[Wolves] West Midlands Open Source support

[Peter Cannon]

Hi Matt

Glad to see someone else has experience of the ineptitude of the Chamber
in my opinion they are a waste of time purley because they are not
managed correctly, out of everyone who joins 98% want to "sell" so if
you go to any of their functions generally everyone there is only
looking to sell.

I used them as an example of a type of body that would potentially be a
better outlet than a Uni.

It is a sad state of affairs that Uni's have to run bring and buy sales
to supplement their income, however I am still miffed at schools,
colleges and universities offering products and services to the business
sector:

They generally use unpaid students, while this can be construed as a
learning project I think this gives poor experience to both parties the
student works his nuts off for a mark in his text book that he should
have received via academic training from a supposedly qualified tutor.
The company gets a cheap solution which may or may not take far longer
to finalise and may or may not work due to the none expert, unqualified
implementation.
This makes it tougher for sme's to survive in the market place when
places like Walsall college, for example, offer web sites for £30.00
people need to look at the bigger picture I.E. overheads: wages,
electricity, equipment, stationary, communication, heating the list goes
on and on, if I was a guy working at the UCE I could win every deal I
tendered for because I wouldn't have any of those worries.

Maybe a better outlet for the 4 million would be say the princes trust

On Tue, 2004-03-16 at 10:33, Matthew Revell wrote:
> Peter Cannon wrote:
> 
> > I thought University's were for teaching not competitive re a waste of time
> > ventures?
> 
> Universities are increasingly trying to financially exploit their 
> expertise. As long as the government pursues its ridiculous aim of 
> getting 50% of all young people into higher ed, the institutions will 
> have to find as many different ways of raising money, as they can. Not 
> that I think it's a bad thing for unis to bring in extra money.
> 
> Teaching is a loss maker for many universities. The old polytechnics get 
> their money from direct services to business and the more established 
> universities get involved in more traditional research, still for business.
> 
> > Better to give 4 million to the small business enterprise via the
> > Chamber of commerce,
> 
> Oof. The Chamber of Commerce? There's a sure way to waste £4 million! 
> I've had one too many conversations with Chamber types, charged with 
> spreading knowledge of e-commerce, whose only talent appears to be the 
> regurgitation of cliche.
> 
> I reserve judgement on Open Advantage; it'll be interesting to see how 
> they do. I'm not sure, tho', what the difference is, in principle, 
> between them and the Chamber. They're both private organisations running 
> around with public money.
> 
> > that way there will be more job opportunities in
> > the market place rather than an organisation with an unfair financial
> > advantage of Government backing.
> 
> Either that or there'll be another Chamber employee with a ridiculous 
> job title - E-Black E-Country E-Envoy for E-Funding - going around, 
> arbitarily giving our grants!

Regards

Peter Cannon

peter at cannon-linux.freeserve.co.uk