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It has always struck me as ridiculous that the only place in all of West Cork where you can get a short-term Hot-Desk is in Macroom. We’re not that far from it but it’s still a horrible drive from Bandon. We continue to struggle as a small Internet business with 6 Mbs ADSL (512kbs up). If we were slightly closer to the exchange we might get 12Mbs. Those responsible for allowing Fibre connectivity to bypass Bandon have ensured that there will never be a technology cluster in the town. It was a catastrophic oversight and will damage the town for years to come. No business requiring serious levels of bandwidth can set themselves up here. But even with Fibre in Clon, there are no Hot-Desks in the Technology Park. If you go looking for small business offices in West Cork you...

Very good idea from West Cork Enterprise Board: They are running 3 one-day Idea Generation Workshops over the coming weeks. The workshops are for people who are thinking about starting their own business but don’t have a business idea in mind yet and also people who have a business idea but want to study the idea further. They will help people decide whether self-employment is the right route for them. Topics covered during the workshop will include: What does it mean to be an entrepreneur? How are new business ideas generated; How to select and develop a business idea and what steps should be taken when you have decided on your business idea. Delivered in a practical manner, case studies will be used and future worldwide trends will be discussed. Thursday 18th June, 9.30am-4.30pm,...

I’ve done a post over on our business blog about the supports offered to local business by West Cork Enterprise Board. If you are based in the region, it’s well worth reading. The highlights are: 6 hour IT Consultancy for €150 via Tech-Check Feasibility Study Grants up to €5100 International Trade Show Attendance Grants up to €2000 Ecommerce Web-site development Grants up to €1500 That last one is absolutely brilliant. If you are making any sort of product (I’m thinking crafts and food in West Cork) that could also be sold by mail order, you’d be nuts not to avail of it. Note that the grants are all done on the basis of “matching funds”....

I spent a very interesting afternoon talking to Christine O’Donovan in WCEB in Clonakilty on Tuesday. We covered a pretty wide range of topics and I was highly impressed by the range of services they offer local businesses. Our big area of mutual frustration was the lack of take-up on the Tech-Check scheme. I’ve written about it before on my personal blog and in summary, if you are a local biz in Ireland with even one laptop and you’ve never even talked to an Enterprise Board, then you are missing out hugely. For €150 you’ll get up to 6 hours of consultancy on your IT setup. Some people seem to think they are only getting €150 worth of consultancy but it’s obviously heavily subsidised. It covers everything from making sure you have anti-virus software...

West Cork Enterprise Board contacted me last week to let me know about a discount offer they had received from the IIA for their client companies (and those of all CEBs). There was a further discount offered for being outside of Dublin too. Whilst the original price of €345 for non-members was just a bit at the high end for us, the double-discounted price of less than €150 is a bargain and I’ve signed up to attend. If you are a WCEB client, just contact them and they’ll send you on the code. If you are anywhere else, contact both your local CEB and irene AT iia  DOT ie to get the relevant code for your area. Strictly speaking the discounts ended on Friday but I’m sure they’ll be flexible if lots of extra interest is shown....

A recurring conversation I have had recently is around very small non-technical Irish businesses having a web presence. I do a lot of Tech-Checks for the Cork CEBs and I continue to be surprised by how many of these businesses are invisible online. One of the reasons for this may be that companies still think it costs a lot of money to have a web-site and non eircom.net email addresses. And there are still gougers out there charging people €2k for a simple off-the-shelf brochure site with stock graphics. Jim Flynn of MTS Consulting in Innishannon is a perfect example of someone who realised that his business could be helped with a simple web-site, a basic blog, his own email domain and a LinkedIn profile. For very little money he got his site built via one of the online broker sites...