Back to basics

I've been reading Gary Erickson's Clif Bar story, 'Raising The Bar: Integrity and Passion in Life and Business', his entrepreneurial adventure setting up a power-bar for athletes company, and making it a $100m leader in its field.

He's big on character and values, which in turbulent times reminds me that all our businesses should return to basics. Biggest of those is looking after customers. And in that regard, the Belfast Media Group's phone answering machine continues to give me the heebie-jeebies.

I've justified it on the basis that it's a wage saved — enabling us to reallocate that capital to other parts of our business — but I wonder do any of our customers or readers have the same experience I just had with the Irish Embassy in Washington. I'm trying to get an email for Ambassador Michael Collins but can't find one on the web so resorted to the old-fashioned and expensive cross-Atlantic call.

Call 1: Went for the seventh of seven options, respond to invites, since none of the other six indicate any possibility of contacting a human who could provide the aforementioned email. Got another answering machine to leave a message.
Call 2: Tried the option for visa queries, presuming that would be staffed by real people. No luck, another machine.
Call 3: Went dead 30 seconds into the message.
Call 4: Went for the option for details about 'Consul offices closest to you' but sadly got another machine voice rhyming off addresses.

I've now done what I should have done originally: emailed Deputy Consul General Breandán Ó Caollaí in New York to ask for the relevant email.

Lauren's progress

Among the best events which go to the very core of what the Belfast Media Group (aka Andytown News Group) is about, is the annual Aisling Bursary Awards.

The Awards present bursaries of £1000 each to third-level students taking on all types of studies and coming from all sorts of backgrounds. Since the awards started in 2001, as a joint initiative between ourselves and the pioneering West Belfast Partnership Board, they've provided over £300,000 in scholarships (though I'm a bit embarrassed by the fact that the amount hasn't gone up in the intervening eight years).

This year, it'll be tougher than ever to raise contributions from the business community (companies put up £1000 each) but Tina McCann at the West Belfast Partnership Board has started things off by sending each of last year's sponsors an update on their 'scholar'. She sends me this note from Lauren McIlwee, a young lady who had a child in her teens but still managed to achieve 10 GCSEs and 4 A Levels. Good for her. She's now studying for a teaching qualification.

Hi Tina,
I would like to take this opportunity to thank you and the Belfast Media Group for the bursary. It came in really useful when starting university. I used the money to buy a laptop for my university work. The laptop is very helpful as I can take it to university where I can study in the quiet of the library. This is important to me as I find it difficult studying in the house whilst trying to look after my son.
So far at university I have sat exams which took place at Christmas time. I sat three exams and passed them all. I have another exam to sit which will take place at the end of May.
Although my course is hard work, I am really enjoying it and hope to graduate in two years.

Once again thank you for all your help

Lauren McIlwee

(Lauren is pictured receiving her bursary from Basil McLaughlin, founder of the Andersonstown News back in 1972.)

Which brings me to Garvan O'Doherty's address last week a Community Relations Council gathering in Belfast. Taking as his theme, "Men and women are born to put more into their country than they take out of it" (Guy Emerson, 1920), he said:

"In peacebuilding, the priority is often to search for a political solution, then a security solution and then build institutions. Frequently, economics are left to the end. But economics, politics and security are interlinked. Economics make peace possible and act as a powerful force for moderation....Economic dimension is essential in conflict resolution, only with the prospect of ongoing prosperity can a political solution become longlasting peace."

He adds: "Actions to support the economy must come at the beginning of the process, alongside politics, security and istitution building. Post-conflict recovery is about creating a new political economy dispensation. It is about building back differently and better."

Our Guggenheim

I was putting this line in a letter to a senior politician seeking help for our public artwork project in West Belfast but was told it was OTT.

So it was dropped from the letter, but I can still hoist it onto the Balcony:

In my view, the Irish language, at the core of the Gaeltacht Quarter, is the Guggenheim of Belfast. It has the power to transform and reconfigure an area previously associated with conflict and disadvantage. The Lúbrán is the first major building block in that development. In urging you to provide additional support for this project, I am reminded of the words of Xabier Arzalluz, of the Basque Nationalist Party, who pioneered the £75m Guggenheim museum in Bilbao: "It was expensive but it was cheap for what we got. When we decided to do it, everyone was against it. But then, it was argued that the centre of Bilbao would be a centre of modern art for Europe. Then we saw the light. It is a great thing for the future."

And 28 years today from the death of Bobby Sands, I'm reminded of the fact that we still haven't managed to turn the prison hospital where he died – and one of the most powerful places I have ever visited — into a centre for the promotion of peace and the resolution of conflict. Though I've no doubt that will come to pass.

Hammerblow?

Obama's plans to end 'deferral' policies which allow US multinationals to avail of lower tax rates abroad is about to come to an end and at our gathering on Wall Street last week, some of the big companies represented there said this would constitute a hammerblow to the economy in the South of Ireland.

CNN describe the situtation: "Among them, reforming the "deferral" rule that lets U.S.-based multinationals take deductions on their expenses supporting overseas operations but defer paying income tax on the profits they make from their overseas operations. They only need to pay U.S. income tax on those profits if and when they bring that money back to the United States."

Of course, the major advantage in locating in the South of Ireland rather than the North was the low tax regime. What will happen now? Will both parts of Ireland lose out?

Meanwhile, I missed today's Belfast marathon, which was run in poor weather conditions though I'm told Ciara McGuigan, dep ed of the Andersonstown News was spotted running along the towpath while speaking into her mobile phone. So all is not lost then.

Frank Reynolds of Invivo Therapeutics won't have to worry about tax deferrals in the near future as he's decided to grow his business in Massachusetts — Frank, a former Irish Echo 40 Under 40 honoree was in Belfast and Dublin recently to investigate the option of locating in Ireland.

Invivo received $500k from the Massachusetts Life Sciences funding kitty — which has $1bn — and plans to ramp up production of his new treatment for spinal injury. From Boston.com: "This is a big chunk, and we plan to put it to work in Massachusetts right away," said Frank Reynolds, president of InVivo Therapeutics, which is developing spinal cord injury treatments using biomaterials combined with drugs and cells. Reynolds said he was also being wooed by economic development officials in Pennsylvania and Ireland, which had sought to host InVivo's clinical trials."

Good for Frank (pictured) and all being well, we might yet see his European headquarters in Belfast.

You can read more about his treatment for spinal chord injuries here. And he's on the local TV station:

Branching out in Lower Manhattan

John Connorton, a leading attorney and advocate for the Irish peace process, is pictured here branching out in front of the imposing Dubuffet Group of Four Trees sculpture at Chase Manhattan Plaza — a Lower Manhattan landmark within walking district of Ground Zero.


John makes a strong case for John Hume to be acknowledged in some way at the upcoming The Black and the Green celebration in New York on the basis that he adopted Martin Luther King's non-violent activism philosophy and applied it in Ireland. He also of course won the Gandhi Prize, the Nobel Prize and the Martin Luther King Prize. I have a feeling that this inaugural event celebrating diversity, community and bridgebuilding by spotlighting links between African Americans and Irish Americans will strike a chord with Irish Echo and Amsterdam News readers.

Marty McLaughlin, an advisor to Speaker Christine Quinn, recalls New York State Assemblyman Herman D. (Denny) Farrell being proud of his mixed heritage. "We'd meet him in the morning and say, what are you today, Denny, Irish American or African American?" says Marty.

Farrell, who represents Harlem is also a member of the Friendly Sons of St Patrick, the prestigious organisation which runs some of the biggest events over the Patron Saint's Day.

Optimist or pessimist?

On the balcony of the Residence of the Consul General of Ireland in New York (52 floors up), John Hannaway of PwC was telling me the difference between a pessimist and an optimist.

A pessimist is a child who goes into a room filled with toys and breaks down crying because "some day they will all be broken". An optimist is a child who goes into a room full of horseshit and jumps for joy on the basis that "with all this horseshit, there must be a pony round here somewhere."

Here's a quick pic from outside Wall Street's New York Stock Exchange yesterday, after the Index luncheon, of Ambassador Niall Burgess, myself, Mary Louise Mallick, First Deputy Comptroller of New York State, Bob Douglass, Chairman of the Alliance for Downtown, and Shaun Kelly of Irish Echo Index luncheon sponsor KPMG.

Pól Brennan, H-Block escapee detained in a Texan jail without charge for over a year now, was on the phone to the Irish Echo office earlier. He celebrates his birthday today, 1 May. A birthday present would be his immediate release and permission to stay in the US with his American wife and family.

Am baile!