Social Media Writing for Smart People » Ireland http://www.ivanwalsh.com Get smart with better social media writing skills Sat, 05 Nov 2011 17:15:50 +0000 en hourly 1 http://wordpress.org/?v=3.2.1 How to Get Funding For Your Startup in Ireland http://www.ivanwalsh.com/business-development/how-to-funding-startup-ireland/ http://www.ivanwalsh.com/business-development/how-to-funding-startup-ireland/#comments Fri, 24 Sep 2010 18:01:53 +0000 Ivan http://www.ivanwalsh.com/?p=4591 Waiting her turnThis week we look at how to create a startup business in Europe, the advantages it offers and how you can qualify. Now that most of the US and Europe start to emerge from the recession, opportunities to start new businesses have started to emerge. Let’s look at what Enterprise Ireland offers new startups, especially those from overseas, and the advantages it offers your business. ]]>

This week we look at how to create a startup business in Ireland, the advantages it offers, and how you can qualify. Now that the US and Europe have started to emerge from the recession, opportunities and funding for new businesses are more available that last year. Let’s look at what Enterprise Ireland offers new startups, especially those from overseas, and the advantages it offers your business.

What is Enterprise Ireland?

This is the Irish Government’s dedicated organization responsible for the development and growth of Irish enterprises in world markets. It also works on bringing overseas companies to Ireland with incentives such as tax breaks and turnkey facilities.

Its role is to ‘identify, support and invest in a range of technology-based companies located in Ireland.’

Every year, it supports a growing number of international entrepreneurs who choose Ireland as the location to start their business.

To do this, it offers:

  1. Access to experienced people and investors
  2. Incubation space
  3. Entrepreneurship coaching and training
  4. Direct seed capital investment
  5. Market knowledge and connections through its network of over 30 international offices

How to Qualify for Funding

Enterprise Ireland defines High Potential Start-Up (HPSU) as start-ups:

  1. Introducing a new or innovative product or service to international markets.
  2. Involved in manufacturing or internationally traded services.
  3. Capable of creating 10 jobs in Ireland
  4. Realizing exports of €1 million within three to four years of starting up.
  5. Led by an experienced management team.
  6. Headquartered and controlled in Ireland.
  7. Less than six years old.

The site has a series of video which explain how it can help you start your business.

How to Get Started

Contact Enterprise Ireland through its website or contact one of it’s international offices. You can speed things along by dropping in to visit and talking to their business team. Most international capital cities will have a representative from Enterprise Ireland available.

Submit Your Business Plan

To apply for funding and all the associated assistance that EI can provide, you’ll need to submit a Business Plan or Business Proposal This needs to outline your:

  • New Product
  • Target market
  • Estimated turnover
  • Estimated number of employees that will be located in Ireland
  • Details of the Management team.

You can get a Business Plan Template here.

Evaluation Process

If Enterprise Ireland believes that the proposal is eligible for support and it wants to explore it further, it assigns a Development Adviser (who will have a portfolio of start-up companies in your sector) to investigate the viability of the start-up proposition and discuss funding options.

Likewise, if the proposal is at a very early stage of development and lacks key information, the Start-Up Team will help you develop the business case and/or refer you to the relevant Start-up Development Programme.

Examples of Startups who received Funding

Each year, Enterprise Ireland invests in over 70 startups. Its annual Showcase event profiles and promotes the entrepreneurs and companies supported by Enterprise Ireland across a range of manufacturing, international services and technology sectors.

In 2009, Enterprise Ireland supported 73 HPSU companies. Click here to view profiles of the HPSU Class of 2009.

These companies availed of a wide range of services including:

  1. Market and technology support and validation
  2. Introductions to the venture capital and Business Angel Network
  3. Access to business Mentors
  4. Assistance in securing key ‘reference sales’
  5. Support in developing a management team
  6. Finding suitable incubation space

You can watch some videos here: http://www.enterprise-ireland.com/en/News/MediaLibrary/HPSU/

How to Contact Enterprise Ireland

If you have a business concept and would like to consider starting your business in Ireland, you can contact them at startup@enterprise-ireland.com or visit http://www.enterprise-ireland.com/en/Start-a-New-Business/Startups-from-Outside-Ireland/

Overseas Funding – Would you try It?

Most of us look for funding at home. If you’re looking for funding abroad, what are you looking for before you make a decision?

For US companies, what would your team think of starting up in Ireland or Europe?

How would you sell the idea to them that this may be the best way to develop your new business.

]]> http://www.ivanwalsh.com/business-development/how-to-funding-startup-ireland/feed/ 0 Top 50 Technical Writers on the Web http://www.ivanwalsh.com/career/top-50-technical-writers-on-the-web/ http://www.ivanwalsh.com/career/top-50-technical-writers-on-the-web/#comments Thu, 01 Oct 2009 08:12:44 +0000 Ivan http://www.ivanwalsh.com/?p=2599 I’ve made a list of the top 50 technical writers with a web presence. Some of these you might know, such as Darren Barefoot and Tom Johnson. I have also added some other writers from India, Russia and Israel to reach out to a wider audience. I’m sure there are others that I’ve missed. Let me know and I’ll update the list. ]]>

I’ve made a list of the top 50 technical writers with a web presence. Some of these you might know, such as Darren Barefoot and Tom Johnson. I have also added some other writers from India, Russia and Israel to reach out to a wider audience. I’m sure there are others that I’ve missed. Let me know and I’ll update the list.

This week’s new additions include Alan Houser, Char James-Tanny, Cheryl Locket-Zubak , Colum McAndrew, Joe Welinske, Michael Hughes, and Paul Mueller.


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Update:

Thanks to everyone who sent in other technical writers that I overlooked. I’ve now added:

Geoffrey Sauer, Addison Berry, Jean Hollis Weber, Jim Campbell, Sarah O’Keefe, Shaun McCance, Shira Stepansky, Svi Ben Elya and Scott Able

Back to the list…

Top 50 Technical Writers

In alphabetical order, here is the list.

1.  Aaron Davis and Scott Nesbitt http://www.dmncommunications.com

2.  Amanda Abelove http://www.abelove.com

3.  Amy Gahran http://contentious.com

4.  Andrew Brooke http://techwriters-world.blogspot.com

5.  Andy Schaub www.andyschaub.wordpress.com

6.  Aneesha Myles Shewani www.linkedin.com

7.  Anindita Basu http://writing-technical.blogspot.com

8.  Anne Gentle http://www.justwriteclick.com

9.  Apoorv Durga http://www.apoorv.info

10.Arden Gatlin www.liveperson.com

11.Avi Aharon: GUI Yourself http://gui-yourself.blogspot.com

12.Barbara Stuhlemmer http://techwriterblogs.com/doku.php

13.Berkun blog http://www.scottberkun.com/blog

14.Bill Albing http://www.keycontent.org

15.Bobbie Jo Morrell www.morrellimage.com

16.Bokardo.com http://bokardo.com

17.Chris Borokowski www.user-advocacy.blogspot.com

18.Dan Mabee http://managetechpubs.wordpress.com

19.Darren Barefoot http://www.darrenbarefoot.com

20.David Farbey http://www.farbey.co.uk (updated url)

21.Dawn L. Brown www.dawnsdesktop.com

22.Dr. Macro http://drmacros-xml-rants.blogspot.com

23.Edward W. Dodds http://edodds.blogs.com/conmergence

24.FastForward http://www.fastforwardblog.com

25.Gordon McLean www.onemanwrites.co.uk

26.Heather Leigh :http://blog.CrazyforWords.com

27.Ivan Walsh, Ireland www.ivanwalsh.com

28.Janet Swisher http://www.janetswisher.com

29.KJ Maas www.kjmaas.com

30.Laura Shaffer Mills www.redwriteblue.com

31.Liz Carver http://www.is-people.org

32.Mark Glinsky www.markglinsky.com

33.Mark Watson www.markwatson.com

34.Matt Anderson http://www.montagecomms.com

35.Mike Brannon www.mikeabrannon.com

36.Mike Unwalla http://www.techscribe.co.uk

37.Paul Pehrson http://blog.paulpehrson.com

38.Paul Stamatiou http://paulstamatiou.com

39.Prakash Rangarajan http://www.cloudtrance.com

40.Robert Wisbey http://www.robertwisbey.com/main.html

41.Robert B. Stepno www.stepno.com/bobres.html

42.Sarah Maddox http://ffeathers.wordpress.com

43.Seth Gottlieb http://www.contenthere.blogspot.com

44.Steve Borsch http://borsch.typepad.com

45.Steven Jong http://stevenjong.net/WordPress

46.Suresh Digital Dreams http://www.techpings.com

47.Susanne Dyrhage www.proz.com/profile/72014

48.Tim McGuinness www.timmcguinness.com

49.Tom Coates http://www.plasticbag.org

50.Tom Johnson www.idratherbewriting.com

New Additions

51. Geoffrey Sauer, EServer Technical Communication Library

Geoffrey Sauer, for his EServer Technical Communication Library at http://tc.eserver.org. Tom Johnson reckons that this is the most popular technical communications site in the world (http://www.idratherbewriting.com/2008/12/02/tceserverorg-the-most-popular-technical-communication-website-in-the-world/

Its readership data at http://tc.eserver.org/about/recent.lasso, shows that it serves 167,000 hits to over 22,700 visitors per day.

52. Addison Berry, Drupal documentation lead: http://rocktreesky.com

53. Jean Hollis Weber, documentation co-lead for OpenOffice.org: http://www.jeanweber.com

54. Jim Campbell, documentation lead for xfce desktop environment: http://j1m.net

55. Sarah O’Keefe, Scriptorium

President of Scriptorium Publishing, setup in 1996 to provide editing and production services to technical writing departments. In 2002, Sarah received her Certified Technical Trainer (CTT+) accreditation from CompTIA. Her presentations at international, national, and regional conferences (including STC, tekom, and WritersUA) have consistently earned high ratings. http://www.scriptorium.com/about/people/sarah-okeefe

56. Shaun McCance, Gnome documentation lead: http://blogs.gnome.org/shaunm

57. Esther Shira Stepansky – Technical writer, Web Site Administrator (Webmaster), and content contributor to http://elephant.org.il.

58. Svi Ben Elya – Founder of Elephant.org.il in Israel http://elephant.org.il

59. Scott Able – The Content Wrangler

“Content management strategist and social media choreographer with strengths in helping organizations improve the way they author, maintain, publish and archive their information assets.”  http://thecontentwrangler.com/about-2/

Update Nov 19th

This week’s updates take up to 66, the year I was born, so that can’t be so bad.

60. Alan Houser – http://www.groupwellesley.com & http://www.linkedin.com/pub/dir/alan/houser

61. Char James-Tanny – www.helpstuff.com & http://www.linkedin.com/in/charjt

62. Cheryl Locket-Zubak  - www.workwrite.com and www.linkedin.com/in/workwrit

63. Colum McAndrew, The RoboColum(n) blog at http://notcolin.wordpress.com

64. Joe Welinske – President of WritersUA www.writersua.com/jwbio.htm

65. Michael Hughes – user-assistance.blogspot.com

66. Paul Mueller – www.useraid.com

Honorable Mention

I’ve also added these three sites as, while they are a great resource. I’m not sure who the editor is. Of maybe there are several people involved. If you know, please tell me and I’ll update.

1.  Svi Ben-Elya and the Elephant organization http://www.elephant.org.il (Thanks Svi!)

2.  DMN http://www.dmncommunications.com/weblog (Aaron Davis and Scott Nesbitt)

3.  Le Blog d’Habib http://elhabib.fakir.free.fr (still trying to find out)

Where did this list come from?

I was preparing a report on freelance technical writers and noticed how hard it was to find technical writing sites run by writers, most were recruitment site.

So, I dug a little deeper and began to find writers here and there. There is nothing scientific in this list. It’s based purely on the websites that came up on Google, Bing and Yahoo.

Other technical writers who may not have websites, such as those involved in the STC, didn’t make the cut. Nothing personal here it’s just that I have no visibility on their contribution to the tech docs industry so it’s hard to gauge their impact.

Add Me!

Let me know who I missed – maybe you should be here – with maybe a few words about your/their role.

I’ll update this list and, fingers crossed, we’ll get it up to 100!

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