Spiers 1, Ivy League 0

Folks,

A few days ago listmember JGregory asked the list what I do for a living. I
sent it thru with a
view to answering as soon as I got time. (An hour later he said ignore my
question, I just
read your website).

Nonetheless, I’d like to answer the question, even though this listserv is about
all you, not
about me.

First, being self-employed means I wake up every morning unemployed. It is up
to me if I
make any money today, I cannot sluff off and get paid anyway. I look at all the
options before
me today, and I pick and choose.

For example, must be 15 years ago now, more!, I went into a “chatroom” on the
internet and
was insulted by a 14 year old child. It seemed to me a tremendous waste of
technology. At
the same time, I was cutting way back on my teaching at various colleges,
something I started
while in school on a sabbatical from work, and something I had to cut back on at
that time
since I was then building my own business.

it occurred to me that perhaps I could delivery a class over the internet,
using the
chartroom, and downloads with something then called FTP and of course email.
University of
Hawaii developed a online quiz program free to teachers, thank you, which
eventually was
bought by the Discovery channel, and which I still use today. At the same time
Apple
Computer started an online service like AOL called eWorld. I managed to become
a
community conference crewmember, (hence WileyCCC) a staffer, in return for free
access to
the internet, plus insider training on how it all works.

I ran a “chatroom” with the topic of int’l trade, where I fashioned the online
class, and tested
out the systems. After a year or two of this, Apple shut down eWorld, and the
prime movers
created something called TalkCity, a dot.com where I got in at 22 cents and the
stock
eventually hit about $35. I was locked in by insiders rules and as soon the
lock expired I
spent a desperate day working the system to unload the stock and got out at $13.

At any rate, I packaged the class, and went back to the schools that wanted me
to teach but
where I could not give the time, and went thru the process for introducing a
new product I
lay out in my book (in this case a service). I approached the “retailers,” the
schools, they
being my “brand”, and they say “good idea does not exist.” I come back with the
sample of
the service, they said they’d give it a shot, and now I have been teaching a
course online for
over 10 years. i pays a little over $100 an hour, completely self-employed,
working out of
my office at home, which is about 40% of what small biz int’l trade pays. My
“service” has
been exported to over 21 countries. This too I am cutting back on, since there
are just too
many other things I want to do, things fascinating to me. But lifestyle is why
I work, and
teaching is part of my desired lifestyle. I’ll teach on the side the rest of my
life too.

To pick up sales directly off the internet, and to sell other online courses, I
created Seattle
Teachers College, www.seattleteacherscollege.net as an ecommerce site. As i
studied the
requirements for an online ecommerce site selling classes, I was told by a
young, smart very
well-to-do Microsoft retiree it would cost some $800,000 to set up, and some
$100,000 a
year to maintain, if I did it all myself. Sigh, the conservators speak. It
cost me a total of $49
to set up, and about $60 a month to maintain, doing it all myself, using Yahoo
stores. This
has been up for ten years, and profitable since day one. Profitable, but tiny
since I simply do
not have the time, yet, to scale it up. Too much going on.

So there is an example of what I do for a living. I am working on other things
as well, and
from time to time I will package examples of this and put them on the listserv
fileserver.

But I bring this particular activity up because I was not the only one with this
idea. The State
of California founded and funded an online course school, as did a consortium of
Southwestern states, as did AOL and a consortium of Oxford, Standford and Yale.
As I recall,
circa 2000, there were about 200 such initiatives. Also, a tax was put on
communications in
usa to fund more such intiatives. We still pay those taxes, although I believe
Seattle Teachers
College, the only self-supporting noncredit online school is still operating.

I introduced online classes, a new product at some 50 schools in usa and canada.
Bellevue
Community College sought and gaiined an sizable grant to develop online classes
after I first
offered a class successfully through them. I pointed out that the problem was
solved, and
indeed, i offered to teach other rteachers how to teach online. And did so for
a few hundred
teachers, charging each.

I was a founding supporter of WAOE, an org of online instructors worldwide.

Various dot.com were formed to develop a “platform” for delivering education
online and I
would point out that every elements in every platform developed was already
available for
free on the internet, and better since they seemed ot be more robust and by
having different
elements of the class in different places, the entire “school” never crashed at
once.
(remember the good old days of internet crashes?)

Nonethelss, massive amounts of money and revenue flows from new taxes flowed
into “online
education.”

Alllearn, the consortium of Oxford, Standford and Yale has announced they will
shut down
this week. In spite of their prestige and about 11,000 enrollmets each session,
there was not
enough interest to keep it afloat, according to the article.

Now, hmmm, how can you have 11,000 people interested ansd willing to pay and not
figure
out how to make any money. Well, of course, by massive malinvestment in
management, a
policy and strategy which kills business and education in usa. One commentator
mentioned
that Alllearn was all noncredit classes, and therefore could not attract enough
revenue. There
is more money in noncredit in usa than in kindergarten through baccalaureate, so
this
comment is nonsense.

Money is fungible. If the time comes your pension is gone, like the truckers in
the 90’s, the
pilots now, and you are wondering where the money went, here is just one place.
Think of
the buildings built, the tens of millions in content development, the taxes
paid, the
computers, the routers, the aeron chairs, the engineers, the sushi delivered for
those working
late, the celebrations and lifetime achievement awards, all paid for all in this
one area, and all
a complete waste, since none of it ever tested or even considered if it would be
viable and
useful to “customers’.

And government workers have the most of all to fear, who have the most rock
solid plans,
have the most to worry about, since when the government breaks its spending
limits, the
governmnet seizes (borrows, they say) from the government employee unions
pension funds.
They did this last week. They may someday do it and yet not find the Chinese
willing to lend
them the money to pay the pensions back. Then, as one pensioner said to me,
we’ll see what
our pensions bought laying on the ground in Iraq.
Perhaps there is an import of service opportunity here, an advice column from
pensioners in
Russia who are living on $10 a week what with repudiated pensions and inflation.
They know
how to survive.

Now multiply these multibillions in this narrow field of online education times
thousands of
other fields, and the cost of our adventures overseas, and the amounts are
staggering. We
put ourselves at a huge disadvantage worldwide, a certainly undermine any
pretense of moral
authority in guiding other nations, when we behave like drunken sailors who have
broken into
the ships safe and stores and made a night of it.

I do go on, but you asked.

This reply is part of a reply I am composing to Bobbi Weaver’s comments a few
days ago in
which she asserts that entrpreneurs are a different breed of cat, and in part on
Malcolm’s
observation on why people do not start businesses.

So, more to come, referring back to this essay, which I’ll call Spiers 1, Ivy
League 0.

John

Bookmark this post --- Email this post