We recently launched our Grants Administration system for the Heritage Council.

How it works

You fill in all your information online. There is an help facility for every screen to guide you through the application and also a ready reckoner to help you summarise your project costs.

 The system will check that you have filled in all the information that the Heritage Council need. You can print off your completed application so you have a record of what you submitted and you will get an email acknowledgement when it is received.

 If you have photographs or reports that need to accompany your application, these can be submitted electronically.

Bi-Lingual

The system is available in both English & Irish.  The applicant can switch between Irish & English at any stage during the application process. As we knew from the beginning that the Grants system was required in both languages, we were able to build in this facility into the software for the Heritage Council at no additional cost.

Cost Saving

The Heritage Council hope to make cost savings through reduced printing costs, reduction in administration time and time saved in generation letters to applicants.

You can apply directly at www.heritagecouncil.ie/grants/

Returned from the 5 day trip to Chengdu in western China and have to say very impressed with my first visit.

 The biggest impression I took from the country was the friendliness of the people and the genuine enthusiasm to do business and speak English.

Another impression was the huge contrasts. You see the new large BMWs and also the people in their rickshaws.

You have a five star hotel and in the street behind you have some run down houses.

 Eating out was an experience. 3 of us got a taxi into the middle of Chengdu. Over a few hours we found no-one that could speak English or didn’t even see another foreigner. We had a great experience in a restaurant. For 7 euro each we got a set meal and drinks. We counted the number of plates of food brought out and it came to 55 !

Of course the Irish group would find the Irish bar, 1,500 miles from Beijing – the Shamrock ! They had a signed Kilkenny jersey. I asked the Chinese girl behind the counter and she said she though it was from a team called Manchester !

Shopping has the local bargain shops & markets where you should bargain but also the Nike, Adidas & Armani shops.

 It wasn’t all work. We got to visit the world famous Chengdu Panda Breeding & Research Centre.

11 companies travelled, mostly first time visits to China. The companies covered Software, Travel, Engineering & business development. Most of them were going to see what opportunities there were for business development in China.

 The trip was co-ordinated by Dun Laoghaire Rathdown County Enterprise Board.

Before the vist, the Enterprise Board organised a number of talks to be given by Deirdre Walsh of China Green. I found these talks to be very informative & helpful. Deirdre gave very good background and suggestions for visiting China and attending meetings in China.

 We met with the minister for Trade, Mr. Billy Kelleher, one of the heads of Enterprise Ireland in Asia and the Irish ambassador to China. Having such a delegation gave a very good impression to companies that we were meeting.

 Here I am presenting Minister Billy Kelleher (from Cork) with a replica Kilkenny hurl and the history of hurling in English & Chinese. These gifts went down much better with the Chinese companies I gave them to than they did with the Cork minister !

The Business Matching.

The main point of the trip was a business matching event between EU & Chinese companies. There were companies there from all 27 EU countries. Altogether 400 Chinese companies & 200 EU companies. We were able to pick out companies that might have a good fit with our own companies. I had meetings with 10 companies and am following up with 3 or 4 of them.

The opening ceremony for the event. Just to show the sheer scale of business activity, we were attending this business conference but within 10 minutes walk there were two other equally big international conferences taking place in Chengdu.

Some of the business people we met had good English but we were each assigned an interpreter. I had just a few words of Chinese but even that helped.

 There were huge differences in scale of the companies I met, from small start ups to a company with €50 million turnover and 700 employees. The fact that such companies would attend such an event shows the merit they place on partnering and doing business with companies from the west.

 After one interview I was asked to do an interview on CCTV, the Chinese main television station. The interview lasted around 5 minutes. I haven’t been able to find it on YouTube yet !

Yours truly, taking the podium !

The intention would be to partner with a Chinese company to sell our software into the Chinese market.

 Will update the blog with progress on this.

Finally heading to Chengdu in China on Wednesday morning along with 12 other companies.  There is a business matching event and 10 Chinese companies have booked meetings for Salespulse.

In keeping with Chinese tradition I am bringing along a small gift for each of the companies – An embossed page with pictures of Kilkenny hurlers and a history of hurling in English & Chinese along with a minature hurley. We might import a few Chinese hurlers to Ireland to take on the Kilkenny team.

Well no Irish counties seem to be able to manage it !

We have given our website a makeover. We have cleared out a huge amount of data that was giving internal information about ourselves and instead we have concentrated for the timebeing on a product promotion focus. We will be adding more customer focussed features over time but for now it hopefully gives a better picture of what we do.

I attended a very interesting seminar on Wednesday last in Dublin which was organised by the Ireland China Association. The Chinese Ambassador to Ireland Mr. Liu Bi Wei spoke about the business growth between China & Ireland. John Kennedy of the Department of the Taoiseach spoke about EXPO 2010 which will run for 6 months next year in Shanghai and will be by far the biggest Expo or Trade fair in history.

 There were a number of speakers from Irish companies who have been trading with China for a number of years. These included CRH, PM Group & Clever Kids. Dick Spring introduced proceedings and spoke of his experience in China through Fexco.

 The UCD Confucius Institute launched research they had carried out on Irish Business involvement in China. Language Barriers, the building of relationships and dealing with regulations were seen as some of the key challenges. This research should be very useful for Salespulse who had designed a survey (see below) to try to answer these exact questions.

 The discussion was chaired by Clifford Coonan of the Irish Times who had flown in from China for the occasion.

One of the products that we will be promoting in China is our English Language Testing. We have the tests modelled on the international CEFR standards. We will be branding the system as Celtic Tests. CELTIC as in Complete English Language Tests in China !
We will have special rates for purchase of the tests for Individuals, Companies & Colleges. Demo will be available shortly.

Update 1st October.  Our CELTIC Tests are designed on the CEFR standards which encompasses the Europass Language Passport. This will enhance their standing.

We are in the process of developing and researching our “Company Relationship Builder” product for China and have designed a short survey to help identify what companies that are trading with China require in such a product. If you are trading or planning to trade with China I would very much appreciate you taking a couple of minutes to complete this survey by clicking here.

Update 10th Oct – A number of companies have completed this survey and we are very grateful for same. However the UCD Confucius Institute has undertake similar research on a more comprehensive basis and this provides the research answers I was trying to find.

We, and our customer County Kildare VEC, are delighted with the success of the new system. After the first two weeks, over 700 people have booked and paid online for night classes in County Kildare VEC. Our hope now is that other organisations providing training courses will purchase this brilliant new product !
Well it is our blog – nothing like a bit of self praise.

Outside of our work, Salespulse staff are involved in a few sporting endeavours. Today 12th September Roisin Dunne is undertaking her second mini marathon of 2009. Next Sunday Brian Kelly is planning to run in the Kilkenny half-marathon.

Also Robert Downes son Eddie is achieving great honours on the rugby front. He is on the Under 19 Leinster squad and currently playing against the other provinces.

We are planning to go live with the above on 1st September and are doing the final testing. Kildare VEC are the first to offer this system from Salespulse. Anyone in County Kildare will be able to search over 300 courses and filter their selection by Education Centre, by Course Type and even by day of the week. In other words show me what computer courses are running on a Tuesday night in Naas.

Once the person decides on the course, they can book and pay for it with credit card or laser card. They will get an email confirmation and Kildare VEC can even send a text to the class before it starts to remind students of starting time. Once someone registers they will be given a password and they can log in at any stage to see what they have booked and also what courses they have already completed.

Kildare VEC are hoping that they will achieve a significant reduction in administration and paperwork while providing an enhanced service to the public. We are delighted to be working with them to develop what we hope will be an excellent facility and case study.