[Aleader-dev] Re: productization vs open source

[William L. Jarrold]

Sorry, I am way behind.  I hope you can be patient with me.

On Tue, 12 Aug 2003, Joshua N Pritikin wrote:

> On Mon, Aug 11, 2003 at 10:44:28PM -0500, William L. Jarrold wrote:
> > On Tue, 12 Aug 2003, Joshua N Pritikin wrote:
> > > On Mon, Aug 11, 2003 at 10:07:50PM -0500, William L. Jarrold wrote:
> > > > One quick question though...(Btw, thanks V V much for pointing out that

<....>

> > via documentation, support, handholding etc...So, that is one business
> > model.
>
> Yah, and I like that business model.  I could go for that.

Cool.  The merger btwn Open Source and Psychology will be weird.

>
> > How about other business models...E.g. can someone pervert things and
> > make a small change to the source and sell their own version?
>
> No, that's exactly what the GPL is designed to prevent.

Cool.

>
> > Can we
> > anticipate this and add a twist to our own version of copyleft or whatever
> > it is called that says if you make a gizmo based on our gizmo and sell
> > it, you must give us 5% of whatever you make?
>
> It might be possible, but that would slow down adoption of the test.
> That's why I would be against it.

Okay, whatever....I'm actually not nec thinking of a test.  in the
psycho educational market, the kind of crap out there now is pretty sucky.
We could get a foot in the door simply by pretty much adopting someone
else's content but using the cool new technology of integrating video into
the lesson plan.

A test would be nice to have, but would be further down the road.

>
> > Another issue is that in the psychological realm one needs to validate a
> > thing on a large group of subjects.  Sometimes this means getting norms
> > so that a score based on a test administration can be clinically useful.
> > This can be quite expensive.  Psycorp (not to be confused with the homonym
> > Cycorp) spends big bucks getting their tests validated from a broad sample
> > of kiddos all over the US...Psychologists don't work for free because
> > they have to pay lawyers for malpractice insurance.
>
> OK, but I believe the way to get into a big revenue stream is to
> convince a large number of psychologists that our test is
> extremely useful.

Yes.  But this is not that hard.  It means partnering with a distributor.
I am personal friends with one distributor.  Pro-Ed is another distributor
and they are in Austin and I hear the CEO is a nice guy.  My credentials
can probably open doors.  Psychological Corporation is another distributor
and is about 90 min south of where I sit.  I know of someone who works
there and am about to try to have a chat with her.  Not only for aleader
but for other projects I am considering.

>
> > Well, maybe the reason I am delving into this is the following: if I can
> > financially justify working on this now, then I can feel less guilty
> > working on it.  I get the sense you aren't interested much at all in
> > productizability.
>
> I am interested in productizability, but only _after_ we somehow
> generate a lot of demand.

Well, you seem like you are flexible.  Maybe the demand won't be
so hard to genreated.  We could give a talk at certain conferencesa like
APA or NASP or NAN and generate demand that way.  We can post to
professional psychologist mailing lists which are closed to general
public but which I have access to.

>
> I can't predict or promise anything about monetary payback.
> Get your expenses down, income up, and try to increase your
> free time.  That's what I did.

Thanks for the advice.

>
> On the other hand, if we can somehow show how test results are
> correlated with career performance (like Goleman) then there
> will be lots of opportunities: human resources, training,
> tutorials, and education.  Our research has to be air-tight
> though.

Right.  Long term, a test will need such validity study.  Will
be expensive to get such validation.  THus, educational product
might be an easier first sell.

>
> The really speculative stuff is in my writings on philosophy
> and religion.  There is a potential jackpot there, but we still
> have a long way to go before we are even close.

Okay, maybe.  Whatever.

Big decision we need to make soon...Do we want to focus on personal growth
product or research or creatively find a way to do both w/o spreading
ourselves too thin.  Trouble is, I may already be spread too thin.
But the way I see profs operate, being spread too thin may be the rule.
Whatever, I will press on.  Hopefully I will answer a few more emails over
the next coupla days.

Bill

>
> --
> .. Sensual .. Perceptual .. Cognitive .. Emotional .. Oh My!
>