Ireland
I'm starting this post on Friday, June 9, from the Dublin
Airport, signed in for an hour for 5 Euros, courtesy of Eircom, a telecom
certain to raise your ire. They've ensured that the most highly
educated and prosperous work force in Europe has the worst broadband
access. It's remarkable when a company intentionally withholds product
improvements from its best potential customers.
We've had a great time in Ireland and are headed home. We met
some
amazing people and had a chance to hang with Salim Ismail and Shel and
Paula Israel. On Wednesday night, there was a blogger dinner at Proby's
Bistro, organized by the redoubtable Damien Mulley.
Yesterday, we only had time for the American portion of the Web
2.0 Half Day Conference, the buzz machine that the Lads from
Cork, Tom
Raftery and Tim
O'Reilly promoted into the bigtime by a round of
communications with little outcome except to promote the conference.
Tom said that the moment he read the Cease & Desist letter from
the O'Reilly/CMP lawyers, he felt grateful to the Buzz Gods.
Everything I assumed about Ireland was wrong. This is the
richest, most entrepreneurial and debt-ridden country in the EU, a
testimony to the tough times behind them and a single-minded commitment
to education and low corporate taxes that they established in the 1970s.
Damien Mulley seems to be a force of nature. By email, he
introduced me
to Simon
McGarr, who in turn introduced me to several top-level
staffers at Ireland's Parliament, which is called the Dail (pr. "Doyle"). Kathy
The WonderBra Economy
Another force of nature is Pat Phelan, a telecom entrepreneur
in Cork who gave me a copy of The Pope's Children,
by David McWilliams. As the Amazon UK page implies in its
other-books-like-this-links, it's basically a Bobos
in Paradise
for the Emerald Isle. McWilliams' title is inspired by the improbable
coincidence that the greatest number of births in Irish history
occurred precisely nine months after the Pope's 1972 visit. McWilliams
calls the Irish economic miracle WonderBra Economics
because it has concentrated wealth into the middle class and pushed up
every demographic's circumstances, especially
the poor and lower middle class.
Pat's trying to open my eyes to the fact that this country is, relative
to Europe, like Silicon Valley was in the '90s: The place where the
money and the most interesting ideas and progress and prosperity is
happening.
It's a fascinating country, people and time in their history. I'll be
back sooner than later.
1:29:21 PM 
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