Across the Lake, Santee is Focused on the Future

Editorial:  Across Lake Marion, just a few miles from Summerton, the town of Santee is busy planning for the future. A quick look at some of the major news and activities in Santee over the past six months include:

• In July, Santee unveiled their public relations and marketing plan to enhance the image of the town and attract visitors, businesses, and retirees to the area.
• In August, construction began on the $5 million recreation and water park that will open in 2015.
• In September, plans for three small Orangeburg county school districts to merge began moving forward.
• In October, construction of the new full access interchange at I-95 and Hwy. 301 got underway. It will facilitate movement of traffic to and from new industries moving into the Matthews Industrial Park.
• In November, when the announcement was made about the shut down of the local Piggly Wiggly in nearby Holly Hill, the Bell family bought the store and will ensure it remains open and continues to serve the needs of the community.

How does all this compare to what is happening right across the lake in our town of Summerton? Does the town have a plan for the future? Is Summerton playing to its strength - being a haven for lovers of nature, wildlife, and outdoor recreation? A place visitors and retirees ought to be flocking to in ever greater numbers. 

Is there any action underway in the county to consider merging the three school districts in Clarendon county? What actions are being taken to attract new, modern businesses to Summerton? What is the town going to do now that it has been announced that the local Piggly Wiggly is to be shut down?

What do the citizens of Summerton need to do in order for the town and surrounding communities to survive and thrive in the 21st century? Share your ideas here and with your local civic, business, and government leaders. We must do better.


* Read the local Summerton Weekly News Roundup and check out the Summerton 'Open' Phone Book.
 

Veterans Gathering at Polly's Landing & Marina

On Friday, January 9, 2015, Polly's Landing, Campground and Marina in Summerton will be hosting a group of veterans from the Veterans Home in Walterboro, S.C.  Any other veterans from Summerton, Santee, and the surrounding Lake Marion area are welcome to join in the festivities. In fact, any veterans that come to Polly's Landing get any meal on the menu for only $3, between 11am and 1 pm. 

Polly's Landing, Campground, and Marina in Summerton, S.C., re-opened under new management back in October 2014. They began serving breakfast and lunch 7 days a week and were open for dinner from Thursday thru Sunday. Since then, business has tripled, according to co-owner and general manager Wayne Bazzle. The restaurant at Polly's is now open from 6am to 9pm and offers breakfast, lunch, and dinner 7 days a week.

The new management team at Polly's are working hard to improve the facilities and services provided at the campground and marina. In addition to the restaurant, Polly's also sells live bait, gas, ice, and other fishing and boat supplies. Come and enjoy the view, put your boat in at the landing, try the food, and have fun at Polly's Landing this Friday - or any day of the week all year round.

For directions, reviews, and other information about Polly's Landing, visit their Facebookpage on the Internet. Polly's Landing is located just off I-95, right on the shores of Lake Marion. Take I-95, exit 102. Polly's is right next to the luxurious North Shore Condos & Villas at Lake Marion.

* Also, check out the Summerton SC: Nature & Outdoor Recreation web site.

The 'Open' Education & Training Revolution Continues to Spread

First came free and 'open' source software. Then along came 'Open Access', 'Open' Data, 'Open' Standards, 'Open' IT Architecture, 'Open' Hardware, 'Open' Communities, 'Open' Government, 'Open' Education, and …  The 'Open' Movement continues to spread disrupting almost every industry.  The 'Open' Revolution is a rapidly spreading 21st century global phenomenon.
 
This article focuses on some of the major disruptive changes occurring related to the field of 'Open Education & Training, in both the public and private sector. These include everything from 'open access' journals and textbooks to 'open source' education and training software - and the latest phenomena, Massive Open Online Courses (MOOC).  Pay attention South Carolina!
 
Background
 
The number and quality of free and 'open source' education and training software products out there continues to grow. Have you checked some of them out? They are aimed at students, teachers, and public and private sector education and training organizations.  Have you heard of Sakai, Kuali, Kaltura, Moodle,  or Zotero? Check out some of the better products now available – go to the COSI Open Education web site.
 
You might also want to check out some of the many sources of high quality, free and 'open access' journals and textbooks available on the web. Do you know about Bentham Open Access, OER Commons, Versita Open, or the Directory of Open Access Journals (DOAJ)? Check out these and many of the other 'Open Access' Education resources.
 
Then there are Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) web sites that offer low cost, online courses aimed at nearly unlimited levels of participation by students or trainees around the globe. In addition to using traditional course materials (e.g. textbooks, videos), MOOCs also provide interactive user forums that help build a community for the students, professors, and instructors. MOOCs are a relatively recent development in distance education.
 
Massive Open Online Courses (MOOC) emerged from the open educational resources (OER) movement. The term MOOC was first coined in 2008 by Dave Cormier of the University of Prince Edward Island and Senior Research Fellow Bryan Alexander of the National Institute for Technology in Liberal Education in Canada. You can read a lot more about the history of MOOCs on Wikipedia.
 
While MOOCs initially emerged and were used in academic settings, many private corporations around the world have begun to embrace them as a new, cost effective alternative for providing training to their employees.
 
Major Examples of 'Open' Education & Training Solutions
 
The following are brief profiles of some of the more notable Massive Open Online Course (MOOC) platforms that are currently available:
 
edX  is a non-profit collaborative organization and web portal offering interactive Massive Open Online Courses (MOOC) in subjects such as law, history, science, engineering, business, social sciences, computer science, public health, and more. Their decision to release their source code to the community was made to further accelerate enhancements to the platform.
Coursera  is an education company that has partnered with top universities and organizations around the world to offer free courses online for anyone to take. Coursera enables its partners to offer their courses to millions of students. It has emerged as the current leader of the pack, with over 10 million enrollments in Coursera from approximately 195 countries.
Udacity  is a for-profit education and training organization offering Massive Open Online Courses (MOOC). Their mission is to help reinvent education for the 21st century by bridging the gap between real-world skills, relevant education, and employment.
Udemy  is another for-profit education and raining company helping its students make career moves – whether it be getting a promotion, breaking into a new industry, starting a company, or furthering a passion.
 
Other MOOC platforms to check out include Academic Earth, FutureLearn, OER University, OpenCurriculum, and YouTube EDU.
 
Corporate Training & MOOCs 
 
Massively Open Online Courses (MOOC) are starting to impact corporate education and training programs. One of the most obvious benefits of making world-class academic and corporate educational experiences available online is the opportunity to lower training costs.
 
For example, a one day training program for 100 employees at a remote site could easily cost an organization well over $100,000 to hold.  Use of MOOCs allow the costs of developing course content and delivery of training to be amortized over thousands of company employees taking self-paced training sessions – with no major travel, facility, or equipment expenses required.
 
Many of today's knowledge workers are 'always on', expecting to access information and training anywhere, anytime – as needed.  MOOCs are ideally suited to these workers of the future. There is an excellent article posted on Wired.com entitled MOOCs On The Move From Colleges To Companies that is well worth reading and goes into the topic of MOOCs  in much more detail.
 
The article notes that major corporations around the world are adding online courses to their new 'blended learning' training programs with increasing success.  It also states that "Online access to company training courses is making it possible for corporate employees outside of headquarters to have the same opportunity for management training and promotion as their HQ peers; for foreign contractors to perform at the same level as their local peers; and for small companies to provide the same level and frequency of training to their employees as their larger competitors. "
 
An increasing number of corporate Human Resource (HR) management  officials are giving MOOCs a closer look as a new, more cost effective way to deliver training to employees. After trying it out, many early adopters have warming to the idea and are sharing their 'lessons learned' from their pilot initiatives with others.
 
Major Issues & Challenges
 
MOOCs are a relatively new phenomena. As they continue to catch on and gather momentum, resistance to them is increasing. There are numerous obstacles to overcome in the coming years before MOOCs find their place, as the field of education and training rapidly changes to meet the challenges of the 21st century 'Information Age'.
 
Some of the many challenges and issues that must be addressed include:
• Helping people overcome their fear of change and adjust to the new technologies and solutions – whether they be faculty, students, management, employees, young, or old.
• Helping facilitate radical change in how academic institutions and corporations currently offer education and training
• Changing outdated legislation or policies that favor the status quo – traditional classroom training offered by 'brick and mortar' institutions
• Continue to recognize and facilitate the move towards lifelong learning – offered to anyone, anywhere, anytime
• Continue the move towards the privatization of education and training at all levels – high school, college, on-the-job, etc.
• Continue to enhance the technologies and processes needed to provide high quality, online distance learning solutions
• Continue to make changes to current education and training programs and practices – college degrees programs vs. certification programs; obtaining accreditation for online courses; …
• Address the many privacy and security issues raised as we move towards use of many new technologies and more online education & training programs
• Explore and create new revenue opportunities for academic institutions, faculty, and private corporations providing education and training to people around the world.
 
Conclusions
 
Bottom Line - Traditional educational institutions are going to change dramatically over the coming years – investing more heavily in new technologies; increasingly going online; going after corporate customers; thinking global; offering certificates in addition to degrees; using open access textbooks; cutting costs while simultaneously offering more services; reducing academic staff; learning to be more flexible and 'open' minded…
 
Corporate training program will continue to evolve and outsource much of their training – the difference being that they will increasing make use of low cost, Massive Open Online Courses (MOOC) offerings by public and private sector organizations.  Some of the larger corporations will  stand up their own MOOC systems – using some of the many high quality 'open source' software tools now available, as well as using 'open access' textbooks and raining materials. They may even generate revenue by offering training to others outside their own organization.
 
Globalization, international competitiveness, and the growth of the knowledge-based industries of the 21st century will drive the growth of MOOCs. India has already grabbed the #2 spot in use of MOOCs, after the U.S.  Expect Europe, China, and a growing number of other countries to quickly take advantage of MOOCs as they compete in the global marketplace.
 
Have you used a MOOC? What was the experience like? How can they be improved? Do you think the use of MOOCs will spread to South Carolina? Share your constructive impressions and ideas with us.

Key Massive 'Open' Online Courses (MOOC) Links

• Academic Earth  • Coursera • edX • FutureLearn • Khan Academy  • LearnZillion • MOOC.org

• OER University (OERu) • OpenCurriculum • Peer to Peer University (P2PU)   • Udacity • Udemy   • YouTube EDU

'Open Source' Business Models

While I wanted to come up with as short a list as possible, I ended up with a list of approximately 15-20 of the most successful business models or strategies for organizations providing 'open source' solutions. The optimum model for particular organizations to pursue depends on their mission, goals, licensing, context, and numerous other factors or variables, e.g. geography, competition, market.
   

Matthew Aslett, from the consulting firm “The 451 Group” authored a report  entitled “Open Source is not a Business Model.” One of the key conclusions of the report was that 'open source' is a business strategy or tactic, not a business model.

Quite often the number of business models, strategies, or tactics related to the development and deployment of open source solutions depends on the profit motive driving particular individuals and organizations. For example, consider the following. There are:

• non-profit organizations or communities that are not interested in making huge profits from their  free and open source software (FOSS) solutions, but are more interested in simply creating and distributing high quality, free software and solutions that will be of benefit to as many people as possible.
• then there are those individual or organizations that want to profit from the development, distribution, and retail sales associated with various open source products and commercial add-on modules they have created and released using somewhat restrictive licenses; and
• there are also numerous individuals or organizations that want to make a living and generate profits by offering a wide range of services in support of the open source solutions, e.g. installation, training, maintenance.

Over the past decade, numerous entrepreneurial individuals and organizations have tackled the idea of how to make money out of open source software. The idea that the only way of generating revenue from open source software is by providing support services - has become outdated.

There are now a wide variety of business strategies, tactics, or business models being employed by to generate revenue from open source software. For example:

• Many non-profit organizations obtain funding to support the development and distribution of their free and open source software (FOSS) solution from membership dues, subscription fees, donations, and/or grants.
• Many for profit organizations are paid for producing enhanced professional or enterprise versions of an open source product governed by very restrictive licenses. They may also offer add-on modules or bundle the open source software within other hardware and software products they offer.
• Other for profit organizations charge for a wide range of services, e.g. consulting, installation, documentation, training, system enhancements, software maintenance & patches.

Many other innovative companies are emerging and learning how to profit from the open source marketplace, e.g. news organizations, marketing firms, hosting, software-as-a-service (SAAS), open hardware, etc.  In addition, there are now organizations providing products and services related to open source hardware, open access publications, open data solutions, and more.

_____________________________________________

Other Examples of Alternative 'Open Source' Business Models

The following is a list of some of the more common alternative forms of open source business models repeatedly described in numerous published articles:

Software Support Business Model
In this model, companies sell certified distributions of open source software along with a range of after-sale professional technical support services. Some companies provide immediate access to the latest patched and certified version of the software to their paying customers only.

Software Services Business Model
In this model, a company may sell installation, maintenance, documentation, and training services for the open source software.

Software as a Service (SaaS) Model
In a SaaS model, customers pay for the hosting, streaming, and delivery of the open source software solution on a managed set of servers offering cloud-based services.

Ad Ware Business Model
This is a variation on the SaaS model.  The user doesn't pay anything for use of the open source solution; the advertiser pays instead, e.g. Google, ZDNet.

Consulting Services
Under this model, a variety of consulting services are offered by a company. For example, a company may provide a range of management consulting, implementation, and  training services related to the use of open source solutions by specific domains, e.g. healthcare, finance, manufacturing.

Proprietary Software Model
In this model, a company offers a more closed, proprietary licensed version of a similar open source software solution. This protects them against some of the risks associated with developing products that use open source GPL licensed software.

CAUTION: Under an open source GPL licensing, if the open source software is linked to your company's proprietary software, the proprietary software also becomes open source. Consumers buy commercial friendly open source licensed software to avoid this potential problem.

Premium Software Model
In this model, a company sells premium commercial software add-on modules or applications in conjunction with the open source software product, often packaging both together, e.g. Jaspersoft.

Dual Licensing Model
This is a variation of the proprietary software business models just described. A company may release the code they own under both a standard commercial license, as well as an Open Source License. Using this approach, customers can be attracted to a no-cost and open-source edition, then later agree to acquire a more robust, multi-user commercial enterprise edition.

Hybrid Model
There is a related, hybrid model in which a vendor forks a non-copyleft software project then adds closed-source additions to it and sells the resulting software. After a fixed time period, the company may release the patches or enhancements back upstream under the same open source license as the rest of the codebase.

Platform Integration Services
With the introduction of service-oriented architecture, many companies no longer buy software from one particular vendor. They build software using components from different vendors and integrate them to best meet their unique business needs. There are numerous risks and issues that need to be considered when mixing and matching open source with proprietary products.

Hardware Integration Model
In this model, hardware companies may bundle open source software into their product. The software is free, you just buy the box it runs in., e.g.  Android smartphones. This may allow the hardware company to significantly lower the cost of their products.

Indirect Services & Accessories
Companies may choose to provide indirect services and accessories for open source systems. This may include providing news and information, selling books, marketing, training materials, hardware accessories, t-shirts, e.g. O'Reilly Associates, Open Health News.

Non-Profit Business Models
Many non-profit organizations are not interested in making huge profits from their  free and open source software (FOSS) solutions, but are interested in simply creating and distributing high quality, free software and solutions that will be of benefit to as many people as possible. However, they often need some level of funding to support their efforts. 

Many open source software projects are supported by a "sugar daddy", e.g. Firefox has Google; Eclipse has IBM; and VistA has the VA. Some establish foundations that require membership fees. Some pursue charitable grants or simply ask for donations to support their work. Sometimes the user community may come together and pool their resources to help develop a desired feature or functionality.

Independent Contractors/Developers
A growing number of programmers in the open source software community offer their services as independent contractors to develop, install, maintain, or enhance open source software for others.  You'll run across many of them on SourceForge, GitHub, or particular community web sites, e.g. Drupal, Wordpress.

Public Domain Model
Governments or other non-governmental organizations may develop software internally or hire a contractor for custom in-house modifications to software, then release that code under an open-source license.

Defensive Business Model/Strategy
Some companies may choose to pursue an open source business strategy or model to gain access to innovative new ideas, software code, or to reduce software development costs and timeframes. It also allows them to take a portion of market share for services and support for popular open source solutions. It may also allow them to join a community and beak a monopolistic hold a company may have on a particular area, e.g. web browsers, server software, etc.

Finally, in putting together this feature article, I ran across over 80 other open source business models or strategies related to forming partnerships with other companies; creating franchised services and solutions, and much more. Many are simply a variation on the models described above. If you have found a truly new and unique business model that you're willing to share with us, please send us a short write up or description of the model.

Remember, a company doesn't have to use just one business model. They can mix-and-match models as they see fit, moving to a more profitable model as circumstances change.

The list of successful 'open source' organizations offering high quality software products, publications, projects, and services  continues to grow. Let us know about other major open source 'business models' that we may have missed.

Other Recommended Articles Open Source Business Models Open Source Business Models, Revisited Open Source Case for Business  Five Models For Open Source Revenue 11 open source business models Open Technology & Open Source Business Models Business Models for Open Source Business Models for Open Source Software * See Google search results for other recent news articles on Open Source & Business Models

Local High School Varsity Basketball Schedules & Stats - January/February 2015

Check out the upcoming schedule, results, and statistics on your favorite local high school Basketball teams at MAXPREPS.Com

Clarendon Hall Saints - Varsity Boys Basketball Team
Clarendon Hall Saints - Varsity Girls Basketball Team

Scotts Branch Eagles - Varsity Boys Basketball Team
Scotts Branch Eagles - Varsity Girls Basketball Team

Manning High Monarchs - Varsity Boys Basketball Team
Manning High Monarchs - Varsity Girls Basketball Team

Laurence Manning Swampcats - Varsity Boys Basketball Team
Laurence Manning Swampcats - Varsity Girls Basketball Team