Back in 2013, with my brand SocialMedia.ie, I made a promotional video with the Digital Skills Academy. This was a great collaboration, and I met some fine people who are working in digital to this day.

Why partnering with emerging talent is a great move:

You get fresh ideas and energy

You can access a wide array of hardware and software

You get feedback and advice from the youth market

You get great work for great value

The talent gets strong, relevant experience

The college gets to work with good mentors

Ideally, it is a Win-Win-Win situation like this example.

The was filmed in the iconic Dublin bar and music venue Whelan's, whose team kindly allowed us full access to their venue for the shoot.

Great work guys!

Jesus Agudo Jennie Mc Ginn Sarah Mc Ginn Grace Mc Ginn Tania E Zorrilla Preciado MSc

PS - Grab a preview eBook for my book The Assets Ladder on www.TheAssetsLadder.com

My team at Connector hosted this amazing launch party for the Huawei Snapys Irish Instagram awards back in 2016.Lots of Irish creators and influencers were present to enjoy the craic in our studio in Temple Bar. Fantastic memories.I can see Sofia D. Lorna Duffy Timi Ogunyemi Kevin O'Sullivan Alvin Perry Giovana Marques Oliveira Gabriel Mueller Marcus Albeny 🇧🇷🇮🇪 Peadar Sheerin About 200 are in the video - are you? Hi guys 8-)

Some more from my archives, this time a video promoting my brand SocialMedia.ie way back in 2012.The finest of greetings to Cian Corbett, Fiona Pope, Domingo Sánchez Zarza, PhD, Anna Pospieszynska, Liane Costello, and all the others who helped out that day on Capel Street. Have a great weekend 8-)PS - I still own SocialMedia.ie so if you are active in social media and open to a collaboration, do get in touch.

Team building days are such a fantastic opportunity to engage with your team, but many fail to deliver a memorable experience. However, EY didn't disappoint. I'm proud to share another video from my archives, this time featuring one of the major events we hosted for the team at EY. This Irish event was part of the build-up to a massive 500-person EY team event in Zurich with the same 'Connector Innovation Game' we created for events like this one.Greetings and thanks again to the innovative team at EY in Ireland and Europe, including Bertrand Boisse, Eoin MacManus, Niall Corrigan, and Marcel van Loo.

What I learnt from these events:* Create a custom, engaging experience for the team* Have a serious business related theme, but a fun delivery * Have solo and group elements to appeal to all people * Use teamwork and collaboration to help people make new connections* We used Dragons’ Den style pitching to heighten the drama* Involve the management team and the agency team for familiar and new voicesIt's incredibly sad to see the inimitable Greg Fry (RIP) in the video, as he was MC on the day. PS - Get a free preview of my new book 'The Assets Ladder', out first as an eBook - www.TheAssetsLadder dot com

Imagine the scene. Instagram is a baby, but it has a growing number of superfans creating content and starting to meet up for photowalks and the likes. In 2013, as an experiment, my marketing agency 'Connector' ran a pop-up Instagram Gallery, aka Instagallery, event in Dublin, where we mixed a gallery evening with booze and a DJ. We had 200 Instafans as guests and 'a great time was had by all' as they say.

I thought to myself, this was amazing, how can we take this to the next level? How about giving awards for the best photos? Nice! How about calling it 'The Instagrammys'? Epic!

We got to work on preparing the idea and pitching to potential partners. As we said at the time, "The Instagrammys have great PR potential and will associate your brand with the best digital photographs in Ireland. We will have categories for all brands, and we will have interactive fun online and offline to make this the coolest new awards ceremony for 2015".Being nervous about the name getting us sued by Instagram and The Grammys, I approached Instagram about getting the OK for the name. As we had to make a significant investment in the project, including hosting two big events and building a voting platform, we couldn't afford to take the chance of a last-minute takedown. We eventually got through to the top brass at Instagram. Damn. We were declined with The Instagrammys, but they were fine with the alternative option, 'The Snapys'. Ok, let's go! Fast forward a few months, and we got Huawei on board as the headline sponsor for the Huawei Snapys Irish Instagram Awards. This was their first consumer marketing campaign in Ireland, and all their social media was now managed by the team at Connector. All this came after we beat off some agency heavyweights in a pitch process. Here is the first of many events we ran for Justin Costello's team - this event, which doubled up as the launch of the P8 smartphone, was held at the Royal Hibernian Academy in Dublin.We worked closely with Huawei for six years before the sale of Connector in February 2020. Thanks Justin Costello, and all the team at Huawei Ireland. Hi to all in the video including Lili Forberg, Allan Dixon and Nialler9.This reminds me how much I love a good launch party! More on this soon ...

As you can see from the videos from my dusty 2009 archives, I was super nervous. It was a pre-recorded show, but it was all recorded in one go with no retakes. Oh oh.Thinking it might be a good idea to get free publicity for my meetups, named after my personal brand side hustle 'Connector', I applied to be on the show in season one. I hoped it might be a good experience for some of the people who came to my events to join me for the recording ... hi guys!My major problem was that I had a job at the time, and it was at a marketing agency. Marketing agency work was a likely revenue stream for Connector, but I decided not to pitch a marketing-type business to the dragons. I felt it would look bad if I were pitching to compete with my current employers, so I left them out and suggested some other revenue models that were not as strong.I really wanted to get some publicity for the brand, have some fun, but totally knew it was not investible based on my neutered pitch. Bobby Kerr, to his credit, spotted that it was a publicity stunt and dropped out. Sean Gallagher was the last to fold, and the other dragons at the time were Gavin Duffy, Niall O'Farrell, and Sarah Newman.I was questioned for what seemed like 30 minutes, but bizarrely, they never asked me where I worked, so I didn't mention it. Six months later, I quit my job and went full-time with my side hustle, having won some early social media work with HP and Canon.Later, I grew the business Connector into an award-winning marketing agency with clients like Huawei, Sony, Volkswagen, and EY. Expecting a cyclical market downturn, I sold the business in February 2020, weeks before my part of the world shut down for two years. Good timing boss.What I learned from the experience:* Put yourself out of your comfort zone e.g. pitching on TV* There is no such thing as bad publicity* There is such a thing as a bad pitch* Share cool experiences with others if possible* Make before-and-after content to showcase the experience* Take every opportunity to grow your network * Don't take rejection personallySo every day is a school day, and now I help others with their personal brands, career planning, and career asset building. You can read some of my recent work on how to multiply your potential from my book on www.theassetsladder .com

During the summer slowdown, when many are off in the sun and I’m just back, I'm sharing some of my archives for those who want to time travel back a decade.My personal brand side hustle business 'Connector' grew from being a name for my meetups to becoming a digital agency, and later operated as an 'Open Innovation Studio'.

We were based in the heart of Dublin's cultural quarter, namely Temple Bar, from 2015 - 2020. We moved into what was the Sebastian Guinness Art Gallery - ironically, we ended up running Instagram gallery evenings with drinks and DJs in the studio.

At the time, we were at the heart of Dublin's digital community, and there are many happy memories being an event space for friends and clients.

The lessons I take away from this time are:

* Invest in your brand so it looks attractive in the real and digital worlds* Create a brand home where your brand comes to life* Make the studio very ‘Instagrammable’ for the team and visitors* Make your office / studio a welcoming space for your community* Offer free engaging events and use them to highlight local talent* Attract attention with a visible high street location* Bring your brand to life with high-impact installations (e.g. our studio lights)Here are some of our work and events from this time when the Connector brand came to life in Temple Bar.What cool spaces have you seen?

Enjoy 8-)

Preview my new book The Assets Ladder on www.theassetsladder .com

#dublin #templebar #ireland #socialmedia #innovation #studio

Nostalgia ain't what it used to be ...This is super cringey, but bear in mind it was done in 2009. The number of times the word 'connect' is mentioned has me bright red in embarrassment.In my opinion, 2008 - 2009 was the golden age for meetups and excitement about the future. This was just before the economy hit the floor, and the rest is history.There seemed to be events for everyone, and as a 'Connector,' I loved to join as many meetups as I could and then bring everyone together at my 'Tribes' event.I remember other meetup hosts like John Dunne Digital Tonic), Ty Richardson, PhD and Claire Kehoe Cunningham (EYP), Jason Roe (Blogger, Twitter, Whatever), and the guys from Synth Eastwood, The Attic etc.A special shoutout to the unicorn jockey CEO of Intercom namely Eoghan McCabe who is shown briefly giving a rousing talk on the merits of entrepreneurship. What a journey he has been on since! Thanks again to Alvin Perry for the amazing work on the Connector branding, and apologies for how I went rogue with these animations! ;-)Watch out soon for the book launch for The Assets Ladder and some other cool new events. Preview the book on www.TheAssetsLadder.com

Yours,Conor

During my five years at the Connector Innovation Studio in Temple Bar, we hosted numerous exciting events, and this was one of the most interesting - testing the Connector Innovation Game. We ultimately sold this game to a global events company. I'm still big into creating assets, and sometimes selling them. As recently as last evening, I was with another small group of mates, including Ronan Higgins (in the video too), playing around with new AI tools for 'vibe coding' e.g. Lovable and N8N. More about some new events soon.PS - Get a free sample of my draft new book at TheAssetsLadder.com

A long time ago, in 2009, one of my first big clients at Connector was Canon. By running regular meetups with my community of makers, movers, and shakers, I was picked as the competition partner. At the time, I was also regularly sharing content on my blog Connector.ie Shout out to the visionary team, which was led by Philip Brady and Jonothan Sultan from Canon Ireland, and Piaras Kelly representing Edelman. Liam Cunningham, as a Canon ambassador, helped greatly with the national PR campaign.Congratulations again to the winners Martin Moylan, Daniel Dalton and Ronan Casey.

Have a look at the video case study here, with more videos from my archives coming soon. Voice over by broadcaster Gary Brennan.Enjoy! PS - Get a free preview of my new book 'The Assets Ladder', out first as an eBook - www.TheAssetsLadder.com