Frankly speaking

Wednesday, December 19, 2012

A CONTRIBUTION WILL BE MADE TO DIAGEO ON FRIDAY IN LIEU OF SENDING PERSONAL CHRISTMAS GIFTS …..

From the author (“the wishor”) to you (hereinafter called “the wishee”),
Please accept without obligation, implied or implicit, the wishor’s best wishes for an environmentally conscious, socially responsible, politically correct, low stress, non-addictive, gender neutral, celebration of the winter holiday; practiced within the most enjoyable traditions of the religious persuasion of your choice, or secular practices of your choice, with respect for the religious/secular persuasions and/or traditions of others, or their choice not to practice religious or secular traditions at all; and a financially successful, personally fulfilling and medically uncomplicated recognition of the onset of the generally accepted calendar year 2013, but with due respect for the calendars of choice of other cultures or sects, and having regard to the race, creed, colour, age, physical ability, religious faith, choice of computer platform or dietary preference of the wishee.
By accepting this greeting you are bound by these terms that:
This greeting is subject to further clarification or withdrawal.
This greeting is freely transferable provided that no alteration shall be made to the original greeting and that the proprietary rights of the wishor are acknowledged.
This greeting implies no promise by the wishor to actually implement any of the wishes.
This greeting may not be enforceable in certain jurisdictions and/or the restrictions herein may not be binding upon certain wishees in certain jurisdictions and is revocable at the sole discretion of the wishor.
This greeting is warranted to perform as reasonably as may be expected within the usual application of good tidings, for a period of one year or until the issuance of a subsequent holiday greeting, whichever comes first.
The wishor warrants this greeting only for the limited replacement of this wish or issuance of a new wish at the sole discretion of the wishor.
Any references in this greeting to “the Lord”, “Father Christmas”, “Our Saviour”, or any other festive figures, whether actual or fictitious, dead or alive, shall not imply any endorsement by or from them in respect of this greeting, and all proprietary rights in any referenced third party names and images are hereby acknowledged
Yours sincerely
The wishor
Frank Hannigan
Chairman
Razor Communications Limited
11 Euro Business Park
Little Island
Cork, Ireland
Ph +353 86 8280077
http://www.linkedin.com/in/hanniganfrank
http://www.twitter.com/frankhannigan

Friday, September 21, 2012

Re-imagining The Republic one citizen at a time

This bunch of 9 & 10 year olds represented their village, Carrigtwohill, in the Sean Twomey Tournament last Saturday.

My wife put it perfectly at the end of the tournament – ” this is exactly what I wanted my sons to experience”

What they experienced was:

A sense of place, something different from a sense of nation but just as profound.

A sense of achievement, the years of training turned into fluency and craft.

A sense of team, they played for each other, they supported each other to achieve shared success.

A sense of pride, they never gave up because the journey was just as important as the objective.

The effort to prepare for this tournament and the complete commitment they showed on Saturday will impact on their adult life.

This is the purpose of the GAA.

The GAA’s purpose comes from their ability to change the scale of a kid’s personal ambition.

The capacity to allow that kid to explore their personal skills and power.

The space to allow that kid to imagine how to apply those skills and powers working with others to impact on society.

This is the transformational ability of all sports.

The GAA’s position in every village/parish allows them a unique role in re-imagining the Republic one citizen at a time.

Thursday, May 3, 2012

Exceptional Start-ups sought

Razor will be ten years old in October.

We have carved out a profitable business model.

We have become the Digital partner for Irish and UK Agencies – Advertising, PR and Web Development.

The work we do with these Agencies allows us to work with amazing clients and on groundbreaking Digital projects.

We are seeing rapid growth from existing and new Agency clients.

I personally work a lot with Start-ups.

I know the territory well.

Here is what I notice:

When an Internet start-up closes its seed round funding:

They have approximately €500k in the bank
They have Digital milestones that are significant
The range of skills and experience needed are daunting

For some, a CTO is in place, other teams focus on their commercial domain expertise.

In both cases they have less that 100% of the skills needed to execute.

They need:

Graphic design skills
UX architecture skills
CMS and Database experience
SEO and PPC skills
Server implementation, performance and security skills
Agile project execution skills
Deep social media integration skills

In Ireland and in the UK, start-ups compete with Google, Facebook, Apple, Twitter and others to attract those skills

Even if they find them, the cost can be crippling.

Razor has these skills in abundance.

We have the scale and resilience that our Agency clients demand.

We have been Beta testing a Start-up partner programme.

It works brilliantly for both sides:

Our Internet start-up clients get the flexibility and scale they need
They access a brilliant confident team that add insight as well as codebase
There is none of the cultural dissonance that non-European engagement often encounter
Skype video makes agile integration of our team simple
Our team has perfect English – the accents are less daunting than those of West Cork or Glasgow!
We get really exciting work that allows our team to share in the buzz and excitement that make start-ups so compelling

The beauty is that great companies do not remain start-ups.

Their web and mobile needs grow with their commercial success.

We have designed Razor to partner effectively as they grow in scale and complexity.

The bottom line is that early stage companies can get 2,000 productive work hours from Razor – for the same cost as hiring one unexceptional developer locally.

Give me a buzz and I will share our portfolio and our vision in greater detail.

Frank Hannigan, Chairman, Razor Communications Limited

frank@razor.ie

+353 86 8280077

Skype – frank.hannigan

Here are a few pictures of the Razor crew……