coclarity

Great news. On Monday we pitched and demoed coClarity to an investor panel as part of the end-of-year LEAP programme showcase. At the evening reception, we found out we won the “Innovation and Market Entry” award. We were as happy as windmills in a storm.

At the reception we did a three-minute pitch to everyone who attended the showcase. Unfortunately, we’d been distracted by the other big event that evening (Apple’s WWDC), so the three-minute pitch was only two minutes long.

We were delighted to get the award (and money), but we were just as happy to get fantastic feedback and questions from the judging panel. Our bank manager was at the reception too, and he was happy to see the cheque.

We’d also like to congratulate the other winners on the night, Off We Go Publishing, and Pedigree Cattle. We’d like thank Donncha and Graham who run the EAC and LEAP. We’d also like to thank the other 11 companies who were on the LEAP programme this year. We learned a huge amount from each other.

So if you’re thinking of starting a business and you’re based in the mid-west of Ireland, check out LEAP. You will learn a lot and you might even win a cheque as tall as you.

coClarity was selected as one of the companies on Webmission 09.

Mike Butcher of Techcrunch describes Webmission as:

taking 20 of the best UK and Irish Web Entrepreneurs out to Silicon Valley from 28 Mar to 3 Apr 09. The point is to enable the successful entrepreneurs to build relationships with great people in the US, meet US VCs, explore business opportunities and ultimately do business with potential US VCs, partners and clients.

The mission coincides with Web 2.0 Expo. It is supported by UK Trade & Invest, Oracle, Orrick, Web2.0Expo (O’Reilly and TechWeb), and the Technology Strategy Board (TSB). WebMission’s online presence is managed by Information Architects and PR by Braben. The trip is organised by WebMission Ltd, a joint venture between Polecat and Oli Barrett.

It’s great to be included with well established companies like Huddle and Trampoline Systems. In addition, there’s another Irish company from Cork Compliance & Risks.

Just over a year ago we took part in a similar mission organised by Irish Companies. That trip was a fantastic success. The companies who were on it, forged strong links, met amazing people and returned to Ireland with a can-do attitude.

We’re really looking forward to the trip. It’s a great opportunity to meet up with some of our advisors and customers who are based in Silicon Valley. We’re looking forward to finding some new ones as well.

We participated in CreativeCamp a Barcamp that took place in Kilkenny, Ireland. Ger facilitated a discussion on “SCRUM: a low tech way to manage any kind of project”. You’ll find the slides on Slideshare.

Update: Gabriela Avram wrote a summary of the whole unconference. Jan Blanchard took loads of photos.

We are currently putting the finishing touches to the beta version of Coclarity which will be deployed by a number of companies. One such company is Hosca, an innovative consultancy firm based in Dublin, Ireland.

Hosca specialises in four main areas of consulting, Strategic Planning, Human Resources & Development, Continuous Improvement and Supply Chain.

Hosca’s clients range from the private to public sector. They work with multinationals, semi-states and the Civil Service. Jenni Whately of Hosca described the challenges in working with so many customers. “We have lots of projects on the go at the same time and trying to keep an eye on all of them so that everything is being processed at the same time. We need visibility”.

Coclarity will provide this visibility. Gerard Hartnett of Coclarity said, “We are looking forward to working with, learning from, and providing business value to Hosca’s multi-disciplinary team.”

Coclarity is a web-collaboration platform which allows you to plan, share, and track activities - a project oriented social network.