8.45am, Thursday morning at the Morrison Hotel, Dublin. The open-plan, darkened interior of the front bar is empty but for two shivering OpenCoffee enthusiasts, ringing the rain out of their hair. All is quiet. But in less than 30 minutes time there would be barely a spare seat in the room, about ten press photographers, the same number of newspaper journalists, a handful of of TV camera crew and a few celebrities to boot (Lenny Henry an Packie Bonner, to name but two (A-list, baby!)). Has OpenCoffee Club finally gone mainstream? How did this happen?
Well, due to what can only be described as poor planning and a lack of foresight on my behalf, yesterday’s OpenCoffee Club Dublin shared centre-stage with the launch and press-conference of the Bulmers International Comedy Festival. Conversations about the wonders of Twitter with Co-Working had to compete with singing clowns and Henry’s louder than life voice. But that came to pass and the meetup lasted right through to lunch, with some of the most insightful discussion I’ve heard in a long time. There were lots of newbies there and others that just couldn’t make it or didn’t know about it. But never fear; OpenCoffee Club Dublin is here to stay and the passion is there to keep it going for a long time.
The next meetup is Thursday, 5 July and I’m already looking forward to it. Preferably without the singing clowns.
7 Comments
Eoghan,
Thanks for making it happen, and apologies for arriving so late. Very interesting morning, great to meet you guys.
See y’all at the next one.
Alastair.
Excellent news Eoghan, congrats on making it happen.
Depend on the outcome of my eye laser surgery taking place 3rd and 4th, I may see you there. (or I might be there and not see you)
Thanks Eoghan, i enjoyed it.
Des: Best of luck with the surgery! I wouldn’t have the balls to get that done.
Alastair, Alan: Really good to have you both there.
Good day all round. Lenny’s speach on the advantages of web 2.0 was inspiring.
aye, great time there. sorry I had to go so early, presentation was scheduled for the morning as well…buh. But went well, so it’s OK.
hope to pop in to the next one.
I don’t know if anyone else spotted this, but I noticed a few other informal meetings taking place at the time. In particular my attention was drawn to the three older, more traditional looking business men, looking somewhat mystified by our loud conversations about twitter, social networks, scripting languages, facebook, GTD, microsoft vs open source etc.
I’m not sure why, but for some reason I found that amusing.
I should look into that.