For the next couple of days I'll be in Dublin for the TRAFFIC conference.
It's the first time that there's been a serious domain industry event in Ireland, so it's nice to see so many familiar faces on my "home turf".
The lineup for the event is good, but I'm really looking forward to seeing how the auction tomorrow afternoon goes. There are some really good names on the list...
I'm heading off to Brussels tomorrow morning on the early morning flight. Eurid's registrar board, which I am a member of, is meeting on Monday, so I'll have Sunday to spend exploring the city.
The last time I was in Brussels was over 10 years ago when I was doing a job for the university.
I'm looking forward to the trip, as I should be able to get to see the latest Luc Besson film, as well as being able to enjoy some good Belgian cuisine.
Although I'll be back on Tuesday it looks like I'll be spending the rest of the week at events and meetings, as I'm scheduled to speak at the IPv6 summit on Wednesday and I'm also shortlisted for an award at the IIA Net Visionary Awards on Thursday evening.
Best Online Trader - Printing.ie get my vote, as they have amazing customer service and good pricing.
Financial Services - insure.ie - they saved me quite a bit on insurance this year and have always been very helpful, unlike some of the others I was dealing with
Innovation - I'd go with LouderVoice (Conor O'Neill) - I know he's been working damn hard at it and deserves some recognition.
Entrepreneur - the obvious choice for me there is Ronan O'Brien - he's behind several online ventures, the one you might know of is The Costume Shop, but there's a few others as well..
Journalist - there are two here that I'd give a vote to John Collins and Adrian Weckler. I think John won this award a few years ago, so maybe give a vote to Adrian this time? I'm still not 100% sure which way to vote!
I'll be participating in a panel discussion during the Nominet registrar conference next month.
The panel will be talking / debating / discussing / arguing about the "future", though more specifically "The Future of the Internet". I'm not sure who else will be on the panel, as the speaker list is still a "work in progress", but it should be interesting regardless. I also feel quite honoured that they asked me to participate.
Since I'm hopeless when it comes to navigating London's geography I had to ask Nominet's staff to point me in the direction of a suitable hotel. If you're planning on heading to the conference the Danubius is pretty close. Booking.com's rate also seems to be pretty good compared to other sources.
I'm currently planning on spending a couple of nights in London and hope to meet up with a few people while there ie. maximise the trip's value. Of course planning to meet a bunch of people and actually getting to meet them all may not be the same thing ...
I hate paying to attend events. More often than not the organisers use the event as a "money spinner" and attendees get very little value from it.
So it's nice to see that another event is taking place next month which is going to be free to attend and promises to be interesting.
IRISS-CERT's Annual Conference is being held on November 19th in the D4 Berkley Court hotel. While details on the day's sessions are a bit scant at present I'm sure they will be interesting. What's also interesting is that they are also organising "Hack Eire" on the same day:
"HackEire, will be held to identify Ireland's top cyber security experts. HackEire will see 10 teams, up to a maximum of four people per team, compete against each other in a controlled environment to see which team will be the first to exploit weaknesses in a number of systems and declare victory. The purpose the HackEire competition is to demonstrate how attackers could gain access to your systems and allow you to learn from the event on how to prevent such attacks from impacting your network."
More information will presumably be available on the IRISS site
I'm heading up to Dublin for the Irish Web Awards.
I didn't attend last year, but everyone who did had a good time. So I'll get to find out for myself later this evening!
The shortlist for this year's event is impressive, so anyone who made it that far should be proud - they're in excellent company. It's also the first time that it won't be competing for attention with the IIA Net Visionaries, as they were held much earlier in the year.
The conference schedule looks pretty interesting, but like most of these events I go for the "networking" opportunities more than anything else.
Hopefully it will be a productive trip and judging by what I've heard the location is simply gorgeous.
I've never been to Slovenia, so I'm looking forward to it. Hopefully my copy of the Rough Guide will be enough preparation.
As for actual preparation - chaos reigns as usual. I'm definitely getting better at booking flights and hotels in advance, but I somehow doubt I'll ever be organised enough to pack in advance. It's always very much a last minute effort to cram clothes etc., into my bag!
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