What is Share IT?

Share IT is essentially a free IT Training programme for small companies and individuals and is the brainchild of Damien Mulley (Ireland Offline chairman, Irish Blog Awards organiser and Sunday Tribune technology columnist – the guy is a machine) and the first session took place in Cork on Saturday.

Missed trains and missed opportunities…

While not normally one for tardiness, I missed my scheduled train and the one after that (ahem) but in doing so missed the opportunity to hear both Jenny Kent speak on better communication and Conor O’Neill speak on outsourcing – both were brilliant by all accounts. So, what did I get to hear?

Krisha De on branding, networking and marketing

Krishna spoke on branding, networking and marketing. Her talk was interesting, inspiring and very practical. Krishna also podcasts and offers webinars so if you missed her on Saturday, check out her website. Another missed opportunity on Saturday was to pick her brain for another 3-4 hours as she kindly offered me a lift back to Dublin which I declined hoping to catch up on some work on the train home.

If you get the chance to hear Krishna speak, don’t give it a second though, just do it.

Donagh Kiernan on sales.

Donagh gave a really practical talk on sales. Sales can be a bit of a dirty word, but Donagh is an excellent storyteller and in using examples from his own experience gave a great talk on how literally everything is sales (which just happens to be the title of his blog). Donagh’s talk was so full of actionable nuggets that I’ve already incorporated them into a pitch that I’m due to give later this week.

Laurence Veale (me) on Writing for the web

I gave a talk on Writing for the Web where I covered how to structure and style content for the web, whether it be content on blogs, standard websites or newsletters.

The key point I wanted to emphasise is that we’re all impatient readers on the web and we’ve got very little attention. There’s an awful lot of competition for our attention so we need to make our readers lives easier in the way we write.

Download my writing for the web presentation

Although I’m not a huge believer in the value of giving presentation slides to anyone who didn’t attend (loss of context and the “star of the show” should be the presenter, not their slides), you can download my writing for the web presentation (PDF, 2.9MB, 58 pages).

Richard Hearne on Search Engine Optimisation

Richard’s a very relaxed speaker and gave a great talk on search engine optimisation. Again, as with the other talks, there were some great practical ideas that can quickly be put into action.

What’s particularly interesting about talking to Richard and indeed, Dave Davis, who I met at Search Engine Marketing 2007, is that there is a real wealth of knowledge and talent in Ireland, and it’s not always in the bigger companies. It reminds of 37 Signals’ and, more locally, of Sxoop’s philosophy:

We believe that small, focused teams can make great software.

We’re no different. We believe small, highly specialised teams are more effective and deliver greater value. Smaller is more agile and more responsive. Less is more.

Overall impressions of Share IT

Quality content from quality speakers. For free. Each and every one of the talks I heard gave me useful and practical ideas.

There’s something great happening in IT at grassroots level throughout Ireland. Whether it’s OpenCoffee Clubs, BarCamps or Share IT, the hills are alive.

Something tells me there may be quite a few more attendees at Share IT, Dublin on April 28th in Microsoft.

Again, and not for the first time, Damien Mulley merits special mention and thanks for putting on a great show