Leadership & Entrepreneurship in Ireland – Day 3

Leadership & Entrepreneurship in Ireland – Day 3

The Queen’s visit certainly had an impact on our group today.  Our taxis were diverted due to a bomb scare, and even walking to the Digital Hub by Guinness presented a challenge with “rolling” barricades and handbag checks.  Some of the students were able to see the Queen in her Land Rover, and were pretty excited to witness history.  Feelings in the city on her visit are quite mixed, and we’ve avoided offering any opinion.

Down to business!  We visited Kieran Daly, CEO of Shimmer Research today.  They’re a design and development sensor company that provides wireless streaming and  remote monitoring for healthcare (e.g., Kinematic, Physiological & Ambient) and other fields.  The also have a presence in Boston.  The sky is the limit on possible channels and industries as they’re now in over 50 countries.  As for leadership at this phase of the company’s growth, it’s all about hiring the right people.  Ideal candidates are not the same people that would be a fit in a large company as they need to work autonomously, and deliver the message just as a sales person would!

We also met with Dr. Stephen Brennan, Director of Marketing and Strategy for the Digital Hub Development Agency.  Stephen’s a physicist turned digital evangelist for Ireland.  The Digital Hub is basically a government agency designed to help connect innovators to become collaborators.   Ireland is trying to leverage the fact that they’re small, and that proximity and networking is a collaborating differentiator (the average size company is 10 people).  It’s hard to measure human connectedness, but they try to view outputs versus outcomes (e.g., sustainable jobs in knowledge work, and efficiencies in new business won).  They see themselves as a gateway to the China market with the main competition being Korea and Singapore.  We also learned that text messaging was invented in Ireland!

Great day, and the students are making progress on their team projects.  Up tomorrow – DublinWebSummit, Ryan Academy for Entrepreneurship, Webroot, and Enterprise Ireland.