My parting gift to my colleagues

Today is my last working day as Membership, Marketing and Communications Manager with the Irish Internet Association. I’m going to work with one of our member companies Prosperity and looking forward to the change.

I will of course miss my colleagues Joan and Vicki much as I miss my daily interactions with Fergal, Irene and Darren who worked with me also during my time here.

But I think I will miss working with members a lot too. I know sometimes it may have seemed to you that I needed a lot of “reminding” to help you but there was also times when my thrice named role was a job for three people! However over the last three and a bit years I got into the habit of referring to myself as simply IIA Membership Manager. Another individual taking on this role that was newly created in 2008 might have found themselves focussing on the marketing or the communications but for me it was always about the members.

So a bit of advice for all members based on how I have seen some of our members really make the most of their IIA Membership:

1. Get involved: share content, write a guest blog post, volunteer in our working groups.
2. Come to events: the discount for members on two to three paid events will easily cover the cost of your membership.
3. Share your views here on the blog, in our LinkedIn DISCUSSION (ahem!) group, on our Facebook page and even now in our Digital Digest.
4. Network online: see point 3 above.
5. Network offline: come to Meetball or better still present at it (especially those of you who want to tender to be an IIA Training Partner: gives us a chance to get an idea of your unique presentation skills)
6. Email us or pick up the phone and ask us to help. Honestly two heads are better than one, especiallywhen  one of them who isn’t stuck right in your problem. Consider us a sounding board for your online business.

The more the IIA knows about what you are up to the better we can connect, promote and inform!

So it’s goodbye from me but you can of course find me in numerous places online

The Irish Web Awards return again this year and have moved to the lovely surroundings of the Mansion House on Dawson Street, Dublin 2. The hundreds of nominations have been whittled down to the shortlists which were announced this week.

A big congratulations to the IIA Members who made it this far. I’ll be there on the night rooting for you all! Maybe I should get a vuvuzela…

In a shameless bit of backslappery, two of us here in IIA HQ are up for awards for our own projects. My very own, The Rosie View, a podcast about what’s on the telly box with Rosemary MacCabe, is shortlisted in the Best Independent Podcaster category. Darren Byrne’s site Culch.ie, a pop culture blog run with a number of Ireland’s best bloggers, is shortlisted in the Best Web Only Publication and Best Entertainment Website categories.

Our boss Joan is inordinately proud of us and made me write this blog post.  I swear.

We look forward to seeing you at this year’s awards. Tickets are on sale now and check out www.webawards.ie for more information.

What more can I say? I have returned from my leave and I’m looking forward to getting stuck in. Please feel free to contact me at members at iia dot ie if you would like to discuss your membership with me or just for a hello! I should also mention that until November I am working until 1.15pm daily.

My colleagues welcomed me back with the news that we have an exciting event coming up on October 7th: 8 Ways to sell more stuff. The final details are being ironed out but we expect to present a mixture of expert advice on key internet technologies for the retailer and case studies from Ireland and abroad on how to do it well and the pitfalls to avoid when retailing online.

Whether your company are seasoned retailers or thinking about taking the leap online, there will be presentations to interest you. Tickets are already selling but follow us on Twitter, like us on Facebook or subscribe to the Digital Digest newsletter for further information over the next fortnight.

Hello to all the IIA members and those who follow the blog. I just wanted to introduce myself. I’m Darren Byrne and I am the newest member of the IIA team. I’ll be helping out  for a few months, while Roseanne is on maternity leave. You’ll most likely see me blogging, tweeting, Facebookering (hmmm!!!) for the IIA when I’m not pushing papers.

You may know me from such interwebby places as Twitter, Culch.ie and my own humble blog at DarrenByrne.com. If you have any queries, thoughts or ideas regarding the IIA, please feel free to get in touch darren {at} iia {dot} ie

Wish me luck!!!

Today is my last day before I take six months leave. I will return to my duties in early September.

Members, in the meantime please, please don’t hesitate to contact members at iia dot ie with your guest blog posts. Check out the guidelines here.Members are also welcome to post all types of content to the main IIA.ie site as well. Read more here.

You can also contact the chairs of the IIA Working Groups who will be seeking blog posts, case studies and speakers in 2010.

Please bear with the IIA over the next couple of weeks as they adjust to my departure…