Discussing Cork Open Coffee

This morning, Open Coffee took place in the Rubicon center from 10am til 12pm.

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.