Archive for January, 2012

European Single Market Opportunity

Yesterday I was in Brussels representing Ireland at the Google organised Single Market Opportunity conference. The conference consisted of European Commission officials, European parliamentarians and internet businesses with the purpose of discussing how the Internet can create jobs and be play a key role in getting Europe back on it’s feet.

The Keynote speaker was the European Commission’s Vice President – Antonio Tajani, who stated that the “goal is to double the amount of commerce online by 2015”.


(Yes that’s me at 2.20)

“The Internet Economy contributes 10 – 20% of GBP” According to Matt Brittin (VP of Sales and Operations in Google). Just think how fast that will increase in the coming three years!!

On the agenda were taxation issues about cross boarder selling within the EU and the difficulties that arise based on outdated systems for dealing with VAT on exports. Another topic raised was delivery and I was really surprised / unimpressed with some of the businesses that we purposely turning away sales and profit because they we’re willing to get their business systems in place to export.

One of the major area’s of concerns I raised is the new European Distant Selling legislation rewrites, which are due to come into effect in the coming weeks. It’s one of those legislation moves that has been written without real input from those at the coal face and while trying to encourage small business is it’s goal, it has the adverse effect in some areas.

At the event a new initiative by the Lisbon Council was announced called the S1ngle Market Entrepreneurs aimed at supporting digital entrepreneurs, which is a very worthwhile project as it’s widely agreed new markets are going to be the next big employers.

Christmas FM Raises €116,749 in 2011

One of my true loves in life is Radio. Since my Teenage years I’ve been involved in radio presenting. Every Christmas for the last four years we put together a temporary licensed radio station called Christmas FM which we run to raise money for charity. We’ve finally counted up all the donations and I’m delighted to announce we generated €116,749 for our charity partner Focus Ireland, which help the homeless community in Ireland. This figure is way above our target for 2011 and brings the total raised in the last 4 years to €320,000 for our Irish Charity Partners.

A big thanks to EBS and the Irish Daily Mail, who are the stations co-sponsors and the Alexander Hotel in Dublin who donated a suite for us to base the studio in. Here’s a quick look at the set up:

Christmas FM will be back in 2012 bigger and better then ever. I look forward to talking to you on air then.

A Quick Tour Of What It Is Zatori Does

RTE visited our Zatori Offices recently to find out about selling online and I gave them a quick tour of my Fancy Dress business – TheCostumeShop.ie

Great Advertising

Absolutely love this ad campaign by BMW… Even though I hate to say it being an Audi man
BMW VS Audi ad Campaign

Audi bring out a campaign with the latest model and says it like it is… They are going after the BMW market. The slogan reads, “Your Move BMW”. The local BMW dealer erects a banner four times the size with it’s latest product and counters “Checkmate”.