The topic of the morning was Cork Open Coffee itself, to see if any members would like to make any changes to how OCC has been working over the past 2 years or so.

There was some great feedback and I took plenty of notes while we all talked. Thank you everyone for all the feedback.

In general, it looks like people want things to stay much the same with just a little more notice about events, some time keeping when talks are going on and keep it tech-based.

Below are my notes in no particular order. I will be working on lining up speakers to demo products and services for the next several open coffees so please get in touch if you would like to give a talk, even if you have given a talk in the past.

If anyone would like to sponsor 1 or more Open Coffees, which pays for Coffee and nibbles for 20ish people, please get in touch by emailing corkopencoffee@gmail.com. The cost of sponsoring a meeting is only 60 Euro. €30 for a coffee urn and €30 for some little cakes.

Here are the notes, if anyone would like to add, please comment below or email us at corkopencoffee@gmail.com

• Fortnightly is good, don’t change to once a month for meetings.
• Needs a little more structure for talks, a moderator for talks being given to prevent topics going on and on
• Every now and then, when doing the initial round-table introduction, give an individual in the audience a few minutes to explain a little more about their business, similar to BNI but not formal.
• A person/business doing a presentation to show their product or service could pay for the coffee?
• 10 – 15 minute presentations, 10- 15 minutes for discussion
• Have Topics for meetings such as SEO, Sales. It doesn’t need a presentation to be made, just a topic for discussion with a person to start it off.
• Send out the email notifications 1 week in advance, Mondays and possibly a reminder again on Wednesday
• Have some more conventional talks such as Sales / Marketing with a tech slant
• Leave behind the Open Coffee’s that take place in coffee shops in the city.
• Try out other venues such as the National Software Centre / Web Works with a board room type environment like the Rubicon.
• Possibly take in donations to pay for coffee & nibbles
• Possibly a Linked-In group for discussions
• If people are looking for someone at a meeting, perhaps have a minute when introducing oneself to say what they are looking for eg: A developer for a project, A designer for a logo
• A page on the website to list profiles of regular members.
• Perhaps recurring talks about relevant topics such as Sales/ Investment/Funding
• Looking into funding to pay for Coffee & Nibbles?
• Try to make resources available to OCC such as access to libraries.
• Have events trough out the year, such as Summer BBQ/Christmas Party events to break up the year.
• Invite in Kieran Moynihan (The new Entrepreneur in Residence at the Rubicon) to talk about his new role in CIT/The Rubicon.

Tom came across this article which he wanted to share:

Myths and Facts about CFL Lighting

They will sponsor scones/buns and coffee for the morning. They will have someone from outside their company to act as a facilitator to focus the group and take the responses. Of course, if it’s not of interest to you, please treat it as a standard OCC meeting since the user forum is opt-in only.

Let us know what you think by voting your preference below and add any comments you like to this post