Applying business fundamentals (2006.10.16)

Business benefits society in two ways. Directly, business creates jobs. Indirectly, business develops technology to manage the creation, marketing, and distribution of goods and services. It is the application of the latter that we address in this brief discussion of the Global Text Project, whose vision is to develop 1,000 university texts for students in the developing world.

If the Global Text Project is to fulfill its vision, it needs to develop a brand and production, marketing, and distribution systems. It is no different from a traditional business in this respect and thus needs to apply exactly the same business principles if it is to be an agent of change.

Branding
Brands inform consumers about the characteristics of a product and reduce search costs. There are a number of projects creating open content for university students and potential adopters have to find these sites and then judge the quality of their products. Global Text must create a brand that stands for credible authoritative books that have strong editorial control. Each chapter will be under the control of a topic expert who will insure that the chapter is complete and screen all contributions before acceptance. By promoting the brand and what it means, Global Text, will provide a central repository where suitable texts can be found.

Production
Creating books is a production process, and Global Text needs to build a simple to use system that enables many to participate in the creation of a book. The technology needs to be author supportive so that potential contributors are not daunted by their lack of technical knowledge. Building this production system must address fundamentally the same issues facing any organization fashioning a web-based customer service system.

Marketing and distribution
All companies need to ensure that customers learn about and can get access to their products. In a global economy, distribution systems are wide and deep (e.g., a fast food chain or a parcel delivery firm), and Global Text needs a similar system. We will need to create a marketing network to get the word out about the books. For example, if we release a biology book how do we make every biology professor in the developing world aware of its existence within a few weeks? In our case, the marketing and distribution systems must be both Internet based in order to keep costs manageable.

Management team
As well as finding volunteers to edit and contribute to books, Global Text also needs to find within its volunteer community the skills necessary to build and manage a brand, create and manage an Internet-based production system (e.g., a wiki extended to meet the needs of texts), establish a marketing and distribution network. These volunteers will most probably come from within business schools or the business community, where one finds the knowledge and experience to run global enterprises.

The world's businesses have developed the expertise and talent to meet consumers' needs and wants. These same talents are required whether needs and wants are for music players or free texts. The Global Text Project is fundamentally a business, albeit one without a profit motive, and it needs to apply business thinking to meet a fundamental need for educating the leaders of the world's developing economies.

Rick