Altera Europe is the location for our April 2014 business briefing, taking place on Wednesday April 30th at 6.30pm

Technical writers seek to create clear and organized content to help users to achieve specific goals. The  goal could be to use a product, complete a task, operate equipment, complete a process, integrate products, or to complete other types of activities. Technical writers work closely with engineers, technical support, product managers,  program managers, and others in order to get accurate information.   They also work with editors, illustrators, web designers, database managers, printers and others in order to present this information to the end user.  In the complex world of IT, end users can vary from senior engineers to tech support to non-technical consumers.   The writer must keep the end user in mind when creating documentation. 

We are delighted to have:

 

Tom Fitzgerald, Managing Director of Bard na nGleann

 

 

Clíona Ní Bhraonáin, Bárd’s project lead for Google

 

experts in this subject, address the CEIA, demystifying this topic, sharing opportunities on how member companies may engage.

Bard na nGleann was founded in the village of Ballingeary, in the West Cork Gaeltacht in 1999 by Tom Fitzgerald. Fifteen years on, Bárd is the leading technical writing company in Ireland with 60 employees in six countries and global clients such as Brocade, Cisco, Google and SAP.  Bárd has subsidiaries in Silicon Valley, California, and Indiana, USA.

Bárd also owns: www.Litriocht.com the first and largest online Irish language bookshop in the world with customers in 66 countries. Winner of Golden Spider awards for best online business in 2005 and best Irish Language website in 2013. www.Freastal.ie: offering Irish language and Mandarin translation. Winner of Barr 50 Award in 2008 www.Localbooks.ie: Recently started- offering a central point to find books about small Irish communities. www.Gaeltalk.net: offering Irish language training across the world (currently under construction) Winner of European Language award in 2005

Bárd was named Cork Chamber’s SME company of the Year in 2004. In 2005, Bárd was named 5th Fastest growing IT company in Ireland and 80th Fastest growing IT company in EMEA, in the Deloitte Fast 50/500. After weathering the recession, Bárd has grown from 19 to 60 employees since the end of 2011. 

Tom Fitzgerald grew up on a small farm in Cill Chúile in the Gaeltacht of Corca Dhuibhne, Co. Kerry. After his Leaving Cert in St Flannan’s College, Ennis, He emigrated to the US in 1971.  Arriving at the height of the Vietnam War, he found himself in the US Air Force working in Security and Law Enforcement.  After his military stint, he hitchhiked across America – “because it was there”.  He spent four years in Alaska, most of it working on the famous Alaska pipeline, he moved to San Francisco in 1978 where he completed his BA at USF and spent a two years as a teacher. In 1984 he qualified as a computer technician and moved to Silicon Valley.  From 1984 to 1993, he worked in technical writing, training and marketing in Silicon Valley.  He moved to London in ‘93 where he obtained a Master’s degree and Sloan Fellowship at London Business School.  Tom returned to Ireland in 1994, and has started several businesses, the most recent being Bárd and its subsidiaries.

Clíona Ní Bhraonáin is Bard’s project lead for Google. Clíona first began working for Bárd in 2001 and in that time has worked with companies like Nortel Networks, Cisco, and now Google.  Clíona was born in the South Kerry Gaeltacht where she still lives.  She has been a teleworker for Bárd for many years and has a keen understanding of what it takes to work successfully from home.

Tom and Clíona will present the story of Bárd and explain what technical writing is all about.  They will explain how Bárd can take the pain out of documenting IT products and how the tools in the technical writing world have changed dramatically over the past 20 years. They will discuss the pros, cons, and challenges of outsourcing, issues of global competition and working with global corporations. They will talk about the world of teleworking and how a company can go global from a small Gaeltacht village.

After the presentations, there will be a networking opportunity with light refreshments served.

We would like to take this opportunity to thank Dermot Hargaden and his team at Altera Europe, who generously agreed to host this event.