News and Updates
Summer 1999 Wrap-Up
FALL 1999 Meeting
Late August finds project staff and participants about to reconvene in Madison for the September 1 meeting to be held at the Pyle Center. In preparation for this meeting, Links participants submitted a number of brief papers that highlighted the processes, competencies, problems, and opportunities that public television and university web-based distance education organizations each bring to "reforging digital business partnerships" process.
(Click here to see
the draft agenda.)
Discussion topics for the September 1 meeting include:
- Core competencies in the areas of content and capital acquisition, production and operations, marketing and distribution, and client/viewer support.
- PTV and the "Engaged University": are they partners, protagonists, or pioneers in the new environment?
- Funding high-quality content development: Potential future models for raising significant "speculative" production dollars in a university environment.
- Operating production units "as a business" in a university environment: How can innovation and creativity be encouraged?
Participant Input: Process Modeling and SWOT Validation
Over the summer months, project participants submitted brief papers in response to assignments made at the May 1999 meeting held in Madison, Wisconsin. Assignments included:
- Business Process Modeling Exercise: A description of current way of doing business in terms of the following four processes.
- Content and Capital Acquisition
- Production and Operations
- Marketing and Distribution
- Post-sale Product Support
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SWOT Validation Paper: A review of SWOT papers previously posted on the internal FirstClass discussion server, and identification of Convergent/Divergent strengths and opportunities.
At the May 1999 meeting a "Master list" of 52 SWOTS was presented as compiled from SWOT papers submitted over the spring months. In this assignment, participants were asked to consider the following questions, as regards to this master list of SWOT variables:
- What do the SWOT statements mean as applied to (a) PTV and (b)University web-based Continuing/Distance Education in your specific university environment, e.g.:
- Do they apply at all?
- Do they apply more to one organization versus the other?
- Where do they converge versus diverge? Is a strength for one a weakness for the other, etc.?
Information from these two assignments will be reviewed at the September meeting. Discussions will generalize from each participant's current situation audit to build a more general model of how PTV and university continuing/distance education do their business. As part of these discussions, we'll specify questions that we want addressed by our team of experts.
Business Process Models: PTV and University Distance Education Models
Based on the above business process modeling assignment, Larry Dickerson, University of Wisconsin-Extension, prepared a paper titled "Essential Elements of PTV/University Distance Education Models". This paper summarizes some of the similarities and differences in the "essential elements" of the models used by public television and distance education organizations to conduct their respective businesses.
SWOT Summary
Sue Faust and Rebekah Irwin, Reforging the Links project staff, reviewed all SWOT papers submitted last spring and summarized their observations in this summary paper. A "SWOT" paper explores the strengths and weaknesses of a public television station or distance/continuing education unit in terms of being a partner in a digital marketplace, as well as perceived opportunities and threats to that partnership.
SWOT papers reviewed were submitted by:
- Mike Offerman, Director of University of Wisconsin Learning Innovations
- Gary Miller, Executive Director of the World Campus at Penn State University
- Byron Knight, General Manager of Wisconsin Public Television
- Paula Jameson, of the Washington D.C. law firm Arter & Hadden
- Marcia Bromberg, UW System Vice President for Finance
- Kevin Reilly, Provost and Vice Chancellor of the University of Wisconsin-Extension
- Treacy Lau, Principal Coordinator, Distributed Learning San Diego State Univ.
- Rod Zent, CEO of KAMU-TV and KAMU-FM, Director of Educational Broadcast Services at Texas A&M University
- Mark Erstling, former General Manager of WPSX-TV and WPSU-FM, Penn State University, currently Senior Vice-President, America's Public Television Stations, Inc.
Using World Modeling techniques
One of the summer assignments asked participants to review their business processes in terms of Content and Capital Acquisition, Production and Operations, Marketing and Distribution, and Post-sale Product Support. This exercise was carried out by Rebekah Irwin and Steven Vedro through interviews with University of Wisconsin Learning Innovations staff and WHA-Television management and executive staff. For each institution, problems and assets were 'mapped' using QuestMap knowledge management software. The software then allowed common problems and assets to be identified. At the September 1 meeting, this list of common problems and assets will be explored. Click here to read a summary paper documenting the findings of these interviews.
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