Innovation, inspiration & ideation workshops with Cork Open Coffee
“Your Country, Your Call” is pleased to announce a series of innovation, inspiration & ideation workshops designed to inspire creative thinking and help people bring their ideas to life.
The workshops, which are open to the public are free of charge and one will take place in Cork as follows:
Cork: 9th April 11.00 am, National Software Centre Campus, Mahon.
The workshop will last for about two hours and promises to be a lot of fun as well as being informative and helpful.
If you would like to attend, please leave a comment below this post so we can get an idea of numbers of people to seat and give tea and coffee to!
The workshops are being run in conjunction with Jump!, Cork Open Coffee and The Irish Times.
Who should attend?
- People interested in innovation or ideation
- People considering entering an idea into Your Country, Your Call
- Business owners
- People thinking of starting a business
An event is also taking place in Dublin, if that suits you better:
Dublin: 15th April, 6.00pm, Irish Times Headquarters, Tara Street, Dublin 2.
A huge Thank you to the National Software centre (directions) who will be hosting the talk on the 9th, see you all there. It promises to be a great event with plenty of people and fun too!
Cork Open Coffee Friday 19th
Hi Occers,
This weeks Cork Open Coffee is taking place this Friday the 19th at 10am in The Bodega, Cornmarket street in Cork. No demos this week, just coffee and networking. The Bodega opens at 10am, they have free wifi and a map on their website for how to get there.
In keeping with the ‘Open’ in Cork Open Coffee, we will be publishing the email campaign stats on the Cork Open Coffee Blog. You can see the stats from the last email on the blog now. No ones email address will be displayed on the blog, just some overview information and hopefully some useful data that might be of interest to members sending their own email marketing campaigns.
If you think you’ll be attending, please let us know in the blog comments.
Talk to you all on Friday,
Don’t forget to follow @corkopencoffee on Twitter!
‘Discovery Zone’ for new business ideas
This is an excellent opportunity for brand new business ideas. A new programme called ‘Discovery Zone’ has been set up in the Rubicon Centre, the host of many Cork Open Coffees.
If you are among the many that aspire to starting your own business but don’t know where to start, then the Discovery Zone could be just the launching pad you need. The programme has been specifically developed to assist experienced professionals, who for a variety of reasons find themselves at a crossroads in their career.
You may be a middle to senior manager who has a wealth of experience running a business for someone else, but would now like the chance to run your own business! You may not possess a business idea, but have the experience and motivation to successfully establish and run a new business, with some training and guidance. The programme will encourage new idea generation and will also explore commercial opportunities, through partnership with other entrepreneurs or academic institutions.
Run as a full-time twelve week programme in the Rubicon Centre, located on campus within CIT, the Discovery Zone will harness the ability of participants as they immerse themselves in the programme. A number of key topics will be discussed, including idea generation, viability testing and the various routes to commercialisation. Practical guidance will be on hand from individuals on how they successfully changed from manager to entrepreneur.
Not only will they examine in depth the potential of their own idea, but upon completion, participants will also acquire an understanding of what will be required should they wish to convert their idea into a viable business. Alternatively, if their preference is partnership, they will be equipped with the knowledge of how to develop successful partnership arrangements.
The Programme will commence in March 2010 and places will be offered to 10 suitable participants, selection by means of an interview. The participants will be based in the Rubicon Centre, for the duration of the programme. Each participant will be expected to attend the Centre 5 days per week where they will receive guidance both individually and in groups to assist in the progression of their ideas.
A dedicated Programme Manager will act as a resource for the participants. Additionally they will have access to the expertise of Rubicon staff, CIT Researchers and the CIT Technology Transfer Office. As the Discovery Zone is part funded by Enterprise Ireland, each project will be allocated the services of an Enterprise Ireland Mentor who will provide specific guidance to all projects.
To apply for a place on the programme, please log onto the Rubicon Centre website. Closing date for receipt of application is 5pm on Friday 19th March 2010.
Further details on the Programme can be obtained by contacting Paul Healy, Rubicon Centre Manager – 021 4928901 or email paul.healy@cit.ie.
Cork Open Coffee Friday the 5th
Hi Occers,
This weeks Cork Open Coffee is taking place this Friday the 5th at 10am in The Rubicon Centre in Bishopstown in Cork.
Phoebe Bright from Jumpstart Cork will be giving a quick talk and hoping for some feedback on the concept of profit-share as a payment method for work for businesses. There is time for a second talk if there is anoyne that would like to present something new to memebers for some feedback.
Cork Open Coffee is also looking for any businesses that might like to Sponsor some future Open Coffee events, this means for a small amount we’d be able to get in some Coffee and nibbles from local businesses. Paul Brugger from CityLocal Cork was good enough to sponser Open Coffee for a few weeks before Christmas.
In keeping with the ‘Open’ in Cork Open Coffee, we are publishing the email campaign stats on the Cork Open Coffee Blog. You can see the stats from the last few emails on the blog now. No ones email address will be displayed on the blog, just some overview information and hopefully some useful data that might be of interest to members sending their own email marketing campaigns.
If you think you’ll be attending, please let us know in the blog comments.
Talk to you all on Friday,
Conor, Ciara & Gordon
Cork Open Coffee Organisers.
http://www.corkopencoffee.org
Email marketing Stats for the Cork Open Coffee “After Dark” email
I sent this email to Cork Open Coffee members last Wednesday at 7.50pm. This was an evening campaign so I was curious to see any differences in open rates and click rates compared to the last couple of campaigns sent earlier in the day.
- Email sent to 167 email recipients. (+7 from last email)
- Subject length: 5 Words (29 characters, -8 characters from last email)
- Open Rate: 26.9% (down 5.6% from the last email)
- Bounce Rate: 1.2% (Down 0.1% from last email)
- Click Rate: 3.6% (down 10.3% from last email)
- Unsubscribe: 0
- New Subscriptions: 0
The open rate is down a little this time. This is to be expected I imagine because at 8pm in the evening most people are at home and away from their computer.
The click rate is down quite a bit too, over 10%. This email had only 4 calls to action, 2 in the content and 2 footer links. The last email had 8 links with a resulting click rate of 13.9%. This email just didn’t have a lot for people to do.
Interestingly, it was one of the links towards the end of the email, the link to the Cork Open Coffee blog that got all the clicks, instead of the map link like I’d expect since that was up top.
The opens and clicks all peaked 1 hour after the email was sent and dropping off after that, someone opened the email at 3am! There were a couple of opens and clicks again the following morning after 9am with some small activity right through the working hours of Thursday.
Looking back over the past couple of campaigns, nearly all the open and click activity happens within the first hour after the campaign is sent.
