{"id":256,"date":"2011-01-07T13:46:53","date_gmt":"2011-01-07T19:46:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mikeraffety.com\/blog\/?p=256"},"modified":"2011-01-07T13:47:20","modified_gmt":"2011-01-07T19:47:20","slug":"publishing-all-manuals","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mikeraffety.com\/blog\/2011\/01\/07\/publishing-all-manuals\/","title":{"rendered":"Publishing ALL manuals on-line?"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/a>\"\"<\/a>Radical idea:\u00a0 Openly publish all our manuals and education materials on the TI web site, for anyone to read or use.<\/p>\n

Why?\u00a0 Many members, especially those overseas, are affected by expensive and slow shipping.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

We could use DRM (Digital Rights Management<\/a>) to encrypt and copy-protect electronic manuals, but there’s no such thing as an unbreakable DRM scheme.\u00a0 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.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n

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.\u00a0 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.<\/p>\n

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.).\u00a0 No, this needs some research and review, a pilot program, and if everything looks good, a gradual rollout.\u00a0 WHQ recently published a number of education pamphlets (Effective Evaluation<\/em>, Gestures: Your Body Speaks<\/em> and Your Speaking Voice<\/em> booklets<\/a>), and Moments of Truth<\/em><\/a> has been out there for a couple of years.\u00a0 Continue by adding the rest of the Successful Club Series<\/em> (mostly useful only within Toastmasters anyway) and contest forms, then maybe an advanced manual or two, or the Leadership Excellence Series<\/em>.<\/p>\n

Doing so will vastly increase the on-line visibility of Toastmasters.\u00a0 People will find these materials and become interested in joining Toastmasters.\u00a0 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!<\/p>\n

What do you think?\u00a0 Are there significant drawbacks I’ve missed?\u00a0 Add your thoughts in the comments!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Radical idea:\u00a0 Openly publish all our manuals and education materials on the TI web site, for anyone to read or use. Why?\u00a0 Many members, especially those overseas, are affected by expensive and slow shipping.\u00a0 That might be helped by having local contract printers in the larger countries or regions, but we can’t do that everywhere, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[112,111],"class_list":["post-256","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-miscellaneous-toastmasters","tag-internet","tag-manuals"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mikeraffety.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/256","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mikeraffety.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mikeraffety.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mikeraffety.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mikeraffety.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=256"}],"version-history":[{"count":8,"href":"https:\/\/mikeraffety.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/256\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":765,"href":"https:\/\/mikeraffety.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/256\/revisions\/765"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mikeraffety.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=256"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mikeraffety.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=256"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mikeraffety.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=256"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}