Congratulations to Fianna Fail on their new website
. Engaging with Joe Rospars (the web2.0 man behind Preisdent Obama’s campaign) was the right call. Fianna Fail, as the party in government, needs to use all tools at their disposal to get their message across – to persuade all of us to sign up for the tough medicine required. The site references their presence in Youtube, Facebook and Twitter.
it’s difficult to be optimistic. The analysis would suggest theat the position in respect of Collateralised Debt Obligations is worse than we may have hoped for. The theme of the Insight is that it’s probably time to have some auctions and bottom out some value. Really more of the same…reluctance of institutions to face up to the sins of the past.
in the NY Times – also frustrated at behaviour of US government and its dealings with banks in US. They talk a big game but not walking the talk.
- and Michael Ewing provided the summary of his research into adoption and compliance with Aarhus in Ireland. Conor Skehan (Head of Department of Environment and Planning, Dublin Institute of Technology) was very direct in his concerns that people are becoming over concerned with the appointment of a directly elected Mayor for Dublin – and that more correctly we need to understand Dublin and its hinterland). Gabriel Metcalfe (Executive Director, San Francisco Policy and Urban Research Association) explained the role played by his organisation, SPUR, in setting and driving the citizen led agenda in San Francisco. did a great job in giving us the opportunity, through the conference, to compare the Danish, the US (multiple cities) and the Irish experience. A real wake up call to citizens of Dublin. 
I guess it's not surprising in the current difficult times that companies are looking to turn their pilots into solutions. After all part of the attraction of web 2.0 is the limited capital investment required – much of it is built on previously deployed infrastructure.
We have deployed several web 2.0 solutions. However the answer is, not surprisingly, shortcuts do not work. The capital outlay (including the initial services bill) may not be significant – but enterprise solutions only succeed where the company makes the commitment in terms of promotion, support, training, determination to put web 2.0 at the centre of some/all business processes.
Pilots are very different to enterprise wide deployments. They are there to provide a proof of concept, assist in marketing change in the organisation, figure out the detail of what will be required. But a pilot does not an enterprise solution make. Enterprise wide solutions, which aim to be critical to a business, need to be planned, configured, integrated, deployed, supported like enterprise solutions.
Sorry – the shortcuts don't work. That is not to say that clever planning, the right applications, etc cannot lead to faster, more effective deployment. But the hard work still has to be done.
Michael Indonopulos makes the point well in his recent blog. McKinsey's recent review of 50 web 2.0 deployments echoes all of this. I would support both sets of analysis.
promoting the cause of National Government. This is a crisis and parties of the centre/ centre right need to be aligned, not squabling. And I see plenty of merit in Gerry Adams at yesterday’s Sinn Fein Conference calling for a coming together of the Left with the smaller parties. What we do not need is Fianna Fail and Fine Gael attacking each other mindlessly at present.
yesterday that we should use the opportunity of the recession to squeeze costs. At the same time he wants the critical 12.5% CT rate maintained. He wants us to move away from overreliance on transaction type taxes e.g. property tax. Tom Parlon is in arguing for 10% pay cut in the constuction industry - on the basis that 100,000 jobs have been lost and that costs are far too high. All of business has demanded cuts in public service payroll. Employees who are experriencing wage cuts and ex employees who are experiencing life on the dole are arguing for taxes on the rich – those who ‘made a killing’ in the Celtic tiger years and, in particular, those perceived to have brought it all tumbling down.
. Important for all members that matters are cleared up. Hopefully investigation leads to prompt and clear conclusions whereby any relevant Institute members are cleared of any alleged wrongdoing or appropriate action is taken by the Institute in the event of proven wrongdoing.
(Prime Minister Thailand) was struck again by the size of the challenge this economic crisis is posing globally. Vejjajiva speaks of his previous experience of the World Bank and its cautious approach. Also as the Western World struggles to sort itself out there must be a risk to a number of the emerging democratic governments worlwide. Some would argue there may be risks to the survival of some of the democratic governments in the West. Interesting interview with the British born and educated leader of Thailand.
, Chairperson Communicop Group Limited, at yesterday’s Dublin Chamber of Commerce breakfast meeting. She gave an interesting insight into the approach being taken by both Communicorp and Digicel to tackling these challenging and difficult times. And they have taken real, practical steps.