Marching to our own Beat

It has been such a month.

The raw anger from January and February seems to have dissipated into a whole new attitude around here. Into something like -

- Well there's not a shagging lot of good any of us can do about it what with nobody bloody listening to us anyway so we may as well just get on with it.

And I like it. I have been droning on amongst friends and family (with whom I have spend most of March...yes, I've been MIA from here for a while...) about how marvellous 2 particular days were for Ireland Inc.

Tuesday 17th March. Cue the sunshine. Beered up growd-ups and sugared-up kiddleywinks. Green body paint, glitter, feathers and fluff. Flags. Smiles. Laughter. The most cheerful buzz that I have noticed in Dublin City for many, many months.

Saturday 21st March. Cue the anguish, the nerves, the anticipation, the prayers and the urgency of hope that spread throughout every pub in the country. I haven't prayed that hard in a long, long time.

- pleaseGodpleaseGodpleaseGodpleaseGodpleaseGodpleaseGod let this happen for Ireland we really need it everyone's so glum this would be just magic pleaseGodpleaseGodpleaseGod -

Cue history, tears, shock, amazement, joy and one of the best days for being Irish which I will cherish always. Mostly because I luckily got to share it with lots of people who I love to pieces and haven't seen enough of lately. I'd been missing them, and now it's all good.

I nearly welled up with hope on Paddy's Day when I saw crowds of smiling faces flooding through the city's streets after the big parade was over. Happy people, full of joy and excitement. A little bit of sunshine mixed in with remembering the good parts of being Irish, all rolled up into one. Magic.

Followed by the day that brought tears to George Hook's eyes and mine, and made him wear a silly hat and not care a jot.

Such pride. Such pride.

And now? Time for what? Determination. We've all had enough of the negativity. Reaction to picturegate is enough to remind us that the backbone of our little isle lies firmly within ourselves. Nobody else. Feck the government, let's just do it. Get ourselves out of the mess, drive forward and get back to what we do best. Most things, as it happens.

March is a good month.

EU Funding

It appears that news stories featuring small businesses & the help available from Europe are like the 46A...none for ages and then 2 come along at once.



Not long after I had the pleasure of posting this about the European Commission, I find something else to be cheerful about.



I have just started following Eoin Ryan on Twitter (I posted about that last week too) and found this interesting tit bit - the European Investment Fund's new programme, called Jeremie.



Think not that I am nailing political support to any flagpoles - this I will never do. I'm too flaky. I am, however, delighted that anyone at all is starting the odd initiative that actually might bring some good to the small and micro enterprise sector. Hoo-bleedin-rah I say. It's not like we don't need it!



So - Jeremie - stands for the Joint European Resources for Micro to Medium Enterprises. No wonder they abbreviated it. I won't ramble about which EU Fund it's coming from (Structural) but the basic gist is that rather than getting a once-off grant, money will be invested, and then can be reinvested in the same business at a later date. The money is not then linked to a specific project, just the financial health of an enterprise.



This makes a lot of sense, since at the moment you have to be incurring a specific cost in your near future when you apply to EI or a CEB. They always ask "well, what do you need the money for?" when truthfully you just need to be keeping your cashflow healthy and could do with a boost.



Now just to clarify - none of the details have been churned out yet. I'm trying very hard to gag the cynic in me that thinks this in reality this will take so long to put in place that the recession will be over by then, or that the hoops and loops people will have to jump through to get the finance in the first place will still be a pain in the -



But! I am tentatively thrilled that something is happening on the funding front. Hopefully it will come to something - at the moment they are only talking about "a range of financial instruments" so when I hear more I will elaborate!



Oh goodie for more good news... On a Monday too! The shock.



~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~



Footnote of Great Import:

JEREMIE funds are not issued directly to small businesses (SMEs).SMEs should therefore not apply to EIF or the EC for financial support.In due course, SMEs interested in obtaining finance will be able to identify and contact financial intermediaries in their countries based on information provided in this website, which will be provided as and when the JEREMIE initiative becomes active in Member States and Regions.

Last Wednesday's Irish Times

A bit behind - as always - I am surprised and shocked at the Irish Times publishing such an article. Interesting way to work at increasing circulation!

Apparently it's all our fault, ladies! We work, therefore we earn. With 2 incomes, the family's standard of living gets nice 'n' high - too high. We're the ones who love shopping & spending, right? So the glass ceiling which has just shattered is all our fault. Don't believe me? I wouldn't either.

Have a read, here. The article comes with a health warning - have a cuppa beside you and a smile on your face before reading! Newton Emerson (author) is a satirist from Northern Ireland. So I'm going to assume that this article appears tongue in cheek.

Good News for Small Business!

You may have spotted this on the news during the week - Brussels are trying to make life easier for people running small businesses. They are hoping to do away with the rule that annual returns have to be made with the Companies Registration Office for every Limited Company operating in Ireland. The new, better, regulations are going to be all over Europe of course, but here's what it means for us...

If you are running a Ltd. Co. and have annual turnover of less than €1,000,000, you will not have to make an annual return to the CRO. At least that is what I understood from RTE...

This process is one of the costs that a company is burdened with, a cost that sometimes makes people decide to run a Sole Trader business rather than an Ltd. from the get go. It can range from €1,000 upwards - a lot of smaller business like to get their trusted accoutant to do it for them, which is where the costs come in. It also takes up quite a bit of time - paperwork of course - so hopefully this ruling will mean that businesses can get back to running efficiently.

Ryanair are doing away with check-in desks to make themselves more effiecient and cost effective - here is what small businesses can do - soon, I hope.

To get the full information, read about the European Commission's proposal on EU Business.

Just to clarify, this "return" is different to the submission of Annaul Accounts to the CRO, which Ltd. Co's don't have to do unless their turnover hits €7,300,000 which is pretty great too... For more information on that one, hit the CRO website.

It's nice to see someone being practical and proactive about reducing small business costs! It's getting easier to start up a Ltd Co...hoorah.

Twit Much?

It's funny, but since so many people are talking about Twitter - on the radio, on the tellybox, in newspapers and in the pub - you would think that everyone knew what it was by now.



I've had to explain it lots of times recently. Me, who only started tweeting at the beginning of January. One of my new year's resolutions that has not failed!! (Ahem - please note - I was still only in the first 40k to follow Mr Stephen Fry, just to put things in perspective...)



When George Hook and Rick O'Shea both tweeted directly at me today, I thought I better start sharing so that other people could get all excited for no reason on a random Wednesday afternoon.



So. Twitter. What the hell is this twitter business?



Well, if you take something like a status update from Facebook, and merge it with the concept of blogging, then you have the mashup of fun that is twitter.



It's defined as "micro-blogging" - in other words, you pop your thoughts online for others to see, you just have an SMS amount of character spaces to do it in!



In sum...
+ + =


Anyhoo, there are lots of people on Twitter these days, average people, big people, small people and famous people. Some of the famous ones are fun to follow, and a little inspirational at times.


I really liked John Cleese's Happy New Year message - or "tweet" - it was: may your new year's flatulence be tuneful and fragrantly innoffensive


You can follow him, here: @JohnCleese


What is following?


Well, it's just the name given to...signing up to hear what other people are saying - like seeing your Friends' status updates on Facebook. You click "Follow" on someone's page, and all of a sudden your own homepage will include everything they say/tweet.


The Hookie Monster has two Twitter accounts, this one gets more action though: @ghook
Rick tweets quite a bit during his broadcasts: @rickoshea

For obvious reasons I love keeping up to date with this marvellous man. He doesn't tweet often, but when he does it's always something groovy. @richardbranson


There are tons of others to follow if you find them interesting. Don't worry that you have to follow everyone who follows you, a lot of strange beings start following you just to get you to follow them back - then they proceed to spam-tweet with so much crap....pay no attention. Have a look at their page, if it looks dull, don't bother following! A good clue to their spam-potential is that they are literally following thousands, but only have a few followers themselves.


From a business perspective, Twitter is a great way for your customers to get in touch with you, and for you to let them know what's going on with you. I started following @VodafoneIreland and asked them a few questions - which they replied to. It's just good business... I've changed to o2 but that's not the point ;)


Business is all about staying in touch. You can talk to experts like @damienmulley about how to really do all modes of social media well, but at least with Twitter you can dip your own toe in the murky waters and find out for yourself. DIY = not costing a fortune. And at least you'll know what they are talking about when you do start speaking to the experts about these things...


Happy Twittering!