Monday, December 3, 2012

'The beginning is the most important part of the work,' Plato


(l to r) Brian Moore, Motivational Speaker & Referral Expert; John Flynn, MD, BCS Computers; Eoin Tynan O'Mahony , Regional Manager Plato MidWest yours truly at launch of Plato Midwest Advanced Group earlier this year

For the last few months, I have been attending the Plato Midwest Advanced Group in Shannon, so I thought I would tell you a little bit about it and what it involves.

I've been a member of Plato for a few years now and have always found it useful as a Sole Trader, working alone, to have a confidential forum for discussion, problem solving and general brainstorming of ideas.

That is what Plato is all about, the peer to peer group discussion as well as the involvement of the Group Leaders from multinationals and large companies in the Region.

You get the benefit of the large company experience and specialist knowledge from the Group Leaders and I have found that neither they nor the other members in the Group are shy in coming forward with advice!

The Plato Advanced Group moves it up a notch and the idea is that it will help me to focus more on where my business is going, to find my niche and challenge me to come up with a clearer vision.

So far I have been finding the Group very beneficial for a few different reasons:

As I said above, working alone, you don’t have the benefit of a team around you so in some ways I see Plato as filling that gap.

Coming up with ideas all the time is challenging. As part of developing a clear, strategic vision for your business, you need new ideas that set you apart so I have had to actively seek new ways of developing them.

This in turn has energised what I am doing.

I will keep you posted on how it develops but for now it’s a winning formula for me.

Plato Midwest is an initiative of the Department of Enterprise, Trade & Employment through the Enterprise Boards of Clare, Limerick County and Limerick City with the support of Limerick Chamber, IBEC and Fas.

Further information visit www.plato.ie/midwest.