Yes and yes!! I’ve posted a few comments on this across the board so I’ll keep this one brief. I’m a blogger and an FF activist, (in fact recently promoted to candidate). I’m an admitted obamaphile and spend far too long online for my own good. So in a sense this was the ultimate gig for me! In fact I tweeted something out on Tues night about FF, Obama, BlueStates (Red States) and my own private Idaho or words to that effect. But whilst plenty folk seemed miffed on discovering this was an FF hosted event I am equally miffed it was not shouted from the rooftops as such!!! It was an incredibly positive engagement and lets tell all!! For my limited part, and I was on the end of the chain, I forwarded my FF invite to as many bloggers and friends as I could think of. No secrecy, no lack of transparency, no coverup. Jeez why on earth would you want to?!? Obviously the principal organiser involved wears two hats and sometimes that just doesn’t work. Credit to the guy for all his efforts in bringing this thing together and trying to reach many audiences but he’s said it himself he got it wrong. But it aint just one side of the house that’s irked on this one. Anyway rant over better get back to the day job..

James

@ Damien – First of all, thanks for the comment, and a sincere ‘fair play’ for doing the rounds addressing peoples’ problems. My real question is what I addressed to Darragh above – while I understand you wanted to make sure that a wide enough crowd came so that tougher questions could be asked, would you accept that the simple reality is that when Fianna Fáil run so few public meetings of the sort, an FF-branded Q&A where people could ask whatever they liked (as opposed to a number of pre-selected questions being asked, where I believe it was yourself in charge of the mic) would have been perceived as a far more open, transparent and consultative exercise?

Sorry I didn’t comment on your blog last night; I was around here but for some reason the comment didn’t take.

I’ve put up my thoughts on my blog, as to why I organised the event the way I did. Long story short, I wanted to get as wide an audience as possible in there, to avoid it being an FF-only session and to have people in there to ask the difficult questions. I was concerned that if it was advertised as an FF event, we’d only get FF people and the event would be poorer for it.

The post is at http://www.damienblake.com/2009/02/joe-rospars-dublin-event-new-ff-online-strategy/

I screwed up; this has clearly back-fired and I acknowledge that it was my fault. I actually thought it would be better this way, shocking as that may seem.

We (FF) are going to do everything we can in the coming weeks, months and years to engage as strongly as we can online. I appreciate that we now have an opportunity to make up for what happened, and the annoyance that is out there about this.

To suggest that the event wasn’t supposed to be a plug for the new website, or to showcase what was there, is a fallacy

Absolutely, completely and totally. What’s worse is that for an event ” particularly suited to bloggers and those interested in technology and politics.” the big message – the whole thrust of it, the big learning from such a well connected man is…

“Make sure online is an important, integrated part of your campaign”.

‘Disappointing’ is only the beginning of my thoughts on this.