I emailed Greg privately in response to this. Here it is: Hi Greg,
I just want to register that something about this doesn't sit right with me. I'm not sure whether it is because of Monsanto's poor ethical record or because they are a huge multi-national, but my instinct is that they (and other similar corporations) can look after themselves with regard to internal training and that SWC should focus its energies elsewhere. I know that swc can't take profit, but Monsanto are definitely in a position to pay a market rate for this. I've not been around swc that long so I don't know if this is actually normal or not (working with big corps). I can see that there could be a longer game here and that mindshare is important. I could see some instructors getting a private contract out of this and that's fine. My thoughts on this aren't very coherent, and I don't expect you to change tack, but I feel conflicted so thought I'd better speak up. aaron On 4 March 2015 at 18:05, Turner, Stephen D. (sdt5z) <[email protected]> wrote: > I'll second the apprehension about providing free labor to corporations who > can very easily pay for it. And I wouldn't blow this off as a one-off thing, > a "let's just do it this time and figure it out later if it becomes a > problem" -kind of thing. When word gets out that we're providing training > worth big money for free to any corporation who asks for it, I'd imagine > we'll have lots more Monsantos knocking at our door (and not just global > multibillion dollar corps). I'd suggest some serious discussion amongst the > steering committee and everyone else on this list about what a policy should > look like. > > Stephen > > ----------------------------------------- > Stephen D. Turner, Ph.D. > Bioinformatics Core Director > University of Virginia School of Medicine > bioinformatics.virginia.edu > > > > On Mar 4, 2015, at 12:25 PM, Jason Moore <[email protected]> wrote: > > This is the first time I've noticed one of the workshops for a billion > dollar corporation. What is SWC's policy on providing volunteer labor for > corporations? I can get behind helping grad students at universities for > free, but this seems very different. Corporate training is big money. For > example, my girlfriend's place of business just paid $20k for a lousy two > day workshop a couple weeks ago. Seems like this kind of thing would be > ideal to do to fund SWC's more altruistic goals, but I'm not sure that > having volunteers teaching it is necessarily what everyone has in mind. Not > to mention, Monsanto isn't the most liked of companies. I'd potentially feel > ok volunteering for corporate training if I knew it meant a strong pay off > to our non-profit. > > That's just a thought. Sounds like something worthy of a board discussion if > it hasn't happened yet. At the last non-profit I worked at, these topics > certainly kept us at the meeting longer than we'd wished. > > > Jason > moorepants.info > +01 530-601-9791 > > On Wed, Mar 4, 2015 at 6:43 AM, Greg Wilson > <[email protected]> wrote: >> >> Hi everyone, >> >> We've been approached by Monsanto to run two or even three workshops side >> by side on April 20-21 in St Louis. They're looking for instructors with >> backgrounds in stats, genomics/bioinformatics, or both - if you're >> interested and available, please add yourself to >> https://swcarpentry.etherpad.mozilla.org/instructors-US. They have a lot of >> scientists who need our skills, so I'm hopeful that a good first showing >> will lead to repeat business... >> >> Thanks, >> Greg >> >> -- >> Dr. Greg Wilson | [email protected] >> Software Carpentry | http://software-carpentry.org >> >> >> _______________________________________________ >> Instructors mailing list >> [email protected] >> >> http://lists.software-carpentry.org/mailman/listinfo/instructors_lists.software-carpentry.org > > > _______________________________________________ > Discuss mailing list > [email protected] > http://lists.software-carpentry.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss_lists.software-carpentry.org > > > > _______________________________________________ > Discuss mailing list > [email protected] > http://lists.software-carpentry.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss_lists.software-carpentry.org _______________________________________________ Discuss mailing list [email protected] http://lists.software-carpentry.org/mailman/listinfo/discuss_lists.software-carpentry.org
