+1 to the apprehension. I certainly wouldn't be comfortable with SWC coming into Apple and giving a training for nothing. It also seems like a quick way to breed discontent among volunteers if a certain subset are able to go after paying contracts. Who decides what instructors work for free at Uni's, but others go to Monsanto and get $$$ (if I'm understanding Matt's comment)? That to me seems like an issue of fairness that is worth addressing.
To Greg's points. 1). I agree with this point, it seems like it would be tremendously difficult to be the moral arbiter for a loose collective of volunteers. Especially not on an adhoc basis. Perhaps if there was a mission drive morality clause in the by-laws, but that's not the case (perhaps it should be?). 2). This seems like a less complicated issue though. Surely the executive committee could come up with guidelines. Harvard may have a $29 billion endowment, but Monsanto's net in 2014 alone was on the order of $15 billion. Surely there could be a sliding scale for private industry based on revenue. Or even for university by endowment or type (public/private or size). 3). The budget for scientists in industry (in my experience anyway) to attend trainings etc is at least an order of magnitude (or two) than what I could spend as a graduate student. Should SWC just leave that money on the table when it could take a small slice to remain sustainable? On Wed, Mar 4, 2015 at 10:22 AM Matt Davis <[email protected]> wrote: > Greg can clarify, but I expect this means that Monsanto is looking for > instructors to run Software Carpentry-style workshops for money, not that > Monsanto is asking Software Carpentry to run workshops on their behalf. > It's not unusual for corporations to need SWC-style instruction and we've > been open to connecting interested instructors with those corporations, > after which we step out of the way and let the interested parties negotiate > rates and organization. > > - Matt > > On Wed, Mar 4, 2015 at 10:06 AM 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 <gvwilson@software-carpentry. >> org> 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
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