A minor bugbear of mine (though in the way of minor bugbears, it annoys me more than many many things which deserve far more opprobrium) is RTE radio shows that fail to use original theme music. For instance, The Business' use of Baba O'Reilly. Firstly, I doubt The Who need the money. Secondly , there is something cheap (not in the literal sense I imagine) and , well, dull about it.
On my high horse I would say that ad a public service broadcaster and a major commissioner of original music, RTE has a responsibility not to neglect possible opportunities for Irish composers. On a lower horse I'd just say wouldn't it be entertainingly to have an open contest for radio themes with the listeners judging?
30.3.09
22.3.09
I need my space
A functioning space bar is quite important for typing at any length. You can still make a space, by hitting a little pressure pad in the centre of where the space bar used to be, but it is a pretty draining process. The space bar on my laptop has disappeared, wrenched off by my very innovative daughter. Of course, if I was truly consistent with the spirit of this blog, I'd see this as a grand experiment in shifting my sense of a useful interface. The QWERTY keyboard is designed to slow down typists -early typewriters jammed readily at high speeds - and yet is still the dominant text entry interface.
28.2.09
I wanna keep my place in the old world
Ben Terrett, part of the "post digital" Really Interesting Group and part-instigator of the alchemical Things Our Friends Have Written On The Internet 2008 newspaper, calls for "more ideas, less stuff" in a Guardian column this week. While I'm not sure that a £400 Howies jacket is the best antidote to conspicuous consumption, the idea that commonplace objects should be considerately designed to satisfy the user and function smoothly over a long lifespan is as sound as it's ever been*.
Perhaps more interesting still is Terrett's collaborator Russell Davies' nascent ideas about how the physical world might interface with the digital in the very near future. Most of the technology he talks about is already out there; all we need to do is think about how we might join the dots.
* Donald Norman's The Design Of Everyday Things, first published in 1988, is the best-known usability primer for a reason, and is a good read for anybody who finds themselves frequently pushing doors that need to be pulled, or vice versa, or the kicking thereof.
23.2.09
Legitimation Crisis?
To begin with a sweeping generalisation I haven't actually managed to verify; virtually every functioning democracy in the world makes some provision for citizens residing abroad to vote in its elections. One of the few notable exceptions is, of course, Ireland.*
There's no constitutional reason for this to be so - the relevant passage reads;
"Article 16
1. 1° Every citizen without distinction of sex who has reached the age of twenty-one years, and who is not placed under disability or incapacity by this Constitution or by law, shall be eligible for membership of Dáil Éireann.
2°
i All citizens, and
ii such other persons in the State as may be determined by law,without distinction of sex who have reached the age of eighteen years who are not disqualified by law and comply with the provisions of the law relating to the election of members of Dáil Éireann, shall have the right to vote at an election for members of Dáil Éireann.
3° No law shall be enacted placing any citizen under disability or incapacity for membership of Dáil Éireann on the ground of sex or disqualifying any citizen or other person from voting at an election for members of Dáil Éireann on that ground."
And if there were, I think there would be a substantive case for a referendum on the issue. God knows, we've held them on much more dubious grounds in the past.
As I noted previously, the current economic climate will very likely result in a new wave of emigrants from the country, people who are forced, contra Eoghan Harris, to leave the country in order to find work. Moreover, by doing so, they (we) will be doing a positive service to the Irish economy.
Now, those people are Irish citizens, generally wish to reside in Ireland, and are entitled constitutionally and morally to the same protections by the Irish government as any other Irish citizen. They are, under any relevant description, stakeholders in Irish society and have, if anything, a stronger vested interest in the recovery of the national economy than those who can afford to remain.
Yet the current legal provisions bar such people from entry on the Electoral Register. Consequently, their voices are denied representation in the Dáil, and the political parties have little motivation to safeguard their interests.
In other words, those Irish citizens and residents hardest hit by the recession are systematically excluded from influencing the process of recovery. Those charged with alleviating the crisis are in no way accountable to those most negatively impacted by it. It would be no exaggeration to say this casts a pall of democratic illegitimacy over every decision the Irish government takes affecting its economy - and hence its economic migrants - and it is a situation that needs urgent review.
Obviously, there are no plans on the table, though Labour and Fine Gael did jointly propose overseas representation to the Seanad in 2006. The toothlessness of that measure is perhaps best indicated by the fact that it has been proposed at all. Those forced to leave the country will not, as a rule, hold an especially high view of the politicians responsible - and it is obviously not in the interests of any politician to extend the franchise to any hostile group. But while the resulting stasis may be politically inevitable, it is surely intolerable in moral terms.
* I think Greece is another exception. But the point here is not the universality, rather that it's not an inherently absurd thing to do, nor are the associated logistical considerations insurmountable.
There's no constitutional reason for this to be so - the relevant passage reads;
"Article 16
1. 1° Every citizen without distinction of sex who has reached the age of twenty-one years, and who is not placed under disability or incapacity by this Constitution or by law, shall be eligible for membership of Dáil Éireann.
2°
i All citizens, and
ii such other persons in the State as may be determined by law,without distinction of sex who have reached the age of eighteen years who are not disqualified by law and comply with the provisions of the law relating to the election of members of Dáil Éireann, shall have the right to vote at an election for members of Dáil Éireann.
3° No law shall be enacted placing any citizen under disability or incapacity for membership of Dáil Éireann on the ground of sex or disqualifying any citizen or other person from voting at an election for members of Dáil Éireann on that ground."
And if there were, I think there would be a substantive case for a referendum on the issue. God knows, we've held them on much more dubious grounds in the past.
As I noted previously, the current economic climate will very likely result in a new wave of emigrants from the country, people who are forced, contra Eoghan Harris, to leave the country in order to find work. Moreover, by doing so, they (we) will be doing a positive service to the Irish economy.
Now, those people are Irish citizens, generally wish to reside in Ireland, and are entitled constitutionally and morally to the same protections by the Irish government as any other Irish citizen. They are, under any relevant description, stakeholders in Irish society and have, if anything, a stronger vested interest in the recovery of the national economy than those who can afford to remain.
Yet the current legal provisions bar such people from entry on the Electoral Register. Consequently, their voices are denied representation in the Dáil, and the political parties have little motivation to safeguard their interests.
In other words, those Irish citizens and residents hardest hit by the recession are systematically excluded from influencing the process of recovery. Those charged with alleviating the crisis are in no way accountable to those most negatively impacted by it. It would be no exaggeration to say this casts a pall of democratic illegitimacy over every decision the Irish government takes affecting its economy - and hence its economic migrants - and it is a situation that needs urgent review.
Obviously, there are no plans on the table, though Labour and Fine Gael did jointly propose overseas representation to the Seanad in 2006. The toothlessness of that measure is perhaps best indicated by the fact that it has been proposed at all. Those forced to leave the country will not, as a rule, hold an especially high view of the politicians responsible - and it is obviously not in the interests of any politician to extend the franchise to any hostile group. But while the resulting stasis may be politically inevitable, it is surely intolerable in moral terms.
* I think Greece is another exception. But the point here is not the universality, rather that it's not an inherently absurd thing to do, nor are the associated logistical considerations insurmountable.
21.2.09
Poetry trails
If you look at a rack of postcards on sale in any Irish tourist site, a few themes emerge. Guinness. The Cliffs of Moher. Old men with no teeth. Old women with no teeth. Photos of a few cows ambling down the road, with the caption "Dublin traffic jam." And those Great Irish Writers ones, featuring usually some combination of Swift, Wilde, Shaw, Yeats, Synge, O'Casey, Joyce and Beckett, with perhaps Roddy Doyle thrown in the odd time. Our literary heritage is one of those things we are known for around the world.
This won't magically end the recession, but is a nice little tourism idea. The village of Polesworth in Morth Warwickshire is developing a poetry trail. In a nice touch, they are using poems from both nationally (in the UK) known and unknown poets, rather than just the Great Works, and have run a competition for those many many many wannabe poets out there. Given our much-trumpeted literary heritage, perhaps similar schemes would work well here. Obviously the Ulysses trail in Dublin is a similar idea - but the openness to new and unknown poets is interesting....
This won't magically end the recession, but is a nice little tourism idea. The village of Polesworth in Morth Warwickshire is developing a poetry trail. In a nice touch, they are using poems from both nationally (in the UK) known and unknown poets, rather than just the Great Works, and have run a competition for those many many many wannabe poets out there. Given our much-trumpeted literary heritage, perhaps similar schemes would work well here. Obviously the Ulysses trail in Dublin is a similar idea - but the openness to new and unknown poets is interesting....
20.2.09
What will happen to all the ghost estates?
Ireland does ruins quite well, actually. It may, truth be told, be one of the things most readily associated with us internationally - along with rain, general greenery, mountains, Guinness, U2, leprechauns, and, um, the IRA. Even at the height of the boom I don't think the world really saw us, at least not for very long, as the thrusting go-ahead alpha economy of Europe if not the world we did.
We may be in the middle of the greatest exercise in ruin creation in Ireland's history, leaving the dissolution of the monasteries and the Big House burnings of the War of Independence in the shade. Ghostestates.com is a fascinating resource, and a rather incomplete one. All over the country, anywhere that someone imagined that someone else would commute from there to somewhere else, there is a little (or not so little) glade of shiny new houses, like little boxes made of ticky-tacky.
What should happen to these ghost estates? Some, with my worthy hat on, should become social housing, although with that nicely cavalier disregard for planning we also do so well some of them are less than blessed with amenities and infrastructure anyway. But with my more poetic hand (apologies for mixed metaphors - I could get even clumsier, but its late and its Friday and I have a sleepy baby to contend with, not to mention a sleepy me) perhaps we should created a National Bureau of Ruin Creation, with will "distress" these buildings in appropriately picturesque ways. Then let nature take its course, and in less time than it takes to name the Golden Circle we have a set of pretty, tourist-friendly ruins all over the country. We could even boost the construction industry a bit by building the interpretative centres now. "How did those people of this small island on the Western seaboard of Europe come to build these structures," the informative plaques might begin, "which had no apparent use or function. Scholars have advanced many theories, some simple, some more complex, yet all of which refer to their worship of the Bubble of Property, a creed whose beliefs were stated in the simple formula - Thy Price Will Always Go Up."
Alas, those Irishmen and Irishwomen of long ago were proved wrong, but we can still see the vigour of this strange creed, seemingly self-evidently absurd just a few years later.
We may be in the middle of the greatest exercise in ruin creation in Ireland's history, leaving the dissolution of the monasteries and the Big House burnings of the War of Independence in the shade. Ghostestates.com is a fascinating resource, and a rather incomplete one. All over the country, anywhere that someone imagined that someone else would commute from there to somewhere else, there is a little (or not so little) glade of shiny new houses, like little boxes made of ticky-tacky.
What should happen to these ghost estates? Some, with my worthy hat on, should become social housing, although with that nicely cavalier disregard for planning we also do so well some of them are less than blessed with amenities and infrastructure anyway. But with my more poetic hand (apologies for mixed metaphors - I could get even clumsier, but its late and its Friday and I have a sleepy baby to contend with, not to mention a sleepy me) perhaps we should created a National Bureau of Ruin Creation, with will "distress" these buildings in appropriately picturesque ways. Then let nature take its course, and in less time than it takes to name the Golden Circle we have a set of pretty, tourist-friendly ruins all over the country. We could even boost the construction industry a bit by building the interpretative centres now. "How did those people of this small island on the Western seaboard of Europe come to build these structures," the informative plaques might begin, "which had no apparent use or function. Scholars have advanced many theories, some simple, some more complex, yet all of which refer to their worship of the Bubble of Property, a creed whose beliefs were stated in the simple formula - Thy Price Will Always Go Up."
Alas, those Irishmen and Irishwomen of long ago were proved wrong, but we can still see the vigour of this strange creed, seemingly self-evidently absurd just a few years later.
Broadband schmroadband
Hello there - in recent days I've been trying to update the blog, post on the blog, promote the blog, and generally better the blog - but have been stymied by a sclerotic mobile broadband connection, itself succesor to a sclerotic ISDN connection, which itself was a "service" of one of the Big Two after a host of other networks promised that they could cover our area, but it turned out they couldn't.
And I live within a few minutes of the Ground Zero of the Celtic Tiger, Decadent Phase - Dundrum Town Centre.
There's a moral there somewhere.
And I live within a few minutes of the Ground Zero of the Celtic Tiger, Decadent Phase - Dundrum Town Centre.
There's a moral there somewhere.
16.2.09
Old heads, young shoulders
David McWilliams has some interesting things to say about an Argentinean "match-making" service which pairs young entrepreneurs with recently laid-off older executives, and how a similar scheme might work in Ireland.
This is something I've been thinking about for a while; the consensus is that we urgently need an economic base that isn't entirely predicated on the whims of MNCs and a tanking property market, but these new businesses won't appear by magic. Seed capital and decent mentoring are essential if start-ups aren't to wither on the vine, but difficult to come by if you don't know where to start looking. I have no first-hand experience with Enterprise Ireland's Business Partner Programme, which sounds somewhat similar to the Argentinean model – comments welcome below.
11.2.09
My inner Robespierre is screaming...
I don't know if there's a way to embed this...
http://www.rte.ie/tv/latelate/av_20090206.html?2488947,null,228
Anyway, much as I would like to get off to a balanced and considered start to posting on this blog (thanks for the invite, Seamus), I'm afraid it's going to be a matter of barely suppressed rage. It's a depressing state of affairs when we must turn to Éamonn Dunphy to add some sense to the national conversation.
Since there's not a whole lot I can say without the bile rising, I'll limit my remarks to the perspective of an emigrant, who had been hoping to return at some point, but now fears that the Irish economy will not even begin to recover until the US and UK do so sufficiently to take in a new wave of Irish workers.
Firstly, I've been hearing a very great deal about the clip, and Kenny himself preens about the effect of a similar panel on the general election. Has the LLS somehow returned to a central position in the national psyche?
Secondly, does anybody at all buy Harris' take on emigration? It's certainly the case that in recent years it has tended to be voluntary - mine certainly was. But why on earth would he suppose the massive forced emigration which the economic disaster is about to bring on will have more in common with that than with the dehumanising and debilitating misery of the 1980s? Why would anybody think it germane?
A final thought regarding Pat Kenny's comment at the end. "What do we remember about the 1980s, the dole queues or the sporting successes?" That's a "let them eat cake" moment, if ever I heard one.
"Unfocussed anger"? Mine is pretty much pin-sharp at this point.
http://www.rte.ie/tv/latelate/av_20090206.html?2488947,null,228
Anyway, much as I would like to get off to a balanced and considered start to posting on this blog (thanks for the invite, Seamus), I'm afraid it's going to be a matter of barely suppressed rage. It's a depressing state of affairs when we must turn to Éamonn Dunphy to add some sense to the national conversation.
Since there's not a whole lot I can say without the bile rising, I'll limit my remarks to the perspective of an emigrant, who had been hoping to return at some point, but now fears that the Irish economy will not even begin to recover until the US and UK do so sufficiently to take in a new wave of Irish workers.
Firstly, I've been hearing a very great deal about the clip, and Kenny himself preens about the effect of a similar panel on the general election. Has the LLS somehow returned to a central position in the national psyche?
Secondly, does anybody at all buy Harris' take on emigration? It's certainly the case that in recent years it has tended to be voluntary - mine certainly was. But why on earth would he suppose the massive forced emigration which the economic disaster is about to bring on will have more in common with that than with the dehumanising and debilitating misery of the 1980s? Why would anybody think it germane?
A final thought regarding Pat Kenny's comment at the end. "What do we remember about the 1980s, the dole queues or the sporting successes?" That's a "let them eat cake" moment, if ever I heard one.
"Unfocussed anger"? Mine is pretty much pin-sharp at this point.
10.2.09
Forbes article on Innovation from the margins...
Worth a look
My own $0.02 is that innovation, like creativity, is damn difficult to control and to channel. The modern tendency to develop strategies and frameworks for everything is in some ways laudable, but one wonders about its relation to really new and fresh ways of looking at things. Perhaps I seem unduly pessimistic, or negative about it - I would argue though that allowing a certain amount of creative chaos and having the discrimination to encourage the promising results is a more, um, creative way of apraoching innovation.
Hat tip - mad housewife
My own $0.02 is that innovation, like creativity, is damn difficult to control and to channel. The modern tendency to develop strategies and frameworks for everything is in some ways laudable, but one wonders about its relation to really new and fresh ways of looking at things. Perhaps I seem unduly pessimistic, or negative about it - I would argue though that allowing a certain amount of creative chaos and having the discrimination to encourage the promising results is a more, um, creative way of apraoching innovation.
Hat tip - mad housewife
9.2.09
Are there champions for small change out there?
From Haydn
One consequence of this bubble, different from all other bubbles, is that many, many companies have expanded on the back of cheap and easy finance and on the back of cheap resources and markets that only grow. We need champions who recognise this for what it is: unreal. And champions who can step up and experiment with change.
We think of the past decade as a property and credit bubble but actually companies even in manufacturing and in services have borrowed to grow, and have had access to cheap resources (China, India), and customers who have grown their spending consistently.
These are the ingredients of a cocktail we don't yet understand.
One consequence has to be" under-developed managerial capabilities". When your markets keep growing and when the banks keep lending so that you can grow to serve those markets, life as an executive is easy. We have to find ways to identify the weaknesses this exposes for hard times and normal times. We have to find executives who are willing to acknowledge that change is necessary and the time is right. And we have to find companies who are prepared to experiment with new strategic, structural and managerial forms.
We can see already in the USA companies are adopting new managerial practices around Web 2.0 principles - build in a capacity to do experimental management, experimental strategy; trial, error, failure, learning, moving on. Who in Ireland and which companies in Ireland can see the need to experiment with how they manage their companies? Because there is no six sigma, no business process transformation and no other formula to turn companies around this time.
One consequence of this bubble, different from all other bubbles, is that many, many companies have expanded on the back of cheap and easy finance and on the back of cheap resources and markets that only grow. We need champions who recognise this for what it is: unreal. And champions who can step up and experiment with change.
We think of the past decade as a property and credit bubble but actually companies even in manufacturing and in services have borrowed to grow, and have had access to cheap resources (China, India), and customers who have grown their spending consistently.
These are the ingredients of a cocktail we don't yet understand.
One consequence has to be" under-developed managerial capabilities". When your markets keep growing and when the banks keep lending so that you can grow to serve those markets, life as an executive is easy. We have to find ways to identify the weaknesses this exposes for hard times and normal times. We have to find executives who are willing to acknowledge that change is necessary and the time is right. And we have to find companies who are prepared to experiment with new strategic, structural and managerial forms.
We can see already in the USA companies are adopting new managerial practices around Web 2.0 principles - build in a capacity to do experimental management, experimental strategy; trial, error, failure, learning, moving on. Who in Ireland and which companies in Ireland can see the need to experiment with how they manage their companies? Because there is no six sigma, no business process transformation and no other formula to turn companies around this time.
International Digital Legal Services Centre
Seamus,
Good idea. Good blog. Have you seen http://nextleap.wordpress.com ? Similar thing, but focussed on the digital sector. One idea that we came up with was to take advantage of the global boom in digital media content (iTunes, games, films etc) by establishing a global digital legal services centre here, handling payments, rights trading and clearance etc.
Good idea. Good blog. Have you seen http://nextleap.wordpress.com ? Similar thing, but focussed on the digital sector. One idea that we came up with was to take advantage of the global boom in digital media content (iTunes, games, films etc) by establishing a global digital legal services centre here, handling payments, rights trading and clearance etc.
Geary Institute Irish Recovery Page
The UCD Geary Institute has a very impressive microsite which "is a portal for people with specific ideas that will improve people’s lives and aid the process of recovery in the irish economy."
Worth checking out.
Worth checking out.
Innovation versus Recession
Hello,
How will Ireland get out of its current, sudden, sharp (yet rather predictable) post-property bubble slump? Well, if our leaders and most media commentators are to be believed, essentially by Taking The Pain and in a few years things will mysteriously be ok again.
That may be true. Full disclosure - unlike it seems 95% of the Irish population, I'm not an economist, not even an armchair one. However I do believe that perhaps it might be interesting it we took all the guff spouted by our betters about innovation and, most dread phrase of all, the knowledge economy, at face value. If Ireland is to get out of this recessaion, or even we are to endure it less painfully, we'll need to get creative again.
This blog is intended to be a return to the wild frontier of the internet - a febrile clearing house and crossing point for ideas. Innovation in politics, economics, technology, philosophy, science, medicine, psychology, literature, art, music (anything I've left out?) and any combination thereof. From all points of the spectrum (except the really unpleasant and nasty ones) and from all levels of expertise.
How will Ireland get out of its current, sudden, sharp (yet rather predictable) post-property bubble slump? Well, if our leaders and most media commentators are to be believed, essentially by Taking The Pain and in a few years things will mysteriously be ok again.
That may be true. Full disclosure - unlike it seems 95% of the Irish population, I'm not an economist, not even an armchair one. However I do believe that perhaps it might be interesting it we took all the guff spouted by our betters about innovation and, most dread phrase of all, the knowledge economy, at face value. If Ireland is to get out of this recessaion, or even we are to endure it less painfully, we'll need to get creative again.
This blog is intended to be a return to the wild frontier of the internet - a febrile clearing house and crossing point for ideas. Innovation in politics, economics, technology, philosophy, science, medicine, psychology, literature, art, music (anything I've left out?) and any combination thereof. From all points of the spectrum (except the really unpleasant and nasty ones) and from all levels of expertise.
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