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Bryant:
My wife calls it something similar.
But we've resolved that you can indeed make money selling water by the
river. The river will still be there and freely accessible for those who want to
take that route. But, for a small fee, someone can gather the water, purify it,
and put it in a pretty bottle for you to just open and drink. Those that still
want to can dunk their own but who do you blame when you don't purify the water
right and you end up sick? :-)
Anthony
----- Original Message -----
Sent: Wednesday, October 11, 2006 8:17
PM
Subject: Re: [school-discuss] Consulting
opportunities in OSS / free ?
Lee -
Having just had another installment of this
perpetual discussion with
on the exact same topic with my wife, I had to
smile reading your post
here. We call it the 'Can you really make
any money selling water by
the river?' discussion.
On Oct 11,
2006, at 7:39 PM, lee wrote:
> Hi all,
>
> I've been
having a perennial discussion with the betterhalf, and that
> is: How
to turn OSS & free systems into a working, thriving
business.
>
> Business plan one: Small school boiler plate
drop-ins.
>
> My first inclination was to direct-market to small
schools, offering
> to drop-in working boilerplate systems, replete
with all the
> goodies... a mix of dual-boot Win/Lin boxen w/ a Karoshi
core (online
> classroom, content filter). Maybe w/ LTSP as an option.
Well, my wife
> hates this idea. She thinks there'll be so much T&E
prone to high
> overhead (or nickle&diming) that'll be hard to work
with smaller
> schools w/ small budget constraints.
After having
spent a bit more than a year doing this, I would say your
wife is a very
smart woman. The shrinking technology budgets do offer
an opening
but that is also a two edged sword. There is a
geographically
centered successful business model buried in Business
Plan One but it will
take time and after the initial savings in
licensing fees, it will look a
lot like any proprietary educational
technology support consultancy.
At least that is my take on it after
doing it for a year.
>
>
Business plan two: Large schools / small school districts.
>
>
Same as above, but my question is how to market to larger schools with
> either entrenched IT mgm't and/or other political barriers to entry.
> That, and running a business to work with larger institutions without
> having my lunch eaten for a different set of reasons. Suffice it to
> say, I'm not seriously entertaining this plan, since the other-half
> hates it even more.
My brief encounter with this market is
that you lose the
foot-in-the-door-because-no-initial-cost advantage since
these
districts have money to spend. Now you are going up against
real sales
departments with real sales budgets.
>
> Business
plan three: Write a "How-To" Book
>
> Write the step-by-step
School Networking for Dummies book. Maybe 2 or
> 3 books, detailing
installation/deployment, operations & maybe (not)
> curricula. Use
the book to market the actual boiler-plate CD's & DVD
> training
videos. Have a related website that helps drive the book. The
> wife
likes this idea. She thinks web advertising/click-thru's could
> gen
alot of income (I suspect however that goldrush sucks tin).
I think the
book is important - no matter who writes it. Teachers will
feel more
comfortable when they have a book to hold. I found this out
after I
started publishing the OSV Free Software catalogue
(http://www.fossed.org/node/4).
It made a huge difference to teachers
to have something on paper to thumb
through.
Steve Hargadon (Steve - are you on this list?) is currently
writing a
FOSS and Education book for ISTE and I think I am on the hook
for
writing one of the chapters. He may still be looking for authors
so
you should contact him.
>
> Business plan four: Consulting
& training.
>
> Walk into schools & write recommendations.
Not just glossy paper stock
> with groovy graphics or "Powerpoint" dog
& pony shows, sell manuals &
> DVD training along with the
consulting & onsite training. The CD of
> free stuff are free, but
the boiler-plate disks aren't. Maybe partner
> w/ a body-shop service
(subcontract all of it... ;-), training the
> installers & the
end-users, per site... but... Power users in
> education: Do they
exist? FWIW, I haven't met (m)any.
I think these are great ideas.
During the run up to the NELS
conferences last summer I started talking
with Matt Olmquist about
starting a FOSS and Education consultants group
to create and share
resource like this. We talked about it at one of
the conferences but
nothing has really happened since. There is this
list which is still
fairly thin: http://k12opensource.wikispaces.com/Consultants
>
>
I'm curious what everyone thinks and what your experiences have
>
been.... To me, schools represent a neglected market that could offer
> a modest or decent income stream while doing good things, offering a
> competitive edge b/c of the cost savings, ameliorating the license
> worries, etc.
And with budgets being cut, schools really need
FOSS and the kind of
help we all could provide.
>
> But I
worry that the market might be weak, not because of lack of
> need, but
because of institutional or budgetary obstacles. WRT to
> Business Plan
#1, can a good chap get his foot in the door, or is
> free/OSS the kind
of change that is limited to internal mgm't reform
> efforts,
consultants need not apply?
Ah - the ??? dollar question. I do
still feel that the untapped market
is big enough that any success by one
of us helps all the rest because
at this point (and for a long time) - our
problem is legitimacy and
'who else has done this before'. Thanks
for sharing these thoughts -
it is nice to see that others are mulling the
same issues.
Bryant Patten
White Nitro, LLC
Vermont ,
USA
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