RootsIreland / IFHF

Those blog pieces detail basic common sense which appears to be lacking at Rootsireland.

From their latest antics it can be inferred that their lack of business accumen matches the lack of clarity on their website and these are beginning to have an effect. Clearly usage has died away, their cash-flow is drying up and they need a carrot to prompt people to buy credits.

Sorry guys, I know the carrot is held on the end of a long stick, I’m not an ass, and neither are most of the people who could use your service when you get your act together.

ejmaztec wrote: »

They're probably trying to build it up so's they can flog it off to the other larger "mercenary", Ancestry, and walk away with a big wad.

When is it going to stop raining? I need to get OUT!

To be fair to them I’m not sure that is the case. If it is, (and I doubt it) they have even less of a clue than I gave them credit for. To me it seems like a fair example of what I call the ‘big disconnect’ between the reality of business and timeservers who have no conception of what the real world is like. Sadly it is our taxes that pay for this tat and pay the salaries of many of the idiots involved.

I am a total amateur when it comes to genealogy, but I am not easily fooled when it comes to management and a business plan. Let’s look at the commerciality / user-friendliness of their website. I’ll ignore the fact that they have an identity problem rootsireland or Irish Family History Foundation. Ignore the choice (a ‘confusion’?) of 14 tabs on their home page. I will ignore the similar shades of red & orange on the ‘what’s available’ map (why not a contrast?) Let’s just look at the ‘About Us’ tab. This is the page customers first go to before doing business online – everyone wants to know who/what is on the other end of the Internet connection. You expect concise, succinct information. The Rootsireland ‘About Us’ page runs to about 2,100 words or, in paper terms, about five A4 pages..........now, what potential customer/buyer of any product is going to wade through five A4 pages of hard-to-follow stolid prose? (Frankly, who gives a rats about some schoolteacher in Co. Clare in 1979?) Do they realise how arrogant it is to expect a potential buyer to read that stuff?

The development of their business is curious - text in bold print is from their site :
1984 groups.... came together to form the Irish Family History Society, out of which
The Irish Family History Co-operative emerged.
Now a Co-op is a legal entity and is regulated by the Registrar of Friendly Societies; it does not ‘emerge’, it is created by someone for a purpose and has members
....which later, in consultation with the Companies Office, changed its name to the Irish Family History Foundation (IFHF).
Nonsense. The Companies Office does not ‘consult’ – it does what it is there to do – to record information. You tell it what you want and if it is legal and in their remit they do it. Read http://www.cro.ie/ena/about-cro-functions.aspx

Next we have waffle about Diaspora, cross-border and Taoiseach’s Task force dating to the 1980’s – (Em, that is about 30 years ago, does it add anything?)

Then we jump to theThe Irish Genealogy Project (IGP) which got into bed with the Irish Family History Foundation, which with commercial genealogists formed Irish Genealogy Limited (IGL) IGL was registered as a company in 1993 and ceased to function in 2009.
Companies have shareholders and directors; they should make a profit and pay a dividend What happened? If you do not want people to know, why bother mentioning it?

We then leap to
The Irish Family History Foundation is a company limited by guarantee with no share capital and no distribution of profits. As such it is a voluntary organization made up of local genealogy centres, the majority of which are legally established on the same basis.
So this means it has directors and officers. Not one name is mentioned, nor how they are appointed, or on what basis. Hardly clarity.

The majority of IFHF centres sponsored community training and employment schemes operated by FÁS in the Republic of Ireland. Some centres continue to do this work.
No detail given on this, but anyone ‘in the know’ understands that ‘FÁS’ obtains millions of taxpayers’ funds to operate. On what basis can IFHF justify charging fees for a service that has already been funded by the taxpayer?

Investment by the IFI allowed the IGP to launch the data capture, or production phase of the project, with a common computer system, complete with custom designed software.
All very commendable but who/what are the ‘IFI’ – no other mention of them on the site... on what basis was the investment made? There is no mention of any consideration, or payback/reward.

IFHF then go on to waffle about archives, records, ‘Diaspora’ and describe themselves as ‘guardians’. If there is one word from Mary Robinson’s term in office I despise more than ‘absolutely’ it is Dias bloody pora.

The web design company responsible for the site is primarily one for the golf industry. That figures. If an intern built the IFHFsite for me as a summer project they would be sent packing. The big disconnect; a project managed by idiots in Kildare St and its environs who never had to face commercial reality and would not recognize it if it hit them in the face..