This idea was inspired by watching the documentary film The Inside Job on the financial crisis, which has just won an oscar. The film is shows through interviews how a small number of people have influenced the development of economic policy and law particularly in the US during the clinton, bush and obama eras.

Its frequent that such people influence things over their lives but its really hard to see what they have influenced through the positions they have held; what their conflicts of interest might be - and ultimately if the balance of their work is good or bad. Tracking this sort of thing is especially hard since the effect of policies are frequently understood years after the originators have moved on. The membership of many of the committee's that influence such key government policies are available, but the linkage to make the relationships discoverable is missing. Some of this data is on wikipedia, but of course the linkage isn't recorded or structured. There are aspects of this in channel4's who know's who and there have in the past been NGO sites trying to track people who used to work for NGOs and have moved to consult for industry etc.

It seems to me that a public site showing the timeline of influential individuals would be good for transparency and openness and essentially serve as an anti corruption tool. Suggested name WhatTheyHaveDone, along the same idea as the mySociety site theyWorkForYou which tracks MPs.

submitted 07 Apr '11, 19:50

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solved 02 Jul '11, 15:05

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Asked: 07 Apr '11, 19:50

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Last updated: 02 Jul '11, 15:05

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