least an interactive element - to the podcasting process.

Nice going on the Q&A session as well, fielding questions from the chat window (as per Dublin yesterday).

Whatever about the streaming, having the cached video accessible after-the-fact is a great plus, something that was missing out of Dublin’s session yesterday. I’ve been gone from the office since 8 this morning but taking some time out for lunch it’s also nice to be able to drop in on the Coffee Club on my own time.

You can watch the footage here courtesy of Edgecast (Conn) - see the “past clips” section, it will be the first in the list..

Open Coffee Dublin Streaming Now

OpenCoffeeDublin now streaming live thanks to Eoghan McCabe.

Update: After a great Q&A session / round table discussion as people found their groove while on camera there’s a recap from Eoghan McCabe and some great notes from James Corbett to be found online. More of the same from Cork OC tomorrow?