I was absolutely delighted to pick up a Best Ebusiness gong at the Golden Spiders on behalf of LouderVoice for Business. This project didn’t go into my portfolio because it wasn’t really a design job; with very, very little time available, we used a commercial WordPress template, customised it where needed, and lorried the rest of the time into tackling the positioning and communication issues that needed sorting.

In an inspired moment, the site got a new strapline (“Fuel Your Sales with Trust”), followed by a clearly demarcated product line up, new copy for everything, and a widget and API sign-up process. LouderVoice was called a “a strong winner in this year’s ebusiness category” and I’m delighted for them.

Katherine Nolan and I are delighted to announce that WordCamp Ireland, Ireland’s first conference for WordPress,  is officially launched. We’ve spent a mad few days talking to venues, sponsors and speakers and all systems are go: we’ll be taking over Langton’s Hotel in Kilkenny on March 6th and 7th, 2010 along with 35 speakers, 200 attendees and a metric tonne of swag.

It is going to be a great conference with both excellent speakers and loads of social activities so you don’t sort of get stranded in a corner (we hate that) and is specifically family-friendly so you can bring the whole gang. The venue is also handicap accessible and utterly amazing – we are so excited it’s all come together like this.

This site was a snap to do because Katherine and I work pretty much flawlessly together. I did the pretty, she did the clever, and we’re in total agreement about everything to do with conference organising. It’s like marriage, only perfect :)

PS: Follow @WordCampIRL on Twitter for updates, or see the blog.

While I am the first to admit I’m a little on the cranky side, it actually takes quite a lot to trip my moral outrage switch.

But GoDaddy has tripped it in spectacular style.

The well-known blogger Hoder is a dual Canadian/Iranian citizen who is generally considered to be the daddy of Iranian blogging. He has written passionately about politics and censorship, been published in mainstream publications including the Guardian, and visited Israel in 2007 as a citizen journalist and peace activist.

On November 1, 2008 (almost exactly a year ago), Hoder was arrested while visiting his family in Tehran, probably because of that visit to Israel. He has since spent at least ten months in solitary confinement, and has been repeatedly beaten and tortured. He may still be facing the death penalty.

His domain is registered at GoDaddy. Hoder.com, and thus the site housing the online archive of his writing, expires in 21 days. Many, many  members of MetaFilter, where Hoder is also a member, are more than willing to fork over the renewal fee to preserve his domain while he’s imprisoned. GoDaddy’s response to this request has been thus:

They refused citing security issues. However, if any of Hoder’s family can provide his password or the last 6 digits of the credit card used to register, the company will allow renewal, even with a different CC.

ARE YOU FUCKING KIDDING ME?

Would GoDaddy like the Iranian police to beat that Visa number out of Hoder? Perhaps his family should stop their efforts to get their son released and instead expend energy requesting he be “interviewed” to get his GoDaddy password?

This attitude is frankly beyond indifferent and appalling and into territory previously uncharted by my vocabulary. I am literally at a loss to find the adjectives to describe how stunning this is.

This is a problem that is very easily solved by simply crediting Hoder’s hosting and domain account, and would already be solved by any company that hadn’t had its last ounce of human decency sucked out of its mindless, bureaucratic soul. This requires nothing more than a little ordinary customer service in an extraordinary situation.

There appear to be actual people behind the @GoDaddyGuy account on Twitter. Let us hope that Twitter requests to renew #hoder’s domain registration will be treated with vastly more compassion than GoDaddy has shown to date.

They could hardly show less.

Barcamp Cork is on, baby, and it’s the 14th of November. I’ll be there giving a talk on Five Things Every Startup Should Know. I also highly recommend Paul Sweeney’s Connection 2.0: Communicating with Customers After the Web, mostly because I made him do it. (If you run an app or deliver a product or service, it’s essential.) Sign up here.

The night before Barcamp, Girl Geek Dinners is coming to Cork! It’s a great, casual night for women involved in tech – from bloggers to programmers – to get to meet each other. We’ll be at Gourmet Burger Bistro on Bridge Street, and dinner is €18 per person for starters, dinner with vegetarian options and dessert with tea or coffee. Sign up here.

I’ll be trekking up to Dublin for Business Camp Dublin and presenting a variation on Five Things. John will also be coming and will be presenting on (I think) commercial revenue streams for non-profits. It should be a fun event and Eimear the Wonder Dog will be in tow. (No autographs, please.)