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Eamon Leonard announced as Overall Net Visionary 2012
Friday, 28th of September, 2012: The Irish Internet Association (“IIA”) this evening announced Eamon Leonard of Engine Yard as the Overall Net Visionary Winner in the IIA Dot ie Net Visionary Awards. Also announced this evening were the winners in 13 individual categories, all of whom were decided by a combined judges and public vote. The Awards, now in their 14th year took place in the prestigious Wintergarden at the National Gallery of Ireland – perfectly befitting a celebration of the creativity and genius of the industry.
Joan Mulvihill, CEO of the Irish Internet Associationcommented: “This has been a great year for the IIA’s Dot ie Net Visionary Awards. By refreshing the award categories each year, it allows us to showcase fantastic new businesses and fresh talent as well promote key industry opportunities and highlight important trends. All of the winning businesses have proven their commitment to excellence in this fast-paced and dynamic sector. Unlike any other awards, the small number of carefully crafted categories and the combination of judges scores and public voting makes these awards the most challenging to win and all the more coveted as a result.”
She added: “Eamon Leonard, the founder of Orchestra subsequently acquired by US multinational Engine Yard, is an outstanding and worthy winner of the Overall Net Visionary Award for 2012. Not alone a successful entrepreneur, he is the standard-bearer for the technical skills required of the next generation of young developers. He is the definitive role model and in his selection as the Overall Net Visionary, the IIA are recognising the standard it takes to succeed in this industry. He epitomises the tech community’s values of openness and collaboration as an Angel Investor and Start-Up advisor. He is selfless in giving his time and expertise to promoting key issues within the industry and he continues to grow his team as the VP of Engineering at Engine Yard”.
Engineer Yard is the number one Platform as a Service (PaaS) for Ruby and PHP.
David Curtin, CEO of IE Domain Registry Limited commented: “The IE Domain Registry is delighted to be the headline sponsor for this year’s Dot ie Net Visionary Awards. Now in its 14th year, the standard of the shortlisted websites for the Awards continues to increase year-on-year. The level of innovation, originality and creativity, not to mention the power and functionality of the underlying website applications, continues to impress. For the winners, it is a wonderful accolade to be recognised by their peers in the Internet community, as being the ‘best of the best’. These websites will provide a quality benchmark for others to rank and improve their own online offerings.”
Keith Bohanna, Chair of the Irish Internet Association commented: “A NetVisionary has to have a record of business success but it is their vision that sets them apart. Eamon Leonard is a unique winner. His vision extends the breadth of the industry not just the vertical in which he works. His own business success, his work in the open source and open data community, his commitment to supporting start-ups; this makes up the quality hallmark of a Net Visionary”.
The IIA are reaching the end of another landmark year. With two major launches under their belt in 2012, the IIA continue to lead the way in championing digital in Ireland. This year has seen the launch of the IIA NSAI (“National Standards Authority of Ireland”) Swift10 Cloud Computing Decision Support Matrix for SMEs as well as the launch of “Digitise the Nation”, a year-long digital inclusion programme providing free online training for older people. The IIA has continued its commitment to supporting eCommerce through the introduction of their Diploma in eCommerce Management, the first of its kind in Ireland. This commitment was further reflected in this year’s award categories with not one but two awards dedicated to standards in online trading.
With headline sponsor in IE Domain Registry Limited (“IEDR”), a select number of key categories, the most challenging awarding structure, a stunning and original venue and a record number of entries, these awards are annually the ones to watch.
– Ends –
Dot ie Net Visionary Winners 2012
Overall Net Visionary Winner sponsored by IEDR
2012 Winner: Eamon Leonard, Engine Yard
Best International "we’ll conquer the world" Irish technology business, sponsored by RSM Farrell Grant Sparks
2012 Winner: Sonru.com
Bravest and Best “Brick to Click” Business, sponsored by FEXCO
2012 Winner: The Corkscrew Wine Merchants
The Very Best Place to Start” Incubator or Support for internet start-ups, sponsored by Grant Thornton
2012 Winner: NDRC
Most innovative and cutting edge web developer (individual or agency), sponsored by Treehouse Republic
2012 winner: Web Together
Best Digital Marketing by an online trader that makes customers love your brand! – Sponsored by AIB Merchant Services
2012 Winner: PuddleDucks.ie
Most “joyous to look at and splendid to use” Web Design – Sponsored by IADT
2012 Winner: Dara Creative
Best Mobile Service or App for fast moving people –Sponsored by William Fry
2012 Winner: DoneDeal
Most Creative Use of Social Media for compelling customer engagement – Irish Internet Association
2012 Winner: Hairy Baby Clothing Company
The Most Indispensable Cloud Service for SMEs – Sponsored By Telecity
2012 Winner: Redeem & Get
Best “someone who really gets it” Professional Services Advisor to techies – Sponsored by Goldenpages.ie
2012 Winner: Peppe Santoro, Venture Law
This is the "One to Watch" Internet Start-Up of the year – Sponsored By Digital Hub Development Agency
2012 Winner: Scurri.com
Most Insightful and Intriguing Internet Innovation –Sponsored By Paypal
2012 Winner: siansplan.com
Outstanding Contribution from an IIA Member – Sponsored By IIA Board
2012 Winner: Lavinia Morris, IIA Chair Cloud Computing Working Group, Friends First
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The IIA supporting Ireland’s Olympians…
Joan,
Several years ago you put us in touch with Exsite Communications to develop a web page – as you may know we are a voluntary organizationwith little money and a few athletes but this year we managed to get one of our athetes (Natalya Coyle) to the Olympics.
I just wanted to send a belated email to thank yourself, IIA and ExsiteCommunications. Exsite have been very generous and patient with their support over the last two years. It took us a while in Pentathlon Ireland to get going as we were rebranding and refocusing but Exsite stuck with us.
They have contributed greatly to developing, maintaining and hosting the Pentathlon Ireland website over the last two years and this in conjunction with our new brand has helped us communicate news of our sport in a more professional way. The website Exsite developed has helped us promote our branding / image and has provided a clear and concise website to convey our athletes successes and their progress.
Without Exsite’s generosity and the Irish Internet Association referrals we may not have been able to revamp the old website. We received excellent comments from other sporting organizations – the OCI, Irish Sports council, UIPM (www.pentathlon.org) and others.
The Website has also aided in keeping our current athletes aware of events, trainingschedules and competitions in a more logical manner. Unfortunately due to the workload we never managed to formally announce our new website to the masses – something we need to work on. It has been very much appreciated by all involved in Pentathlon Ireland and we are extremely grateful.
This clean, crisp website fits in nicely with our strategy for developing the sport in Ireland and working towards the World Youth A Championships which we will be hosting in Olympic year 2016 when we hope to have four athletes at the Olympics. Majority of our athletes come from the Irish Pony Club Tetrathlon but we hope to widen our catchment area and getmore schools involved in Schools Biathles over the coming years so weneed to get our website out there - watch this space at
Many thanks
Michael Collins
Pentathlon Ireland
Uncategorized
Data Protection Commissioner Publishes Guidance on dealing with the data protection issues that can arise from the use of Cloud Computing
The Data Protection Commissioner, Billy Hawkes has today published guidance on his website to assist any entity using or considering using a cloud computing solution to hold or manage the personal data for which they are responsible. The Commissioner has published this guidance for Irish based entities on foot of guidance published at a European Level by the Article 29 Working Party (of which he is a member) today on Cloud Computing and recent useful guidance produced domestically by the National Standards Authority of Ireland (NSAI), in conjunction with the Irish Internet Association (IIA). In summary, the guidance makes clear that the use of the cloud to store or handle personal data can be easily accommodated within Data Protection law once some simple steps are followed by any entity using such a service.
http://www.dataprotection.ie/viewdoc.asp?DocID=1221&m=f
Media Queries to: Ciara O’Sullivan
Telephone (057) 868 4800
Fax (057) 868 4757
Email media@dataprotection.ie
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IIA Wins Awards for Excellence!
IIA Wins Public Affairs Category at the PRCA Award 2012
On Friday 21st June 2012 at the Awards for Excellence in Public Relations 2012, the IIA won the prestigious Award for PR Excellence in the Public Affairs Category. The IIA had engaged the services of Fleishman-Hilliard to deliver the campaign that was centred on the IIA "Critical Skills Retention Policy" to address the Skills Shortage in Ireland.
The Awards for Excellence in Public Relations, hosted by the PRCA (Ireland), the PRII and CIPR Northern Ireland, salute Ireland’s most outstanding communications initiatives in the highly competitive and dynamic PR arena. These coveted awards, now 19 years on the go, set the industry benchmark for excellence across all areas of PR.
We are thrilled to have our worked recognised by the PRCA and to have leveraged our role in this sector to effect positive policy change.
You can view our award entry here.
Citation of the winning entry from the PRCA
Our winner in this category took an issue of concern to the stakeholders and put it on the national agenda. From concept refinement to implementation at legislative level they were firm in handling their message and skillful in building alliances. Although modestly funded, this was a very thorough campaign in terms of driving debate, dialogue and change.
Picture: Joan Mulvihill, IIA, CEO pictured with Aidan McLoughlin and Carl Gibney from Fleishman-Hillard
social media, Guest Blogger, email marketing
” The Web Analytics World in 2012
This is a guest blog post contributed Target Online Marketing.com
Your website is now live! What’s next?
Search engine marketing, social media, newsletters and email marketing activities?
For what return? Does it work? Why? How? When? What worked? Etc..
Thanks to web analytics software such as Google Analytics, website owners are now empowered with big data presented in a user friendly interface.
Google Analytics is a free web analytics tool. Google Analytics is free, user friendly, easy to install on a website or a blog, easy to integrate with the range of Google services such as AdWords, AdSense, Doubleclick, GWT, etc… This makes Google Analytics very popular et probably the most popular web analytics software on the market.
At TargetOnlineMarketing.com, we decided to review Google Analytics’ usage worldwide in 2012. Our technology partner W3techs.com explains how: “we investigate technologies of websites, not of individual web pages. If we find a technology on any of the pages, it is considered to be used by the website.” W3techs.com’s CEO Matthias Gelbmann adds, “We include only the top 1 million websites in the statistics in order to limit the impact of domain spammers. We use website popularity rankings provided by Alexa using a 3 months average ranking. Alexa rankings are sometimes considered inaccurate for measuring website traffic, but we find that they serve our purpose of providing a representative sample of established sites very well.”
According to Netcraft, there are around 700 million websites in June 2012, of which 190 million are active. On average, Google Analytics is installed on 55.8 per cent of websites – Google Analytics is installed on 100 million + websites -, giving Google Analytics a whopper 81.5 per cent market share of the worldwide web analytics software industry. The second place goes to LiveInternet with 5.4 per cent and ranking third is CNZZ with 4.1 per cent market share.
Some numbers about the use of Google Analytics worldwide:
- In Europe, we love Google Analytics, just under 62 per cent of all websites have it installed
- Only South America beats Europe to the top spot with 66.9 per cent
- In Iraq Google Analytics is used by 3.4 per cent of websites, making it the lowest ranking
- Macedonia is the Google Analytics top ranking country in the world with 83.3%
- Asia is the only region of the world with a Google Analytics usage below 50 per cent with 43.5 per cent. CNZZ would have a much higher usage
- under a third of all .mobi websites use Google Analytics as a web analytics tool – 29.4 per cent to be precise
- just under two third of newly created .xxx TLD websites use Google Analytics with 62.2 per cent
- 84 per cent of .ie sites use a traffic analysis tool vs. 68 per cent worldwide
- Google Analytics is installed on 78 per cent of .ie websites
- Full Circle Studies ranks second on .ie websites
- 5 per cent of. ie sites use Adtech vs. 0.3 per cent worldwide
- Adtech ranks third behind AdSense and DoubleClick
See TargetOnlineMarketing.com infographic ‘Who is using Google Analytics in 2012’
Google Analytics – and by extension its overwhelming worldwide usage – is using: first party cookies and JavaScript code.All websites have to comply with evolving data privacy guidelines, cookies technologies, country specific e-commerce laws, etc… As a website owner do make a point of having up to date legal information on your website. If you need guidelines, get in touch with the IIA.
IIA Press Releases
IIA Wins Awards for Excellence!
IIA Wins Public Affairs Category at the PRCA Award 2012
On Friday 21st June 2012 at the Awards for Excellence in Public Relations 2012, the IIA won the prestigious Award for PR Excellence in the Public Affairs Category.
IIA Wins Public Affairs Category at the PRCA Award 2012
On Friday 21st June 2012 at the Awards for Excellence in Public Relations 2012, the IIA won the prestigious Award for PR Excellence in the Public Affairs Category. The IIA had engaged the services of Fleishman-Hilliard to deliver the campaign that was centred on the IIA “Critical Skills Retention Policy” to address the Skills Shortage in Ireland.
The Awards for Excellence in Public Relations, hosted by the PRCA (Ireland), the PRII and CIPR Northern Ireland, salute Ireland’s most outstanding communications initiatives in the highly competitive and dynamic PR arena. These coveted awards, now 19 years on the go, set the industry benchmark for excellence across all areas of PR.
We are thrilled to have our worked recognised by the PRCA and to have leveraged our role in this sector to effect positive policy change.
You can view our award entry here.
Citation of the winning entry from the PRCA
Our winner in this category took an issue of concern to the stakeholders and put it on the national agenda. From concept refinement to implementation at legislative level they were firm in handling their message and skillful in building alliances. Although modestly funded, this was a very thorough campaign in terms of driving debate, dialogue and change.
Picture: Joan Mulvihill, IIA, CEO pictured with Aidan McLoughlin and Carl Gibney from Fleishman-Hillard
– See more at: http://www.iia.ie/news/item/1921/iia-wins-awards-for-excellence/#sthash.WYXSRa6x.dpuf
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Open Call for GAME, a flagship interactive exhibition exploring the future of play from Science Gallery Trinity College Dublin.
Science Gallery at Trinity College Dublin, Ireland is seeking proposals for an upcoming major exhibition GAME
Call Opens: Wed 23rd May
Call Closes: Monday 2nd July
Exhibition duration: 26 October 2012 – 18th January 2013
More details: http://sciencegallery.com/game
Cloud Computing Working Group
SWiFT 10:2012 Adopting the Cloud – decision support for cloud computing.
IIA and NSAI supported guide provides information for organisations moving to the cloud. – SWiFT10-2012
Guest Blogger, Business Guides
Good Design, Bad Design & ‘That’ll Do’ Design
This is a guest blog post contributed by Brian Donellan from The One Image
Good design informs our decision making. It is often the most influential factor when we are deciding what we buy, where we go and what we do. This is because the way objects, systems and services work and look, throughout their evolution and life cycle, are the result of people designing the underlying plans, processes and build specifications.
Our individual experiences with the functional and aesthetic qualities of objects, processes and services, consciously and subconsciously, acts as the basis for our personal benchmark for what is good design. And that benchmark not only evolves because of new experiences, it also changes depending on a wide range of variables, including environment, mood, whether we are working or relaxing, etc. When we are faced with a new experience or a purchasing decision we refer to the logical and sensori-emotional (aesthetic) values we associate with our most relevant benchmarks for what is good design.
This means that there are no hard and fast rules about what makes for good design. There is good design, bad design and ‘that’ll do’ design. However, designing your product and/or service and support systems should always come at the end of the development process, not the beginning. This is true whether you are designing a product/service to sell; logo and stationery; website; brochure; tender submission; etc.
Pre-Design: Research; Evaluation and Concept Development
There are many ways of approaching the pre-design stage of any project but it can be simplified down to three steps: Research; Evaluation and Concept Development. By thinking in these terms you can make the process as straight-forward and fast-moving, or as complicated, as you want.
A good designer/developer will do the heavy lifting for you, and steer you through the process in round table discussions and by asking key questions. If you decide to take it all on yourself, you should find a friend or colleague who can offer you a client’s perspective, and is willing to ask difficult questions, as you progress.
To make the most of the pre-design stage you should use a range of decision making models. Among the most widely know analysis models are ‘SWOT’ and ‘PEST’ but looking at resources like ‘The Decision Book: Fifty Models for Strategic Thinking’ by R. Tschäppeler & M. Krogerus will help you find models that are a good fit for you. By evaluating the existing service/product providers and the service/product alternatives in diagrammatic form you can quickly see shared traits and trends. It also means you can easily update the profiles as products, services and the market adapts and evolves.
As part of the Evaluation and Concept Development steps you should look at Design under two key headings: Functional and Aesthetic.
Functional Design
Under the heading Functional Design analyse how the products/services work throughout their lifecycle. How intuitive, robust and enjoyable in the user experience (UX) from the perspective of the target user? How intuitive, reliable and flexible is the UX from the perspective of the people building, maintaining and evolving the service/product?
If you are looking at Logo Design you should be asking how legible the logos are when reproduced at different sizes, in different contexts and on different materials, and the inherent production costs. If you are looking at Website Design you should be looking to identify the target audiences; how easy the sites are to navigate and, in terms of structure and content, are they optimised for the UX of the target audience or for the site owners and managers.
Aesthetic Design
Aesthetic Design is all too often dismissed as being far less important than Functional Design. This is not the case. Our initial reaction to any proposition is a sensori-emotional one and a negative reaction will inform all subsequent decisions. Research has show time and again that people make their mind up about products and services within seconds, often ending the interaction there and then. An existing relationship with an owner or advocate of a product/service can alleviate some of the negativity but a sense of doubt will linger.
An analysis of the effectiveness of the Aesthetic Design of the products/services under review should look at how their sensori-emotional values compare to those of the products/services that are the most likely benchmarks for the target audience. It is about drawing up a mental model of how people would expect, and want, the products/services to work and then comparing it to how products/services actually work. The analysis should also include an exploration of the visual language, including the underlying semantics, of the services/products.
If you are looking at Logo Design, Website Design, etc. you should be looking at the balance achieved between friendliness, familiarity, surprise and professionalism, with the hierarchy of these traits being informed by the sector and type of product/service. Additional traits such as angularity or roundness, hardness or softness and solid colour or gradients should also be considered.
The attributes of the typefaces used are very important. Do you think the typefaces were chosen because of a then-current trend or are they appropriate for the product/service and the target market? Following a trend can prove to be a very costly mistake. In 2010 the Waterstones launched a new logo, presumably to convey a more modern, dynamic identity. Only 25 of the company’s stores were rebranded before January 2012 when the company launched a new new logo – the pre-2010 logo without an apostrophe – because they realised the sensori-emotional values of the 2010 logo were not in keeping with the company. James Daunt, managing director of Waterstones said: “Waterstones is an iconic brand deserving a capital W, and a font that reflects authority and confidence — Baskerville does just that.” (see http://www.logodesignlove.com/waterstones-logo)
Colour is also a very important consideration as in certain contexts and cultures it can have significant meaning. In some sectors dominant brands are seen as ‘owning’ certain colour, e.g. Vodafone is Red, O2 is Blue and Meteor is Orange. You should also be looking at the tone of the language, use and type of images, the hierarchy of images and text, etc.
Concept Development: Setting the Design Brief
As part of this final pre-design step you should review your evaluations and map out the desired Functional and Aesthetic traits of your product/service. The resulting Design Brief should establish guidelines that you believe will ensure your product/service will appeal to your target market while at the same time differentiate you from your competition.
A guiding principal is that you strive to compete on your own terms while ensuring the payoff to your target audience, from their perspective, is at least equal to the payoff they get from your competition. This applies to all stages of the interaction between you and your audience, starting with the payoff they’ll get for giving you their time and attention.
The Design Brief should set guidelines and minimum standards for the Functional Design of your product/service. How do you approach delivering an intuitive, reliable, flexible and enjoyable UX for all stakeholders, within the constraints of your budget? What is the realistic lifespan of your product/service? What aspects of the functional design can you carry through to other products/services to help you move people from being product/service advocates to being brand advocates, open to other products/services?
When deciding on your approach to the Aesthetic Design of your product/service you should look at the pros and cons of designing to your audience’s mental model of how your type of product/service works and the visual language, including the underlying semantics, employed. Challenging these preconceptions so as to create a sense of surprise and personality can work to your advantage. It can establish a reputation of being ahead of the curve, not following it, and – as in the case of Apple, Google and Facebook – allow you to make changes without needing to firstly get the buy-in of focus groups. At the same time, the majority of products/services rely on communicating an impression of ‘responding to the market’. As both approaches work you need to decide which is the best fit for you and then just go for it wholeheartedly.
The Design Process
All design projects are subject to constraints but leveraging Functional Design and Aesthetic Design has been proven to pays dividends. Throughout the Design Process you should alternate between focusing on developing and testing the functionality of the component elements and building in the desired sensori-emotional triggers, until you have achieved the optimum balance possible.
Enthusiasm, inventiveness and attention to detail will ensure the Design Process is enjoyable, and the resulting sense of achievement can be immense, if you trust yourself and your approach. And remember, there are no hard and fast rules. There is good design, bad design and ‘that’ll do’ design.