I have ordered the Zappos Culture book he mentioned (just email ceo@zappos.com and they’ll post you a copy) and downloaded the Tribal Leadership audiobook from here (use California 90210 for your address in the registration screen). Wonderful stuff.

Most Irish businesses are still a decade behind the US exemplars when it comes to customer service. But one of our clients who really seems to get it is Louis Fitzgerald Hotels.

The most recent research by Internet Retailer tells you everything you need to know about how important reviews are to businesses.

In order to expand the operational bandwidth of the company and aggressively pursue our channel partner strategy, we are raising finance through the tax-efficient Business Expansion Scheme (BES). Argolon Solutions, the company behind LouderVoice, is fully Revenue approved for BES and we will be issuing our investor pack in the coming week.

If you are interested in finding out more and receiving a copy of the investor pack, please contact Conor O’Neill on +353-23-8878257 or conor AT loudervoice DOT com.

He is not only hysterically funny but completely accurate too. Flying Ryanair is simple, you make yourself aware of the rules and work within them. I don’t think I’ve ever paid more than €60 for a Ryanair return flight. Treat it as a bus, set your expectations correctly and you’ll find them the perfect short-haul operator.

Whilst I initially didn’t have much time for it, coming from the open blogging world, bit by bit its value for me has grown. Even at the simplest level, it is the only site where many people I know from school and college ever congregate online.

In our business, LouderVoice, we have hooked ourselves into Facebook so that when people review products/services on our clients’ web-sites, those reviews can be published to Facebook too. It’s an amazingly powerful marketing tool. You can see it in action here. That system can be placed on any web-site in as little as 10 minutes.

If you are on Facebook or you are thinking of joining, why not become a fan of LouderVoice there? You’ll see a sample of the best content from our site and customers posted there along with questions, ideas, polls and competitions.

If you are a small business, then you should really consider creating a Facebook Fan page. It only takes a few minutes and can be a great way of interacting with customers and fans. You only have to look at the success of the Hairy Baby one to see how well it can go!

In a time of crisis when men/women of vision and ability need to quickly agree a strategy and execute it with confidence, Brian Cowen assembles 28 people (plus the heads of Enterprise Ireland, IDA Ireland, Science Foundation Ireland, the Higher Education Authority and representatives from the departments of Education and Science, Enterprise, Trade and Employment, and Finance).

Yes my jaw hit the floor too.

A 40+ person talk-shop and travel expenses generator. That’s what Cowen and Coughlan think this country needs?

Because it’s worked so well in the past? Does the word agile mean anything to these people?

40+ people and two of them are women?

What century is this?

When Sean Lemass and T.K. Whitaker dragged this country kicking and screaming out of a hellhole from 1959 onwards, did they spend months (or years) prattling on with anyone who had on opinion?

I actually have a pain in my stomach with anger over this. These are our leaders? I’m not talking about C&C, I mean the committee. Did anyone who was asked say “NO, get a clue”? Did anyone who was asked question the utter stupidity of assembling this joke? Did anyone who was asked, reply “ENOUGH TALKING”.

Is there any senior person in the Irish Civil Service or Quango-sector who is tearing their hair out this morning and screaming in frustration too?

Yes? Then maybe it’s time for an alternative.

We need (possibly anonymously):

• 1 Senior Civil Servant, non-EI
• 1 Senior Civil Servant, EI
• 1 head of an FDI company with a large Irish operation in non-manufacture
• 1 head of a globally successful indigenous company
• 1 head of a startup
• 1 politician with a business or financial background

2 months. 3 max.

Outcome – a disruptive plan to rebuild the Irish economy and the business environment in a sustainable way around the idea of Constructive Capitalism. And a marketing plan to go with it. If our leaders won’t lead then it’s time to subvert from the bottom-up.

This type of thinking:

Umair Haque @ Daytona Sessions vol. 2 – Constructive Capitalism from Daytona Sessions on Vimeo.

and this:

Anyone? Anyone?

conor AT loudervoice DOT com

The ability of a country to feed itself and have a sustainable agri-business must surely have been a major motivator of Reddy Brennan and his team in Avonmore in the early 1970s. A man of great vision with incredible negotiation skills, he is one of the heroes of Irish industry. Our family will always be grateful to him. Reddy Brennan 1924-2009, RIP.

Media companies everywhere try to stop piracy and block those outside of their borders from watching programming online on sites like Hulu. This is a battle they cannot win.

The problem they have at the moment is licensing. If broadcast rights to House MD are sold to Channel 6 in Ireland then the licensor cannot allow Irish people to watch the same media for free (and Irish-ad free) on Hulu or similar as they’d be subverting their own customers.

There are thousands of production companies, studios, TV stations and distribution companies involved in this mess. The thought that one company could do all the deals necessary to create a global on-demand PAYG online site for all media to be downloaded seems an almost impossible dream.

Unless we start offering them money.

What if Pirate Bay (or Mininova or Isohunt) provided a scheme whereby every time someone downloads an episode of House or Celebrity Apprentice or Top Chef etc, they are given the option of paying 50c? Once a month, they tot up the totals for each show, cut some cheques and send them to the production companies to carve up however they see fit with their partners/customers.

There would be no deals here, no agreements, no pricing arrangements, no permission sought or given. They’d just get the cheque in the post.

At what point would all of the players be getting sufficient income from this source that they are forced to join the 21st Century and realise that this is one global market and media should go to those who want it, when they want it.

Just an idea.

I don’t claim to know much about investing but when we were moving from Dublin to Cork in 2003 and saw that our house had increased in value more than 400% in 9 years, we took the money and ran. Even in 2003 the valuations seemed idiotic. By 2007 they were in the realms of fantasy land. Of course many people told us we were stupid and if we’d rented the house out in Dublin we’d have made another €200k minimum when we went to sell. But when would we have sold? 2005? 2006? Or, gawd ‘elp us, 2008? Did I mention we sold our Eircom shares after 2 weeks? Maybe we do know what we are doing!

Then today I listened to this podcast of Peter Schiff speaking at the 2009 Austrian Scholar’s Conference. It’s long but utterly riveting. You think the worst is over? You think G20 is going to sort it all out? Listen to this and be afraid, be very afraid.

Their web-site has just gone live and it’s a corker (boom! boom!). Another stunning creation by the shockingly talented Ms Dent. I think it’s probably the best looking and most effective wine web-site in the country and puts the major chains to shame. The wine value is also fantastic and you really should buy by the case and save even more.

I’m just looking forward to the tastings that Mike has planned since I’ll be able to walk to them!

Speaking of reviews, I hope my loyal readers don’t mind me doing a very quick bit of blatant promotion of LouderVoice. We have just kicked off our 2008 BES offering. If the mayhem of the markets has you spooked, then you may find our tax-efficient offering interesting. All details over on our corporate blog.

So for my next post, should I do a rant on Annaghmore (greatest idea since the invention of the square wheel), a review of “Drive On” by LJK Setright (stunning), a review of “Full On Irish” by Kevin Dundon (patchy) or something on why I think British Stand-Up Comedy is dead (having seen The Secret Policeman’s Ball) ?

Calvin Jones has recently taken over as organiser and is doing a fantastic job of re-energising it. He is giving a talk on Wednesday called “Harnessing the power of social media to help your small business”. It’s on in the Celtic Ross Hotel, Rosscarbery from 12:30-14:00.

If you are a small biz in West Cork and you want to build your professional network both locally and further afield, then you should pop along to this. It’s a free talk but please register your interest here.

We’re on the SOHO package with is just €35 per year ex-VAT and it does everything I need. The move was extremely easy to do. I just copied all the WordPress files off the old host, copied the WordPress Database, loaded both up on Blacknight and told GoDaddy that the blog is now there.

All in all, maybe an hours work including email account setup? The one glitch I had was solved by their support people in less than 10 minutes. The blog feels a lot faster, I hope it’s the same for you.

Full review coming soon once I’ve poked around a bit but so far it’s 5/5. If you are thinking of setting up a blog, go for their blogger package and you’ll be up and running with close to zero effort or knowledge.

p.s. if you didn’t see a bunch of posts from the past two weeks, that’s my fault. Should be working ok now.

She writes some absolutely brilliant stuff in this area on her blog and I highly recommend you subscribe to it. She is no happy clappy, let’s wear hemp shirts and cycle 40 miles to work every day person. The blog talks about fundamental issues around energy supply and managing energy demand. It’s about how it directly affects you.

We were talking about this general topic on the way back from OpenCoffee BBQ recently and I expressed the opinion that the Green Party are letting themselves down very badly. They should be providing a grand vision backed by simple steps and milestones to help us get our energy usage under control. This requires thought leadership, practical assistance, changes in building regulations, direction to energy providers and a simple message that you will spend less, not more, if you apply some smarts to how you consume energy over the course of a day/week/year. Idiotic prattle about election posters really doesn’t cut it.

So get yourself on over to her blog and start having those conversations and asking those questions.

The range of products on sale there has always amazed me. From vitamins to organic food, chocolate, cosmetics and alt-med stuff, she has something for everyone. Now I’ll be totally open here, I’m not a fan of a large number of alt-med approaches despite having a friend who is a homeopath. However, having said that, there is a huge amount to be gained in the area of health by everyone thinking about the products they use on their bodies, and more importantly, the things they eat.

So her new project, the Fionnuisce Healing Centre (web-site not live yet) in Heron Court on Market Quay holds great interest for me. Apart from the alt-med side, there is a large meeting room with a demonstration kitchen area. So far this space has been used for yoga, dance and various workshops including cookery demonstrations in co-operation with Karen Austin of legendary Lettercollum Kitchen Project.

There are lots of interesting cookery events lined up for September that include a Sushi Saturday and Mediterranean Veg.  In October Karen will offer Indian Vegetarian, November Thai and December Christmas Veg.  There will be a wholefood cookery night class running Tuesdays from 1st week in October for 10 weeks with Dorothee Clarke.

She had me at sushi

They are also running a cool 1-day drama workshop on Sunday 13th July by Belinda Wild who describes it as being for anyone with or without experience in Drama who is interested in exploring creative self-expression through the medium of theater – and she guarantees to make you laugh. I’d honestly be tempted, having played Sybil Walling in “Brush with a Body” in the Kieran’s College school play, aged 17.

If you are interested in any of the above, shoot Mary a TXT on 086-3882440. I’m trying to convince her to start a blog since I think any place that has regular events is ideally suited to one instead of a static brochure page. It might be worth her putting all the events up on Yahoo Upcoming too.

UPDATE: Some of the dates for the foodie events are as follows:

• Saturday 6th September, Succulent Sushi with Delwyn Klevenow
• Suturday 20th September, Mediterranean Vegetables from Karen Austin’s abundant garden
• Saturday 18th October, Indian Vegetarian with Lettercollum Karen
• Saturday 15th November, Thai Cookery with Lettercollum Karen
• Saturday 12th December, Vegetarian Christmas with Karen

Debz had me won over just by saying “BBQ sauce” when she first revealed what she was putting together. We love the idea so much, the prize we are giving away on LouderVoice for the best review at Taste of Cork is one of her BBQ Hampers. This little beauty contains:

• Two bottles of her signature Two Brew BBQ Sauce to slather your chicken, ribs, or steak
• One Italian Seasoning Mix, perfect for dips and marinades
• One Tex Mex Spice Mix, ideal for spicy dips and meat rubs
• One Beer Bread Mix for the perfect accompaniment to your meal
• One Brownie Mix for the perfect ending
• A BBQ cookery book, grill tongs, bamboo skewers and a tea towel to mop it all up with.

You can visit the site right now but it doesn’t officially launch until tomorrow. Get those orders in!

p.s. another fab site design by Sabrina Dent too.

Don’t worry, you don’t have to be remotely geeky to do the reviews. Both of my parents are very non-technical and they do SMS reviews all the time. You don’t even have to sign up on the site, it’ll happen automatically when you send your first review to 087-9409325. Here’s all you have to do:

There is a good selection of reviews from Taste of Dublin here so you can see the sort of things people were saying. If you want to do it in Cork just follow the instructions above and your reviews will appear on LouderVoice a few seconds later. If you know for definite that you’ll be trying it ahead of time, why not leave a comment here or ask any questions you might have?

The SMS are at your standard rate, they are not premium rate. You can also write long SMS reviews if your phone supports them. We’d love to see the feedback you all have on both the event and the exhibitors, many of whom are local Cork businesses.

By the way, if you run a local biz that is exhibiting at Taste of Cork, we’d love to provide you with mini-flyers to give out to encourage people to review your offerings. Either pop a comment here or mail me on conor AT loudervoice DOT com for more info.

More discussion of the scam.

Are there any sites that provide some sort of service in Ireland for this? Like a lightweight free irishjobs.com? I’d be happy to host one for nothing if there is opensource software available.