Communities & Tech
Build which and what will come?
@JohnBreslin
@NUIGalway @Boards @TechnologyVoice @StartupGalway
Guillom at commons.wikimedia

Black Head
My grandfather was the first lighthouse
keeper here, having helped build it from
1935 to 1936 with the Galway Harbour and
Irish Lights Commissioners
(This Clare lighthouse was requested by
the community of transatlantic liner
captains and freighter masters using
Galway Bay)
Allgau at en.wikipedia

Glenties
My other grandfather was a Donegal
postman who delivered letters daily to
the local community all over the glens by
bicycle
Marksie531 at en.wikipedia

NUI Galway
• As a lecturer, I’m also dealing in “signals
and communications” of a sort
• Have taught over 2,500 students at the
University during the past 15 years
• Doing social media research at Insight
toms at flickr

Boards
• boards.ie started life as a gaming
community forum I set up in 1998
• Now reaches 2.5M users each month
• 125M users / 2.5B pages since 2005

Build the tech and the
community will come?
It’s like you’re building a lonely house
Mayqel at commons.wikimedia

Build the community and
the tech will come!
Your users should feel they are part of
something they’ve helped to build
HM Marsh at British Library's Picturing Canada

Search for, adopt and
embrace existing groups
Unknown at commons.wikimedia

Converse with your users,
digest, assimilate good ideas
brunogirin at flickr

Recognise and highlight
your hubs and connectors
Calvinius at commons.wikimedia

Galway Tech Map

Startup Galway

Technology Voice
@tom_murphy