I’m delighted to have been asked to speak at the European Small Business Alliance Seminar in Brussels on the 28th of June 2012.
The conference will be based around how to increase employment across Europe, in particular the stats that 85% of employment nowadays is created by SME’s and that 92% of all EU businesses are Micro-Businesses with less than 10 employees.
The conference takes place at The Hotel – Brussels, Boulevard de Waterloo 38, Brussels. Keynote Speach is The Vice President of the European Commission Antonio Tajani (TBC) and Mr Marko Curavić, Head of Unit, DG Enterprise and Industry, European Commission will also be speaking.
Really chuffed to have been announced as finalist for the 2012 Business Person of the Year Award Category in the MidlandsIreland.ie Best in Business Awards. The Final takes place, on Thursday 21st June 2012 in the Hodson Bay Hotel, Athlone, County Westmeath.
April 2012 sees the launch of my latest venture, BuyTrophies.ie – An online fully integrated Trophies and Medals business. Using the internet to allow customers in Ireland for the first time the ability to select, engrave and fully customise their Trophies, Medals and Awards.
My favourite part of this was making our first sale within 4 hours of going live – a major improvement on any business i’ve launched before. With the up and coming Summer and Sports day, the timing seems just right – exciting times.
Lately I’ve been very focused on my MMA training and my coach sent me this vid which I have to share.
In many ways it could be a metaphor for being an entrepreneur. It’s never easy, you have to want it really bad to make a success of yourself. Like the train scene, expect to be lonely on a crowded train with everyone the far side during tough times and then when you make it others will enjoy your success from afar, but never truly appreciate what you have because they didn’t partake on the journey.
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.
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.
Absolutely love this ad campaign by BMW… Even though I hate to say it being an Audi man
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”.
