I find it hard to disagree with the key point of your main post regarding vision

Two points arising from your own comment if I may;

1. YCYC is not “without any action at the end” as you suggest.

In six month’s time the two best proposals will each be placed at the centre of a two year
action programme to put them into action with further money to be spent on doing so.

2. The option of just handing funds to existing ‘agencies’ assumes that YCYC is doing
more of the same work they are doing. That is not the case. It is specifically not looking
to fill in old templates and revisist / reuse old ideas and if it were, it would be criticised for
that too. Neither is this competition about identifying specific business proposals `
which result in the development of one product, or growing only one company’s work
force – which I believe is generally the remit of the CEBs

The entire premise of YCYC is that people have stopped thinking or even
contemplating new ideas over the past ten years because they didn’t have to . Now they
(or I sould say we) have to start thinking again and YCYC is a mechanic to
stiumulate them in the regard, get them talking and if it leads there – start pushing the
system for change, but on the basis of and with ideas for future exploitation that need that
change rather than as a reaction to events in the past

http://www.fatcheese.ie

Nice little site

On Twitter over the weekend, it was highlighted by Conor O’Neill that there were significantly better ways that this €300,000 could have been spent – in ways that would directly help job creating businesses rather than airy fairy publicity campaigns.

The response from Padraig McKeon (member of the YCYC committee) to such comments was “why not suggest those as ideas in the YCYC competition”.

And there we have it. It’s the ideas that are more important than any kind action to certain people in our country at the moment. The appearance of action without any action at the end of it all – but more on that later.

Steve – it’s your choice who you take advice from or look to get answers from. But when you get them, we still all have to get on and do something, so the only result from waiting to get answers is that the world around us will be worse off for the waiting. I don’t see why we can’t get on with doing stuff while still pushing for the answers. That’s my point – I’m not blaming you or anybody else, but let’s quit pretending that somebody else will solve our problems (whether that is before or after it is figured out ‘who to blame’). They won’t so are we just going to give in?

i didn’t say we can’t move on, i just saying that the spin from the gov and business realm is to move without them taking responsibility. cowen has admitted no mistakes, im saying i wont take advice on moving on from those not willing to admit any mistakes

brain cowen “lets move on, be positive”

mr drury “lets move on be positive”

and here have the another total reversal of argument,( is this what they hire you for), you telling me that it is the recession is my fault and im not taking responsibility, i think the government, AIB and all these others companies, have exponentially far more need to take responsibility them me. you can’t equate them with the critics of ycyc.

mr drury has suggested elsewhere there is no conspiracy, is referring the presidential couple and some of largest companies in ireland as the elite some sort conspiratorial talk detached from reality!, i don’t think so!, im not creating an enemy, no some of your clients have been reckless and corrupt beyond imagination, your just continuing doing your job (for free), collecting a few pennies and trinkets to shake about for some corporate pr cleansing.

I’ll fully acknowledge, and will be returning to this in a future post, that the choice in banking is declining day by day in Ireland, thereby making your wish to switch much harder.

The point I guess I’m trying to make is that very few people switch at all – and banks know this. Even if you were to go from AIB to NIB for example, you’re making your stance.

If enough people did this, AIB would eventually have to take notice. Unfortunately, even when we had a lot more competition in the Irish market, people didn’t switch. You can understand why the banks are as smug and complacent as they are.

Diarmuid

Sticking to the “remove Fianna Fail” suggestion, leaving aside your non-political affiliations, I find your statement of “Is any combination of politicians available to be elected in this country going to make any great change in the forseeable future” to be very much a “lets leave the status quo” type argument that I’m saying is only going to be further instilled in Irish society with this campaign.

Your statement, effectively saying that there is no alternative to the current incumbents is exactly what the current incumbents want/need to hear, and what they depend on, election after election (political, or board of directors, etc).

In addition, I’m reading your some of your comments as being pretty negative towards those who are questioning your campaign, “throwing hands in the air”, “defining themselves as against”, not our fault etc – though I may be wrong.

However, I do believe that you’re missing the overarching points made by many people who are questioning this campaign – despite what you might think, you’re not doing anything different that hasn’t been done before here. And what’s been done before hasn’t been at all successful, and just because you’re throwing more money at this doesn’t mean you’re going to be successful this time around.

You’re looking for a “truly transformational” idea that’s going to help the country, but it’s a great shame that you’re taking €2m and throwing it at the same tired old ideas campaign/global Irish economic forum type exercise that is really just a distraction more than anything else.

Earlier today, I believe it was Conor O’Neill on Twitter who illustrated 3 examples of where the €300,000 government contribution could have been spent directly to assist create jobs – never mind the full €2m fund in total.

I will be coming back to this issue of the €300k in a future post. There were a couple of further questions on Twitter today that you might answer if you have a chance – what government department did this money come from, for example?

Taking this money from the current government has even further, in my view, diminished any possible authenticity that your campaign might have – even more so than taking money from the crippled banks.

One would have to ask the questions as to what the government will expect for their €300,000? A promise not to promote a change of government maybe? Promises not to promote policies which are contrary to current government policy? Restriction on ideas that may correct mistakes made by the current government as they’ll only highlight those mistakes more?

Your budget is €2m. Your prize fund is €200,000 – effectively, the government is funding your campaign prizes – a truly astonishing development in its own right.. It’s therefore very hard to believe that you won’t be influenced by them when it comes to making prize awarding decisions.

And unless I’m missing something with regards to your expenses, it seems like this is €300,000 you could have done without. You have €2m – that’s €200,000 in prizes and €1m for developing the winning ideas. That leaves €800,000 for you to run a campaign where you say most work is being done pro-bono. Surely the campaign could have been run on €500,000 and avoided the tainting of the whole thing by government involvement and government money. (Though even to be running this campaign on €500,000 seems almost Fianna Fail governmental in it’s extravagance).

By the way, when I say promises above, I’m not implying anything specific or written down – mere expectations are enough to sway decisions. And when I say government, we’re talking politicians, civil servants and government agencies.

Diarmuid