Conor's Bandon Blog

Running, Food and Local stuff from a blow-in

As You Wish

Well Bandon Film Society has gone and done it again with this brilliant idea. In association with Partnership for Change they are organising a Special Christmas Charity Screening for Bandon Flood Appeal on Wednesday 30th December 2009 in St Peters Church, Bandon at 8pm The movie is one of my top 5 of all time, The Princess Bride, starring the angelic Robin Wright. If you don’t live in Bandon, get into your car and drive here for this.

Wondering how to run your business?

Watch this video from Tony Hsieh the CEO of Zappos, which sold this summer to Amazon for $928m. 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.

Thinking of setting up a business? Watch this.

The most inspirational thing I’ve seen in a long long time. Gary Vaynerchuk is amazing. Note, audio is NSFW.

Your Next Handheld Computer?

Fantastic mix of features in the PsiXpda. For those who loved Psions, this will suit you. For those who work in the corporate world, your IT department will love it, as it runs XP! The PsiXpda handheld computer in action at Le Web from Conor O�Neill on Vimeo.

Flood Updates on Bandon.ie

Trevor Collins is doing a phenomenal job over on the Bandon.ie blog with updates on the floods and plenty of guidance/links. If you live locally or travel through here, you need to be following it. If you are on Twitter, I auto-post links to all his posts over on twitter.com/bandon.

The Floods

Our thoughts are with all those families and businesses damaged by the horrendous floods in West Cork this week. We were lucky. Apart from the inconvenience of no phoneline and some bad leaks in a bay window, we managed to escape pretty unscathed. If you have any detour tips for those trying to get in and out of West Cork, please leave them in the comments. This route was still working at 2pm yesterday so hopefully it’ll work for you.

In a choir? Available to sing in Bandon on Jan 29th?

I’ve just been contacted by a someone organising a lovely local event. They are looking for a folk choir or an upbeat church choir to get involved. It’s on 29th Jan 2010 in Bandon. They also need an audio system if you know of anyone willing to loan for the night. Mail me on conor@loudervoice.com if you want to help out and I’ll pass on your details.

LouderVoice BES 2009 (Business Expansion Scheme)

The LouderVoice customer reviews system for business has moved into high-gear in 2009. Clients are deploying our EasyReview widget on their e-commerce sites every week. Our first US customer will go live this month along with many more Irish sites. Our second UK site will go live early in the new year. The most recent research by Internet Retailer tells you everything you need to know about how important reviews are to businesses.

Time to build a Cork Computer History Museum

We have buildings all over Cork, empty. We have a recession. The hospitality industry is crippled. We need something that encourages tourism, makes use of some of that property and points the way to the future. Can I suggest a Cork Computer History Museum? What’s one of the biggest attractions in Silicon Valley? The Computer History Museum What’s one of the biggest tourist draws in London? The Science Museum. What’s one of Cork’s main tourist attractions now?

Good Wine Show Day 1 Fantastic!

We spent this evening in the Clarion Hotel in Cork attending the fantastic inaugural Good Wine Show, held by Curious Wines, Bubble Brothers and Karwig Wines. Suffice to say that €15 to sample over 100 fantastic wines plus cheese from On The Pigs Back, bread from Arbutus and amazing smoked Duck, Salmon and Chicken from Ummera is an absolute steal. So get on over to the Clarion tomorrow from 11am and have an absolute blast.