I go to a lot of events. While some of the speakers and presenters are truly excellent they are, sadly, in the minority. Most speakers are mediocre and some are just painful. In some cases it's "death by Powerpoint". In others it's just an incoherent mess. However, it doesn't have to be that way. If you've seen some of the more engaging and interesting speakers in action you … [Read more...] about Public Speaking Hacked
Business
What is the Problem With VAT?
We're currently seeing high inflation in Ireland and other countries. It's impacting the price of many products that we all buy, though some are more obviously impacted than others. The housing market is nuts. There's very little available and what is on the market is at an inflated price. (I'm using a few tweets from Bonkers as they're easy to understand) Our mortgage … [Read more...] about What is the Problem With VAT?
Don’t Treat People (or Businesses) Like Lab Rats Princeton
Many many moons ago I was a student. I was doing a research postgraduate degree in the University of Limerick. A lot of my friends at the time were in academia. Most of them were also doing research. So I have an understanding of how academic research works. Fraudulently misrepresenting yourself is not acceptable in any academic context that I'm aware of. In fact many … [Read more...] about Don’t Treat People (or Businesses) Like Lab Rats Princeton
Amazon UK and Brexit is a Mess
Amazon UK sent out email to its Irish (and EU) clients today about how they will handle things post-Brexit. It wasn't exactly informative or helpful. The choice of language was telling. Bottom line: they have no idea what they're doing or how it's going to impact customers in the EU who want to order from the e-commerce giant from January onwards (realistically from … [Read more...] about Amazon UK and Brexit is a Mess
Lazy Bad Marketing on Steroids
Over the past couple of months I seem to be getting more unsolicited emails from companies. I also seem to be getting more badly targetted LiinkedIn "invites". An "invite" is a real misnomer. They're much much closer to being spam than anything else. Today's little "gem" is a great example of how NOT to connect with me on LinkedIn: So much wrong with this. So let's … [Read more...] about Lazy Bad Marketing on Steroids