Business Model

Jennifer,

I thought it was me who came on too strong.  So sorry too.

Actually my comment on profit vs. non-profit vs. gov may really miss
the point.  Big vs. Middle vs. Small vs. Tiny may really be the split.
For example, we use to have a Boeing rep. Jack.  I of course was from
the Cal. State University System.  Jack and I identified common issues
more than with other members of the group from smaller organizations.
The enterprise size had more to do with our approach rather than
status regarding profit / non-profit / gov.  In the US, except for
Social Security, the federal government is as clueless as many
for-profit business.

When you work for government you get used to reading for-profit
business models and adapting them to your needs.  There are very few
documents written for how to organize your government office.  So,
there will usually be government managers in the audience for a
business case.

While the issue of profit / bottom line is critical.  The cost vs.
profit may be a wash in many companies.  What is certain is that
accessibility can be done with manageable cost and the benefits that
will exceed the cost.

I'm not sure what group should have responsibility for accessibility
in a large organization, but in our case the marketing group (External
Relations) was not very good. There is a big branding vs.
accessibility fight that starts almost immediately.

We had a 23 Campus + the Chancellor's Offices sample that varied in
size form small to huge.  We found that if leadership resided at the
management level of the production division (Teaching and Research in
our case) and includes significant management commitment from IT, then
the project succeeded well. Sites that had other leadership did not do
as well.  The IT people are very idealistic it turned out.  At the
geek level it was just another cool problem to solve

Campuses are surprisingly representative of a business community
-especially the professional programs like engineering, nursing and
business.  Being in California, art is a very important industry.
Film, theater, music and graphic design are important too. At Long
Beach (near Hollywood) our art programs have a better placement rate
than engineering and business.  All these programs tend to behave like
the business they serve.  Our management isn't more enlightened than
for-profit business.  You comment about the department manager who
might say, "there goes my budget", was really apt.  We really don't
want to give that message.

Wayne

Received on Friday, 1 April 2011 18:33:09 UTC