Ten Steps to Meeting Success

I should know, when I worked in the University of Ulster I once spent over forty hours in  a single month in meetings. In some organisations, this is what passes for productivity. If you have to attend meetings, then you need to make them productive.

Golden Rule 1 – if it doesn’t need a meeting then why have a meeting?

Staff can spend hours in meetings. This is often unproductive time especially if the meeting is not well chaired. Here are ten steps to meeting success.

Before the Meeting

• Identify the overall objective of the meeting.

• Determine the most appropriate attendees. Make sure there are enough people to meet the meeting’s objectives. Also, make sure you have the right people in the room – no point realising you should have asked someone half ways through the meeting.

• Sound out critical attendees in advance to get their buy-in. Ono-to-one discussions before a meeting may help you rethink your position or help build understanding and support for your ideas.

• Produce and distribute a written agenda in advance. Limit the agenda to issues affecting the group. Include meeting logistics – time, venue, attendees, call-in or video conf information, discussion topics and discussion leader if possible.

During the Meeting

• Start on time and review agenda. Outline how long you think meeting will last and plan accordingly. Try to stick to your time estimate.

• Proceed to discuss each issue. Retain focus and progress logically:
• Stating the issue
• Discussing the data/information – getting opinions round the table
• Reaching a conclusion
• Planning a course of action with nominated responsibilities

7         Avoid the following non-productive behaviours:

• Letting one or two monopolize discussion
• Rehashing old ground after you reach agreement
• Jumping from topic to topic without agreeing anything
• Leaving the next steps unclear

8         Conclude by briefly restating what has been agreed, outline next steps and accountabilities.

After the Meeting

 9         Finalize and distribute the notes/minutes to all attendees and copy any interested parties. List key actions and who is responsible and by when.

10         Follow up on action items from the meeting.

Then….

Go and sit in a darkened room.

Spokesperson Guidelines for Communicating with the Media during a Crisis

• Be aware of the constant movement of news via social media. Twitter can fill the timelines with inaccurate information quickly.
• Have your social media team briefed on the situation, on hand and able to monitor and respond.
• Fill the void yourself. If there is a likely gap between communicating the actual situation and the first enquiries – give the media some background on your organisation. Are you aware of the us and what we do and can we give you some background. Etc etc
• Demonstrate organizational concern about people. “Our primary concern at present is the health of our students…”
• Explain what is being done to remedy the situation.
• Keep the message consistent with all constituencies. Never tell one constituency anything that is not being told to the media.
• Be open, honest, and tell the full story. If you do not, someone else will, thus increasing the possibility that the crisis team loses control of the situation.
• Never respond with “no comment,” instead explain why you cannot answer the question. (i.e., we do not have those details confirmed at this time, we will provide you with an update when we do have an answer to that question.)
• Do not guess or speculate. If you do not know the answer, say so and offer to track down the answer.
• Respect reporter deadlines. If you promise to get information, do so promptly.
• Don’t get drawn into blaming other organizations or being seen to shift the responsibility.
• Never speak off the record. The media can use any information released.
• Never give exclusive interviews during a crisis. All members of the media should have the chance for gathering information.
• If an injury or death has occurred, do not release the name(s) of the injured/deceased until all next of kin (immediate family) have been notified.
• Do not provide damage estimate, discuss responsibility for the incident, or discuss legal liability in any way.
• Be available 24 hours a day.
• Do not discuss illegal activity at any time. If it is assumed, say “Police are investigating. We are cooperating.” Refer all questions to the appropriate law enforcement agency.
• In cases when media request interviews with family members, provide a liaison to family members for the media so that the family can protect their privacy if they choose.
• Avoid “side comments” meant to be humorous. Do NOT accept hypothetical questions. Do NOT repeat negatives in a question. Taken out of context, these remarks can be very damaging.
• Use everyday language, not jargon, when talking to reporters.
• Provide written materials that give reporters background information.

The sun shone having no alternative on the nothing new said Sam. A great start. New Year & same old same old. Or is it? Opportunities to renew, rethink, reject & restart.

Observe the things I hoped to do this time last year. Some achieved, some started. Some not started, some strangled at birth; many failed & a few notable successes. Likewise for 2016 there are things I will do, things I won’t, things I’d like to do but won’t follow through. Successes. Failures. Always failures. Learn the most from those nut crushers.

I’m certainly not making any grandiose claims here. Hoist with your own petard is a very public humiliation. No, any resolutions will be made in the privacy of my own home, my own diary pages, my own mind.

The brilliant Nobel Prize winning mathematician John Nash said in an interview: “I began to tire of certain types of irrational thinking.” It’s an interesting concept, especially in the case of Nash. His struggle with schizophrenia almost certainly contributed to his brilliance as a mathematician.

He acknowledged the potential link between an unconventional mind & creative thought. Proving the age-old adage that madness & genius are closely related.

“Times I didn’t follow the norm, thought differently. But I can see there’s a connection between not following normal thinking & doing creative thinking. I wouldn’t have had good scientific ideas if I had thought more normally. One could be very successful in life & be very normal…”

In his autobiography Nash claimed he was able to ‘will’ himself out of his disorder. Is this possible? Is it possible to harness the power of our own mind to eliminate all sorts of negative thoughts, self doubt, irritations etc? If so, how can you train your dragon?

Nash said:

“I began to intellectually reject some of the delusionally influenced lines of thinking which had been characteristic of my orientation. This began, most recognizably, with the rejection of politically-oriented thinking as essentially a hopeless waste of intellectual effort. So at the present time I seem to be thinking rationally again in the style that is characteristic of scientists.”

Looking at all aspects of what we do, coaching, teaching, watching our children learn, it is the conventional that is the norm & the unconventional is increasingly frowned upon. That stifles creativity & non conformity.

Let 2016 embrace more non comformity & see where that takes us.

As 2015 fades into 2016 with all that a new year brings, the embers of the last 12 months sizzle a glow a last few times.

2015 was a year in which the plan was to do less. The catalayst was our planned family expedition to Peru which fell fair and square in the middle of the season and I initially thought accommodating the holiday and coaching commitments would be impossible.

Thankfully that proved not to be the case. It meant I missed some milestones but it was not something I would have missed.I was sorry to be absent for the Ulster final with the Antrim Minors – a group to which we devoted good time. It was a learning experience being there for the All Ireland quarter final though, and there are lessons on all these big days if you are open to them.

One of the imperatives of coaching is that you have to reinvent yourself if not the wheel every year, particularly if returning to the same group. I have had to be chameleon, chrysalis as well as coach in working with the main project in the Eoghan Rua Camogie team.

Facing into the pre season last winter the legacy of Gráinne McGoldrick’s injury hung over plans like a dark cloud. To see our taliswoman injured and facing an uncertain future struck to the core of the group. How the players would respond individually and collectively was the cornerstone of our plans. The longer term outcome was in much greater doubt and all year I was asked questions about it.

Over Christmas I had obtained a copy of Raymond Verheijen’s book on periodisation which shaped the way in which I approached the season and indeed in many ways it changed the way in which I approached all the teams I was involved with subsequently. If you put the player at the centre of what you are doing, you are forced to adopt a different approach and see a different way. That became apparent.

To sketch out what I was at, I was working with our u14 club hurlers, coaching them every Friday on the 3G with Jonny and Costas, two good men who contributed immensely to the whole set up and I felt were better communicating with the young lads than myself. Especially come Féile we were collectively buzzing and on Finals day Johnny took a lead which was fantastic.

I also agreed to help prepare the University hurlers for their championship. Having been one point short of an All Ireland a couple of years earlier albeit with a superior team and super bunch of lads the Holy Grail is still there to be sought. The campaign was short but interesting.

A derby match against Magee was unnecessarily sulphurous. Having won that the lads fell short against IT Blanchardstown their nemesis a couple of years earlier in the final. The irony of all of this is that had Coleraine and Magee stuck together they could possibly have won a couple of titles, but with the backing of Croke Park the division of the original team has helped neither campus develop their hurling capacity. In my experience hurling in Ulster needs to grab itself by the balls and develop itself. The University journey is a means to keep the coaching eye and arm in and look at small margins of development.

Also over the winter I had completed my Level 2 classroom based study and during the course of the season I had the Logbook and practicals to get sorted. As the song goes, it straightened out my thinking. It also introduced me to a number of other hurling coaches with whom I was able to share sporadic contact over the rest of the year. Indeed it was a devastating to hear of the death later in the season of Shane Mulholland, one of the guys with whom we share the course. Shane was a hurler with Fermanagh, I knew him only briefly on the Level 2 but what a sound lad he was. Hurling mad, good craic and a decent fella. He’ll be missed.

As winter moves towards Spring it is time for the Camogie player to emerge from their cocoon and start thinking about training. Armed with my new approach, I devised an entirely new pre season programme which I applied to the letter. The sessions incorporated the ball into everything from day one. We also had the task of integrating a number of younger players into an established panel.

It was a promising start, I had high hopes as to where it might end but little did I realise I would get there, albeit with an entirely different group. That is a tale for another day for sure.

Client Piece – Selling Blog

It’s Halloween. Oiche Shamhna back home. A time of dirty dark deeds done dirt cheap. TwoTon Murphy has a tale that will chill your soul, fill you with dread and sour your stout. The Dagda. Like the badass penny he is, turning up when you least expect him. Scaring the shit out of Banshees, goblins and the Devil himself.

If you need an arse kicked, ball pucked, maul rolled, or problem solved. Dagda’s your man. Some man for one man the Dagda. You never know where he might turn up, just when you need him.

When the mood seized him and the music moved him he’d hammer out a deadly beat on the cheeks of his own Arse. BallyFuckinShannon Coothill, BallyBastardinPoreen – places he trucked into, fucked about and left. Destruction, craic, women swooning, men shaking. You name it.

Five string banjo slung across his back, sittin’ low on his bike, huge club in hand. This man wreaks havoc and devastation wherever he goes. Lover fighter, hurler, scrumhalf, flanker and hooker all in one man. He can shift. By God he can. Honey words. Tinder? More like Firestarter.

Himself and herself. A yoke from Ballyhea direction that was fond of puckin in a few balls herself got it on, on the width of the bike seat. Feel the power between your thighs, he roared as they bucked and wheelied, before falling off backwards as the accelerator got her out of hand. That’s why I wear the leathers and the TwoTonMurphy, he chuckled roarin’ off up the road.

Major craic dealer, every pub, club, bar and restaurant he turns into a cauldron of mayhem. A funnel for sinking stout hidden in the environs of a voluminous leather jacket. In a few seconds he’d whip it out and lower a pile of pints in record quick time. A French hottie tried it standing on a seat on the bar. Downed a pint in six seconds she did, broke hearts when she sang the Marseillaise by popular demand. Five score men fell in love with her petite petiteness and the women – the better halves – they called her a Wee Bitch. Sex on stout. Dagda? Who’s next he’d roar, and a lad in a wheelchair drove thru the crowd. By jaysus he wanted some of that. He was last seen with the French Petite on his pillion heading for the N17 and a tank of Gas.

The place was rockin, he’d fire off a flurry of tunes on the banjo a – sliver gleamin black dream machine that offered deliverance to all who heard it. Next he’d roar c’mon te fuk, before ripping a bodhran from a bearded ceolteori in the corner to drum out a few hornpipes before tossing it back. That’s how you rattle that goatskin, he roared.

Sometimes he slept on the bike, others in the warm embrace of whoever took him home for a mattress-buster of a session. Last Saturday he booked into a hostel near Eyre square after a charge of John Jameson’s liquid gold. The snores of him could be heard in Howth and Hackballscross. What a fuckin hallion, complained an enforced inflicted roommate. That’s a fuckin gobshite.

Three Germans packed their stuff and left, one in terror as the top bunk sagged dangerously close to his face after a spring broke and shattered into shite, The Dagda Arse a huge and imposing edifice of evil dangling too close for comfort. Now that’s Halloween.

He hurled with a hurl with a huge bas and I mean fuckin huge. The grain was worn black with all the sliotars pucced in anger over the years. Over the bar and still rising like injected with Viagra, but he needed none of that bat shit to get them up. Hit the ball to me he roars I’m marking a midget, before crashing another point over the ball stop.

In the rugby he was like O’Connell, Gaillimh and Claw rolled into one big muscle of badassery. Ripping ball out of rucks, body parts flying the ball gripped in one hand and some man’s head in the other, tossed to one side as he strode for the line. If we’d had him last week. . . but sure.

Halloween’s coming, and it’s near that time. From Derry, to Dingle and Cross to Cork you’ll hear the roar when the craic begins. The Dagda Rides. There’s one in all of us.

I don’t know whether it’s the passing of Brian Friel a week ago, or the fact its National Poetry Day. I met a former colleague in Waterstones and we exchanged some warm friendly words, a guy whose valuable contribution to the University ended when his research funding was withdrawn ten years or more ago.

He remarked when I asked him that he was doing nothing like what he used to do. When I told him what I was up to he said he would rather split a seagull feather and write with it than try to understand the vagaries of social media. In many respects I agree. By way of mitigation I told him I still use a fountain pen.

So in etching out my notes and thoughts onto a Moleskine notebook, tapping work into the notes on my iPhone and even dictating some important point to myself I manage to develop a tapestry that constitutes work. Ideas, thoughts, notes. Writing almost full formed before it is committed onto the page or more correctly typed into the computer.

The latest period of introspection has me wondering what have I done with this life I was given. And the gradual realisation that whilst what I have done I have had some successes, what I do isn’t necessarily what I enjoy doing, what I enjoy doing I don’t get paid for, and really what I should be doing is something different entirely.

As a student I floated through my degree in English, drifted onwards to Scotland achieving a Masters in Publishing that has defined my working life since.

Small things make a difference. In my experience reading poetry keeps me sane, though by judgement of others I have proved without doubt I can’t write it very well. “It is hard thing to write a poem.” Perhaps. Is that sentence missing the word ‘good’?

8 May 2014

Session on forward play: delivery, movement, shooting. Varying defensive intensity.

1            Stretch

2            Rondos – 3 Sized circles                                    [1.30 per set x 2]

3v5/ 2v6 keep the ball off men in middle. 3 groups working three different sized circles. Rotate groups after 1min30s 

3            Attack defend drill: 1 v 1                                     [2 mins on x 4]

/            ß                        /

/            à                         /

Line of players at each gate, 1 v 1 in middle, as soon as you shoot you defend the next player running.

Note fatigue level, run drill in 2 min sets & reset if it falls apart. Quality the priority.

4            Delivery & Score [12 mins 2 mins on]

1 – Players operate simple relay delivering ball out to player in Deliver Zone

2 – Player in Deliver zone delivers ball to player in shoot zone who is moving laterally to receive ball

3 – On receiving ball, player in shoot zone shoots & immed. Resets to receive next ball.

Attacking drill. Start unopposed working on movement & scoring. Quickly move to insert defenders in key zones to press the delivery & the shooter.

Direct score                                    Set up Score

Diagonal Ball.

Into space

/                             \   Runner                         \ Delivery in pairs

/\/         X                 \                                       \

/ ————————-                                                                                            Feeders

\                   X                        \                                          \

\                                  \ Runner                     \ Delivery in pairs

5            3 v 6 in Defence/Attack                                    [3x5mins]

Overload attacking & defending. Alternative the overload.

Condition 1m30s on.

Quickfire delivery. Any defence intervention, hook, block, snig, nick counts. Defenders to learn to mark space/zonal and pick up where required.

6             Pitch Drill Match

Bring above together in ¾ length pitch drill. Condition to favour defenders/forwards as required.

Piece for the Gaelic Player’s Association on Ronan Rocks

This Saturday at Parnell Park, former Derry player Ronan Rocks will line out in the second Professor Hollywood Memorial Cup. The purpose of the match is to raise funds for the cancer units in St. Luke’s and St. James’s hospitals. The football match will be played by players like Ronan who have battled back after a cancer diagnosis. Eleven years ago Rocks’ world was turned upside down. Family and Football kept him focused as he explained to Joe Passmore.

All Ireland Semi Final 2004

February 2004. Ronan Rocks had the world at his feet. Back playing for Derry, His club An Lub had won the Derry championship for only the second time in their history and had surprised everyone by winning an Ulster Senior Championship under up and coming coach Malachy O’Rourke.

Featuring Derry players Paul McFlynn, Johnny McBride and Rocks the south Derry outfit combined a tough uncompromising approach with a tactical cuteness. Rocks was one of the go-to men in the forward line. The Ulster Final match report against St Galls: “Loup were stronger in the second half with the reliable right boot of Ronan Rocks proving a telling factor. The Derry star landed a superb ’45’ and a 35-metre free as Loup stormed to a famous victory.”

By his own admission the loss to the Meehans-powered Caltra in the All Ireland semi final was a lowpoint in his career. But it wasn’t the toughest battle Ronan was to fight in 2004.

Throughout the winter and into the All Ireland campaign Ronan had something else nagging him. He’d noticed a lump on the side of his neck that showed no sign of disappearing. He didn’t think much of it, although he remembers it would have been noticeable coming out of the shower after matches.

“It was maybe half the size of a mandarin orange would be the best way I would describe it. One night in the house Rhonda my wife says what’s that lump on your neck. I says I honestly don’t know, I must have taken a knock on the neck.

“You know yourself, you’re out training 3 or 4 nights a week and you think it’s just a knock or something. I let it go over Christmas. The local GP had told me it would do no harm to get it checked out but the usual thing being the typical man I suppose, I thought I was an indestructible Gaelic footballer and I did nothing about it. We played Caltra in the All Ireland semi final, though we lost, it was one of the best games I’d ever played. Little did I know at the time what I had.”

The Sledgehammer

When the dust settled on the All Ireland campaign, a week or two later, Ronan finally arranged to go and get himself sorted out. He takes up the story:

“A week or two after I went to see the GP and he referred me on to get a biopsy done. The alarm bells ringing for the doctor were that I was having a lot of night sweats. He was thinking out loud which worried me slightly, he got me pushed in as quickly to the hospital as possible where I got a biopsy.

Things moved fairly quickly for Ronan after that, so quickly that by his own admission he’d little time to get things sorted out with work and sport, let alone sorting out his own mind.

“It was 1 April, 2004. April Fools Day. I got the call then to come into the outpatients. There was a couple of doctors there, they sat me and Rhonda down and basically told me that what I had was non Hodgkins Lymphoma. Cancer of the lymph nodes. I obviously didn’t have a clue, but when they mentioned the word Cancer that’s when the sledgehammer hit me. Some April Fools day.

“When we left the room, we don’t remember driving back to Bellaghy, me and Rhonda, we were in a total state of shock. We’d just got married in 2002. We’d no children yet but we’d plans, we were just starting out, we were as happy as could be… more or less our whole world was just turned upside down.

Looking back now had he any more symptoms or noticed anything unusual at the time. He’s fairly adamant there wasn’t:

“I’d lost a small bit of weight but I was flying fit, I was playing the best football of my life, or so I thought.” he laughs. “I was back playing for Derry. I just thought that was a result of being in great shape.”

I had to Get Back

“I had to take a lot of things into consideration. A hundred million things were going through my head. But one thing I had in the back of my mind was I wanted to get back playing football. Even for one or two games. I had to get back.

“I had to get an operation to remove the lump in the neck, that was done fairly sharp and I had a loss of movement for while in one side.

A full body scan was done that revealed more bad news; there were two lumps the size of two fists in his chest that he was unaware of.

“I thought I was getting chemo for the sake of it just to be on the safe side after the lump was removed but halfway through the treatment they told me, no this treatment is for two lumps on my chest. The probably did tell me earlier on but I didn’t hear them.”

Looking back he finds the whole thing surreal.

“The word had come out that I’d cancer. I spoke to a couple of boys, the first couple of men I rang were Paul McFlynn and Johnny McBride, they didn’t say a pile and probably couldn’t really take it in. Malachy O’Rourke too. But those lads were great. When the word went out round Derry people had you dead. People though I’d only weeks to live. That wasn’t the way I looked at it.”

A Normal Routine

“When treatment started, the doctors told me don’t get out of your normal routine, I made a point of getting up in the morning when Rhonda was going to work to keep my general routine. Rhonda was working and I wasn’t and to be honest in terms of general living it was hard enough going.”

“After I got the operation I lost the power down the right side. But I remember in my own head deciding every day of this is one day less until I go back to playing football.

But it was tough, literally he had to pick himself up off the floor after one treatment.

“The first few sessions, I thought this is no big deal but after the 3^rd or 4^th session I thought hold on a minute here, and this is when it really started to kick in. Physically there were days you couldn’t get out of bed. The mental thing was the big thing, you drove yourself to get out of bed.

At the time Mickey Moran was manager of Derry.

“Micky Moran came to me and said you’re still part of the panel. You’re one of the boys, if you’re fit to come along to matches. Derry got to the All Ireland semi final that year and I remember I went to four or five of the games. The boys appreciated it I think, it maybe gave them a sense of you never know what’s round the corner.

During the campaign he was still receiving chemotherapy. On one occasion he got on the team bus with a cap on. The players didn’t know how to react when he took the cap off and he’d lost his hair. Ronan laughs at the memory:

“Later, on the road home after the game was won, the craic was good, and a few beers were going down, Togger Kelly says in that broad Slaughtneil accent ‘you’ve a quare shiny head on you’. It took a few drinks and a victory to break the ice. “

He missed the game against Westmeath due to a treatment and was given a boost when Paddy Bradley dedicated the win to him after the game. The Game. That’s what kept his mind straight.

“Mentally you were always thinking that’s five sessions away from playing football, all I could think about what getting back to playing football. All I thought about, that’s what I was clinging on to. I didn’t want people meeting me and saying you’re the lad that retired because of cancer. I wanted to prove that I could play another year or two.”

Eleven Years Later

Eleven years later, he’s still playing. Since then he takes nothing for granted and lives for his family. Rhonda’s sister Marcella passed away suddenly in 2005 with an undiagnosed heart condition. That struck Ronan to the core.

Ronan still togs out for the Bellaghy Over 35 team, he moved to Bellaghy where he now lives. The football bug that kept him going through the dark days of chemo and treatment still gnaws at him. He laughs and tells me there’s times he thinks he could still do a job for the seniors before reality bites. He’s been coaching with Ballerin club in North Derry and even helped out with his club Camogie team.

Himself and Rhonda now have four young children, Marcella the youngest is named after her aunt, Callum 8, Cadhan 5 and Charlie 4. Callum the oldest lad is starting to get an inkling of his father’s journey. Ronan says when the time is right he’ll talk to his son about it.

The next match he’ll play is this weekend’s Professor Hollywood Memorial Cup, in its second year of raising funds for the cancer units in St. Luke’s and St. James’s hospitals. The GAA football match will be played by those who have received cancer treatment and they aim to show others that there is life after cancer.

Ronan travelled down last year to play, along with his dad and his uncle Colum. He didn’t know much about the game in advance but sitting in changing room putting on his gear, the penny dropped.

“I remember sitting getting togged out, like a thousand times before. What struck me just before we went out onto the pitch, and you’ll understand having been in a club changing room, you’ll have cousins and brothers, lads you played with all your life, there’s a unique bond because of where you grew up.”

“But here I was with 35 men walking out onto the pitch. And there was a similar bond. Everyone of them had cancer. It almost brought a tear, the guy standing in front of you; the man behind you, the boys you were playing with, the man you were marking, everyone of them was a cancer survivor. That was the thing that stuck with me. Men of all ages and backgrounds.”

“The match was unbelievable Mick O’Dwyer was our manager and he was an inspiration. In his seventies still going strong, still learning and inspiring men round him.”

I asked him about his advice to his younger self and it is the same advice he’ll give his sons, and every young player:

“Simple. Get everything checked out. I thought cancer would never affect me. You think you’re indestructible but you’ve no idea. I can’t stress it strongly enough any lumps, bumps, lads not feeling themselves, afraid to talk to anyone. Anything at all, young lads if they’re feeling down, feeling a lump wherever go and get it checked, go and speak to someone.

This weekend Ronan returns for the 2015 Professor Hollywood match. He’s looking forward to it.

“Wee things that used to faze me don’t. Your family come first and trivial things don’t bother me anymore. I’m looking forward to the match and seeing all the lads again. I’m bringing Rhonda and the kids with me. Last year after the game I wished I’d had the family with me, other men had their children on the pitch. So this time I want the family there with me on the pitch when the football’s over. They’re all part of the journey.”

Football and family. Family and football. For Ronan Rocks, that’s the start of it and the end of it.

This morning I ventured across to the Ramada in Portrush for an InvestNI session on commerce for local business: How to make your online marketing work for your business.

I had recommended the event to a couple of clients and went along to see what the level of knowledge was locally, to pick up some new ideas and see generally what was what. One of the main attractions was the presence of Donal Doherty who runs Harry’s Shack, a fantastic eatery on the edge of Portstewart strand that has attracted praise from restaurant critic Jay Raynor among others.

It was a hidden gem when it opened (belatedly) last summer. Belatedly that is, to us locals, who watched it slowly get kitted out and refitted for action over August ’14 and hoped that it would be opened for the summer season. It has since bucked the trend with its casual sea shanty atmosphere, wood hut ambience and quality food. Whether a coffee, a simple fancy breakfast to a more substantial meal it is a quality spot. It has gone from strength to strength since, in no small part to clever use of social media to build its profile.

Today, it was the quality and frequency of this social media activity that we savoured rather than the food on offer,  as Donal took us through a series of simple but effective approaches. His advice ticked a number of key boxes. It was practical and relevant and best of all didn’t demand huge resources:

• Don’t Pay Per Click on Facebook.
• Be clued in to the viewing times of your customers and post accordingly.
• Make us of photography.
• Keep a string balance between ambient and story telling posts rather than pushing the product.
• Engage with the customers online and in restaurant.

Donal reckoned about 20-25% of sales are directly attributable to social media. He outlined the issues that were proving problematic, customer cancellations at the last minute and the role of Twitter in filling eleventh hour no-shows by posting vacancies. His next step to address some of his promotional, informational and customer service issues is to launch a website. The cart after the horse by conventional reckoning but you can’t criticise what has been done thus far. He touched on the issue of negative reviews online of which there are few, and of them the origin is doubtful. His advice on complaints: Address them up front. Again, this wasn’t a major issue in the flesh or on social platforms for the Shack.

One of the key takeaways was that trial and error use of social media allied to a good business proposition can bear fruit. It was music to the ears of many who were there for in truth some of the businesses present were self confessed social media novices. There were a few steep learning curves ahead and indeed for some of the businesses represented, it wasn’t social media they needed but  root and branch look at what they were doing.

I found overall that some of the work I’m doing with some of our clients is ahead of what’s out there. There is a very low base in some local small business. Anyone wanting to discuss their needs, give me a shout for a chat.