A big wave to you all

January 8, 2010 · Posted in new technology · 1 Comment 

lovewaveYou may or may not have heard of Google Wave. You may or may not think it’s the next big thing. One thing is for sure – it’s no use if you have no-one to communicate with on your wave! So I have a limited number of invitations to Google Wave and would like you to have one! I have set up a Google Wave for IIA Members and would love to add you in there too if you are a member.

If you would like an invitation email me at members@iia.ie or email me your Wave address and I will add you to the IIA Wave.

Neville Hobson originally gave me an invite so props to him. He also recommended this great guide which I have been dipping into now and then. Brian Greene also recommended this guide and his company (IIA Member Company Doop Design) have also created a repository of Wave and other cloud resources over at Wavelinks.ie. Add it to your RSS reader and never miss a trick! 

If you have seen an innovative use of Wave please share in the comments below. I wrote an article about Google Wave for my monthly column in Beo! where I wondered how this proposed email killer was going to kill the technology that is the first port of call for most. I keep forgetting about Wave because unlike all the other social media I use there is no pull via email. I would also love a way of using it on my iPhone which is another way in which I get sucked into using new apps.

Similarly the fact that there is no easy way to currently share Waves (I know, I know it’s beta!) makes it difficult to draw others’ attention to their use. See above the convuluted (and email based!) manner in which I had to ask you to join me on the IIA Wave. A link would be so much more graceful.

Personally I really liked this example (see vid below) of how to use Wave. Very pertinent to many of us working on our online offerings!

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QR Codes lead to Prosperity

January 7, 2009 · Posted in accessibility, new technology · 4 Comments 

I mentioned QR Codes in a previous post and lo! as is often the way three virtual buses come along together and I found this post from Prosperity about the various uses being made of QR codes in entertainment and media in Japan in particular.

eventsqrTyping out loud here, I could see them working very well for making content from our events available to mobile phone users attending those events. For example the QR Code on the right should bring the user to the Events page on the IIA website. I have a QR reader installed in my phone (Nokia E51), having read about it back at the beginning of summer. I suspect it’s a poor reader but so far I have not convinced it to read any QR codes that I have since happened upon! I must find a better one me thinks. I’ll keep you posted on my success or otherwise. I’d love to hear about any innovative uses people have found for the codes.

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Dynamic conference feedback – without the gizmos

October 17, 2008 · Posted in events, Guest Blogger · 2 Comments 

A guest post from Chris Byrne in Sensorpro about a new way to serve feedback surveys at conferences.

For the Irish Internet Association (IIA) Word of Mouse conference, we needed a slick way to get attendee feedback.  As a survey vendor, it’s a simple task to deploy a survey with all the bells and whistles you would expect, like via email, popup, link, twitter post or embedded in a blog - but on this occasion we wanted something a little different. We wanted audience reaction in real-time without the expense and hassle of gizmos.  So how about Bluetooth then?  After all, many in the audience had a gizmo already – a Bluetooth enabled mobile phone (or cell phone, if you prefer!) Thanks to a snappy response from Shane at Mobanode we had our survey deployed on his Bluetooth box in minutes.  As soon as we hit the “fire” button, the survey was deployed to 23 phones with just 1 rejection – not a shabby response rate! Roseanne from IIA was live twittering – so she had the twitter world peeking over her shoulder. Not only did this method garner dynamic feedback from the immediate audience – but also picked up twitter eavesdroppers with the browser link. If you want to try  event feedback that is different, is relevant and a gizmo that actually works – then try this.

Edit 23.10.2008: Speaking of feedback, Aedan Ryan from Puddleducks.ie also attended the event in Limerick and wrote a review on his blog.

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