Radical idea: Openly publish all our manuals and education materials on the TI web site, for anyone to read or use.
Why? Many members, especially those overseas, are affected by expensive and slow shipping. That might be helped by having local contract printers in the larger countries or regions, but we can’t do that everywhere, and it still costs money to print and ship.
As well, a growing number of members would like to have their manuals in an on-line form, enabling them to work on a presentation anywhere.
We could give electronic manuals only to paid members, but you can be sure someone will post them on a web site or blog or file-sharing service — and it only takes one such person to do so, since Google will find everything.
We could use DRM (Digital Rights Management) to encrypt and copy-protect electronic manuals, but there’s no such thing as an unbreakable DRM scheme. There’s always a way to break it, and it only takes one person to do so and then post the unencrypted manuals for anyone to use. There’s not much point in bothering with it, and it will just annoy members who want to use the materials on a device that doesn’t support the chosen DRM scheme.
The value in Toastmasters is not in the manuals and education materials, but in the club meeting: the actual presentation of the speech and the evaluations that follow. Sure, people will download the CC manual and try to learn from it, but they’ll quickly realize they need an audience and an evaluator, and they can find both at a Toastmasters club for very little cost.
I’m not saying just flip the switch and post all the materials at once, and I’m not saying we stop sending printed manuals out to members (it could be a checkbox on the new member application, “no printed manuals needed” along with English, Japanese, etc.). No, this needs some research and review, a pilot program, and if everything looks good, a gradual rollout. WHQ recently published a number of education pamphlets (Effective Evaluation, Gestures: Your Body Speaks and Your Speaking Voice booklets), and Moments of Truth has been out there for a couple of years. Continue by adding the rest of the Successful Club Series (mostly useful only within Toastmasters anyway) and contest forms, then maybe an advanced manual or two, or the Leadership Excellence Series.
Doing so will vastly increase the on-line visibility of Toastmasters. People will find these materials and become interested in joining Toastmasters. It could spark significant membership growth, while at the same time, improving service to our members (instant delivery), lowering costs (no shipping) and going green!
What do you think? Are there significant drawbacks I’ve missed? Add your thoughts in the comments!
Mike – how much of a profit center are the manuals for TI? I would think this would be the primary concern from a business perspective.
If it’s not going to significantly impact revenues, then by all means, publish online.
As it is, you can find information that provides a synopsis of manuals, and if someone really had no scruples, it would take only a day or so to scan and .pdf the manuals and create bootlegs now. The fact that they don’t exist reflects, in my eyes, the overall high character of the average TM member.
Rich, excellent question. I’m sure I don’t have all the answers, but I’d like to start a dialog on possibly doing this. The 2009 financial report (http://www.toastmasters.org/Members/MembersFunctionalCategories/AboutTI/Annual-Financial-Reports/2009FinRpt.aspx) indicates that sales of educational materials accounted for 8% of revenue. By comparison, 10% of expenses were for educational materials, suggesting a net loss (or certainly no great profit, anyway).
My concern is that if the materials are widely available online, there may be some who will try to emulate a Toastmasters club setting without the knowledge of experienced Toastmasters serving as sponsors and mentors. A few years ago, a fellow club member approached me because a school teacher wanted to use the Competent Communicator manual to facilitate a public speaking course for her students.
I believe that such a misuse of the CC manual would create an injustice to the students, who could benefit much more from a YLS taught by Toastmasters. Such a misuse also would be an injustice to Toastmasters International because the use of the materials by unqualified individuals would dilute the quality of the Toastmasters program.
Dori, good point, and I believe that can be addressed by control of the copyright and trademark, but I would leave that to the lawyers to consider.
Legal action probably could be taken for unauthorized use of the manuals . . . but only if WHQ becomes aware of such unauthorized use.
True, just as today.
Yes, but with all due respect, such unauthorized use is MUCH more likely to occur if the manuals are posted online for the general public to download and print. On the other hand, I was able to prevent the unauthorized use of the CC manual by the classroom teacher whom I mentioned in a previous entry submitted this morning . . . I simply refused to order the manuals for her. Hopefully other Toastmasters would take the same stance if they are presented with a similar request.
As I say, it’s a topic for discussion, not a “Let’s do it all right now” proposal.
The students of such a teacher might be much more likely to get involved in Toastmasters later on, when their class is done, even if the teacher did that.
I understand that this is just a discussion at this point.
But now that the subject has been broached, do we want to risk unauthorized use of the manuals with the idea that such use might result in positive PR for the organization? It also might result in negative PR if non-Toastmasters who lack Toastmasters skills and knowledge (such as the teacher referenced above) provide a low-quality introduction to Toastmasters . . . with whitewashed or overly critical speech evaluations as examples.
Furthermore, it is my recollection that the students in question were well under 18 and would have had no opportunity to proceed from the classroom to a bona fide Toastmasters club for several years, thereby reducing the effectiveness of any PR produced by their classroom exposure to the manuals.
No perfect solution, but I believe it is something we need to look into, and at this point, I think the positives outweigh the negatives quite significantly, especially when you factor in service to the member.
Mike, I believe that the discussion between PR and unauthorized usage misses what you implied in your initial post: better worldwide recruitment and retention of members and not mere PR.
Toastmasters is cost effective for North Americans and for many in our member countries. With the international dues remaining relatively constant in U.S. dollars and international exchange rates fluctuating annually, the current low value of the U.S. dollar makes Toastmasters affordable to many, but not all, around the world. In those countries where being a member of Toastmasters is a luxury, printing charges to those countries make Toastmasters even less affordable.
I embrace the I in TI beyond our regional administration of Districts. I advocate leadership and communication excellence to all, throughout the world, independent of social class. That’s what Dr. Smedley promoted in his public speaking classes at that YMCA in SoCal. Dr. Smedley could have easily presented his courses at a local university or fraternal organization, but he made the conscious choice to outreach to those who did not have the inherent advantage of education or network. Dr. Smedley advocated leadership and communication excellence to Everyman.
As of 1972, his advocacy speaks to Everywoman as well. At one TLI, I was training VPMs. One young lady asked in all sincerity: “I love Toastmasters, but I actually joined to meet men. I don’t see many around. In what clubs can I meet men?” After laughing out loud, I shared with her that we were regrettably a segregated organization until 1972. Our opening the doors to women is likely our biggest organizational success story. After that Wall of Jericho came a-tumbling down, I continued that we still have work to do to make this organization accessible to all, especially to those less fortunate around us.
One of my clubs started a scholarship fund that has covered the first six months of membership (international + club) for those who sincerely cannot afford our dues. We placed stringent attendance and project completion requirements in writing as a stipulation for us covering them. The result: not one scholarship recipient has ever left after those first six months. They found so much warmth and fellowship that they scraped the money together to renew six months later. One such woman rose to becoming an Area Governor!
Closing the loop, the cost of manuals can place membership in Toastmasters out of reach to many outside of North America. Advocacy of excellence in leadership and communication to those less fortunate throughout the world far outweighs the cost of unauthorized usage of materials. In that, I believe Dr. Smedley would agree.
Aref N. Dajani, DTM
Greenbelt, Maryland, USA
Past District 27 Governor
“Relax, it’s only Toastmasters.”
Aref, what a great message, thank you for your support!
I wonder if maybe the CCs and CLs are the wrong implementation here? You mentioned “Moments of Truth”, and maybe the right answer is to look at those underutilized programs like Better Speaker, Successful Club and Leadership Excellence series along with Success Communication and Success Leadership modules as the right starting point for such a program.
Some items, like the MoT poster and Speechcraft manuals, could still be available for purchase to allow a more professional appearance when needed.
Rob, I would certainly START with all the other materials, leaving the CC manual for last (after there’s a lot of experience with this). And I would not recommend we stop selling print copies either, for many reasons.
I believe the better solution is local printing plus delivery of printed materials to the individual member. That is the standard that World Headquarters began with…and all of us know it. It’s just that some of us are not getting equal service.
Putting a PDF on the website, in addition to inviting some of the issues already mentioned, degrades the high printing quality of the manuals. Furthermore, there are still many members who do not have access to broadband services that many in this forum probably do. Ours is an organization that puts high value in service to each individual member—with or without access to broadband.
In the local printing option, however, the *publisher* will still be Toastmasters International..It’s just that an electronic image of the document that is edited in California (manual, whatever) is transmitted to a local printer (possibly in-country, depending on the country) who then prints the document and sends it to the member. Toastmasters International, as the publisher, has the final say not only on content of the materials but also the general “look and feel” and branding involved.
Yes, that approach will mean managing a printing and delivery contract with a printer that World Headquarters staff would not know personally. Yes, it would mean periodic re-negotiation of the contract.
My take on it? With approval of Proposition A, our organization made a major commitment to grow to a truly International organization—not simply an American organization with less well-represented Districts Not Assigned to Regions. Our fastest-growing market is in ->India (where, btw, there are many printers). Get over it, America. It’s time for equal service to all.
Susan, you’re right, many and perhaps most members will still want printed manuals, and we need to offer those at a reasonable cost and with fast delivery, which means satellite printing services in major countries. Google for “global on-demand printing”, and quite a few companies come up with presence in dozens of countries world-wide.
I just want explore the potential of giving our members a CHOICE to download (or not), and to vastly improve the visibility of Toastmasters as “THE leading movement devoted to making effective oral communication a worldwide reality.”
I think all materials need to be downloadable from the TI website. I’ve been pleased to see the magazine going online.
Just because there is a likely potential for misuse, that potential exists today. If you look hard enough you can find them today. Having them come from TI is a much better option.
Saving 2% of revenue (theoretically) seems like it would be an added bonus.
Rather than focus on misuse, focus on the fantastic opportunity ahead.
John.
Hard copies of the manuals do not stop people from making photocopies of them, having soft copies just make it a little bit easier to make copies -that’s all.
In fact by not making soft copies available, TM is “punishing” people who don’t want to have to carry their manuals back and forth with them.
Personally, I would find it much easier if I could just have my manuals all downloaded to my e-reader or be able to log into the TMI website and download the manual when I need it – especially if I am travelling or simply don’t have my manual with me that day.
I do my banking online, I make airline, hotel & restaurant reservations online, I read books on my e-reader, I email & IM people, I use a software tool for the meeting Timer position (I am 50% more efficient than if I had to do things by hand). I don’t watch “live” TV – I PVR/Tivo everything or watch it via the Internet.
Some of you may perhaps have formed a picture in your mind of me as a hermit, a geek, but I am an extrovert who has a rich (in-person) social life. But the truth is I just happen to hate inefficiency and thus I use technology to facilitate my everyday life.
Technology is part of the world we live in, if we focus on the negative aspects of it, then Toastmasters will stand on the sidelines as the rest of the world skips ahead of us and some other organization meets people’s needs. (If you have ever read the book “Who Moved My Cheese” you’ll know what I am talking about).
Donna
Do you know that Amazon sells more books electronically then in print? They don’t seem to have concerns with misuse and CRM breaking, etc. Lets not design the system for the <1% of the people who may break the law or intent, but make it easy for the 99% of decent humans who would benefit from having access to the manuals. Its time the manuals are available online. As a first step just to members. Then we can debate weather we want them available to all.