I’ve had enough really of this Ideas Campaign. They’re manipulating the media by utilising their connections, and as you point out, by bringing in people like Ernst & Young, they’re just giving the usual “in crowd” a way to get directly to the Cabinet table.

Think of it.

Given the Anglo fiasco, Ernst & Young are probably likely to get short shrift from the Government.

How better to rehabilitate themselves than to become involved in a so-called “grass roots” campaign?

“Aileen called me to see if we might launch her campaign where it started: in the Prime Time studio.”

I really don’t see government hands in this.

I hadn’t seen that piece by Mark Little. Is this even related to IdeasCampaign – it strikes me as just work they might have done for the Prime Time programme, otherwise I wonder why none of this was covered anywhere on the IdeasCampaign site?

Have you seen Mark Little’s piece at

http://www.rte.ie/news/2009/0306/powertothepeople.html

I have a theory about the RTE PrimeTime, and Morning Ireland, involvement. According to Maman Poulet, the Government Press Office is putting serious pressure on RTE to cut down on the negativity and to big up any positivity they can.

So, if Fianna Fail were to decide, with their new American website developers/political strategists, that an IdeasCampaign (that specifically blocks out whingers) would be a good idea, I guess pressure from the Press Office on RTE could feasibly have meant a launch of a website could take place
on PrimeTime – instead of Tubridy Tonight or The Late Late Show as would have been the case in days gone by.

@le craic – I’ve seen your comments on Gavins Blog as well. I can see where you’re original optimism came from – and the optimism of many when they first hear of this IdeasCampaign – and to be honest, it’s something that I would share in personally as well.

As an avid reader of Michael Lewis, I always think back to his book from way back in 2000,
The New New Thing. In this, he wondered where the next big thing was going to come from – we’d already had the age of computers and the age of the internet. He was wondering where the next boom money making business was going to come from. He didn’t really realise at the time that the new new thing in
2000 was going to be international global finance.

And now that that’s gone, we’re back in the position where that book becomes relevant again – and particularly in an Irish perspective. The whole country is crying out for the new new Irish thing.

And that’s why it’s so disappointing that the IdeasCampaign is preying on that desperation. As you saw from Thursday night on Twitter, the main thing that struck me was the fact that they weren’t immediately sharing the submitted ideas. The terms and conditions served to increase my scepticism about the whole thing.

If my guess is correct about who’s behind all this, then the original inclusion of the word "sell" with regards to the T’s & C’s would tie in completely since as far as I know, that would be a relatively American angle to take. Certainly, to my mind, any individual who may have set up such a website with the originally stated noble intentions of Aileen O’Toole would have had other things on their mind with regards to the proposal rather than ensuring they captured sales rights to any ideas submitted.

This happens with Public Domain Software where “source code” can be used by anyone without fear of being sued.

All this legal jargon, is a subterfuge, for someone or some group gaining control over other peoples ideas.

Presumably, It is not the intention of people who post ideas, to simply, hand over control of the ideas to the people who claim to be “operating” the site as a public service.

If that were to happen, you are talking about people franchising other peoples ideas!