Prosperity. Happiness Works.

A new monthly networking event, Pub Standards, has begun in Dublin for people working in or with an interest in web design or web development.

One of the organisers, Eamon Leonard of EchoLibre explains that Pub Standards is structure free, there is no format, no leader, no agenda, it’s just people coming together to talk about what they’re passionate about over beers.
“It was born in the UK about five years ago. The thinking behind it is very simple: get people together who like to talk about what they like doing and have beer and that’s it.”
About 25 people attended the first one in mid August. Leonard says that conversations he overheard varied from UX design to systems design, database, schematics, beer, boys, girls, general, to America’s Got Talent. “The conversation ranged from not just technical stuff right through to everything.”
He also feels that people can further themselves through getting out there and attending events. “The people you constantly see at events are the ones who in one shape or another are getting ahead and they’re doing ok. I don’t think that’s an accident. I think there’s a correlation between getting out there, meeting other people in the industry, learning from people, collaborating with people and using other people to further your own goals.”
He says that people don’t realise is that development is creative too. “It is creative problem solving. It’s not something that you can turn on at 9 o’clock and turn off at 5 o’clock. The same way with design. So you’re bringing two groups of people together whose skill set is very different but whose way of thinking of very much aligned. You sprinkle that with beer and magic happens.”
What Leonard would love to see coming out of Pub Standards is a designer and developer getting chatting about an idea, deciding to do something about it and this resulting in a piece of software a few months later.
It’s also an opportunity for people returning or moving to Ireland or who would like to get into the industry to meet people in a non-threatening way.
And this is exactly how it got started here. One of Leonard’s partners at Echo Libre, Helgi Þormar Þorbjörnsson, who is from Iceland had attended Pub Standards meet ups in London. When he moved to Ireland, he suggested that a Pub Standards meet up should take place here.
Visit http://pubstandards.ie and pop Thursday 9th September in your diary for the “post-conference drink-up without the conference.”