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Ideas Campaign gets off to a flying start
Sunday, March 08, 2009 By Catherine O’Mahony
The Ideas Campaign, an online drive to generate constructive ideas for the economy, was put together in just ten days at a cost of €10,000. Aileen O’Toole, the managing director of online research group AMAS and one of the founders of The Sunday Business Post, said dozens of people had offered their services at reduced rates, or free, to support the launch of the campaign, which centres on the website www.ideascampaign. ie.

In the first hour after the campaign began on last Thursday’s Prime Time on RTE, 2,000 people had visited the site.

O’Toole and her team now plan to compile the ideas filed to the site and use them to generate an action plan for the economy, which will then be presented to the government.

‘‘I made a list of pros and cons, and found ten reasons not to do this and just one reason to do it - and that was because it’s what we need,” said O’Toole, who has made the most of an extensive contact base to get the campaign started.

‘‘It’s been absolutely amazing,” she said. ‘‘We’ve had incredible stories and we are getting support from all sorts of people, most of whom did not want their names mentioned. So many people have fallen into line to help.”

Those who have given time and resources to the launch include Ian McShane of Behaviour & Attitudes, RTE’s Mark Little, e-mail marketing company Newsweaver and website hosting companyHosting365. The software used to create the site was free, so the whole site cost just €1,500.

An advisory group, comprising senior figures with experience in business, academia, economics and the public sector, is advising the campaign team. The campaign will run until March 31.

O’Toole acknowledged that it would be challenging to get the ideas implemented by government, but said her role was to be a conduit for ideas.

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