Yesterday I officially started working to develop the All Island Digital Media Network Project. The idea, as Neil described, is to help bring the Digital Media companies from all parts of the island together to realise real commercial opportunities both at home and abroad. It’s also about giving people a way of adding value for each other by having access to a larger local network which will in turn create an aggregated larger network locally and globally.

For those of you that know me and haven’t heard the news til now I apologise i’ve been sitting on the news mostly.

SO here we are at the start of something new for the Digital Media Forum and me. It’s gonna be big folks I can tell, maybe not from the start, but watch it move over the next few months there are quite a few things in the works. Stay tuned…

First assignment is out here in San Francisco at the Web 2.0 Expo where the Digital Media Forum are supporting a group of Irish companies from both Northern Ireland and Southern Ireland. They really are a great group of companies and some great guys and girls are here already, with more arriving today. Here’s a full list of companies on the Web2expo Tour.

Aurion

Awakin

BEING

Benchd

biznet IIS

Customer Minds

eg Information Consulting

Front

Learning Pool

Nooked

Pix.ie

Polldaddy

Putplace

Quadriga Consulting

RelevantM

Reva Health

Rocudo

Synergy Learning

Tourist Republic

Waddell Media

In other news we’ve already met some of the guys from the UK WebMission and there are some great companies there too. It was great to meet Oli Barrett of Dailynetworker.co.uk, who’s brainchild the Web Mission is as well as Mike Butcher of TechCrunch UK & Ireland and quite a few of the others with that group at early events on Monday night. Ran into Stephanie Agresta and was delighted to hear that Mairin Murray of Waddell Media had managed to get along to the Techset barbecue I pointed her at on Sunday. It was great to meet Aubrey Sabala marketing manager of Digg as well. She invited us along to the Digg event on tonight so that should be cool.

So that was arrival day of the tour, next post will cover the Workshop day and some more of the events. And I’ll be highlighting some of the companies and what they’re up to and what they’re taking from the tour as we go along. Stay tuned…