by

William Overington

John looked up as the refectory door crashed open and Edith Gatford came striding towards him, looking very, very, annoyed. She almost threw the letter that she was carrying onto the table in front of him.

"IFDEP aren't going to buy any more eutotokens!", she blurted out.

"Oh no!" exclaimed John, for he knew that International Free Distance Education Publishing PLC, to give IFDEP its full title, was the major customer of Encouragement of Creativity and Invention Limited, for whom both he and Edith worked. Clearly a major crisis.

"But why?" continued John.

"Oh, I don't know, they say that they now have an established list of good learning material authors and that they consider that it is more appropriate to pay them wholly in cash rather than partly in cash and partly in eutotokens."

She continued "There's a bit about thanking us for our efforts and wishing us every success and so on, but the bottom line is that we now have a major problem, we might well go under!"

"Surely not", said John, "we just have to scale operations back a bit."

"In theory, yes" said Edith, "but what if others follow suit. We have fixed costs for things like salaries, yours and mine!"

"Ah, yes", said John "I see what you mean."

It was some time later and John was pondering the problem. What was to be done? One possibility was to try to persuade the directors of IFDEP to change their minds. That was always a possibility and Edith had gone back to her office, after a calming cup of peppermint tea, to write a letter requesting a meeting. "Not grovelling, you understand, but requesting a meeting", as Edith had put it before she had departed. John did not hold out a lot of hope on Edith persuading the directors of IFDEP to change their minds now that the decision had been made and had been delivered in writing. What to do? Then it came to him. He would start a new company to compete directly with IFDEP. Hit them where it hurt, in their advertising revenue. IFDEP made a lot of money from advertising revenue for the advertising that accompanied the free learning material on their world wide web site. A rival company, yes a rival, no messing about with the notion of different companies sharing a marketplace big enough for all. New learning packages, better written, better tutorial support. Yes, that's the way. And pay the learning material authors with a combination of cash and eutotokens, just as IFDEP had been doing up until now. The learning material authors would clearly prefer a combination of cash and eutotokens to just cash. They could then collect the eutotokens and exchange them for goods and services from Encouragement of Creativity and Invention Limited as they always had done. John paused. But would they? Would a straightforward cash payment perhaps appeal more to those who were, after all, established learning material authors? Yes, there might be a few idealists who would do their bit to help, but things were different now than from when the eutotoken scheme had first been implemented. Then, the eutotoken scheme had been a way to distribute the financial benefits to people who were just starting to find their feet in writing learning material to be published for free usage on the internet. Eutotokens permitted quotas to be avoided. If someone spent a lot of time writing a quality package of learning material to the guidelines of some particular project then he or she knew that it would be accepted on its merits regardless of the number of other packages written by other learning material authors. The rewards were spread out. Yet now, things had settled down. The supply of learning material was fairly steady and so, well yes, he could see that IFDEP might have a point. Yet only up to a point. What of new authors entering the system? The steady trickle of new authors gradually accumulated a lot of learning material on the world wide web, some of them became established authors and some only did a few packages, sometimes only one, yet it was important that new authors could become established. A short term approach of only using existing authors would be alright for a while, but gradually the cracks would begin to show and then the whole concept of free to the end user distance education on the internet might be in danger.

The next morning John had an answer. He sought out Edith.

"Any luck with IFDEP?" he asked.

"Well, I've just had a response to my e-mail about a meeting", said Edith somewhat gloomily. "Next Tuesday at IFDEP Headquarters."

"Well, it's a meeting" replied John, trying to be cheerful.

"A meeting with Peter Watson, senior manager."

"Not with a director?" said John in astonishment.

"No", said Edith solemnly.

"Well, while you are there, why don't you mention our new scheme" said John with a smile.

"What new scheme" said Edith, interested, because she knew the way that John liked to devise new schemes. Some were rubbish, but just occasionally there were gems.

"Qualifications for working through learning material on the internet, with full tutorial support."

Edith looked interested. "Go on", she said.

"IFDEP don't issue qualifications. Qualifications are what will bring in the students. And if IFDEP's student numbers drop, their advertising revenue will drop and then they will start to think again."

"You know as well as I do that we can't issue qualifications", said Edith.

"Not at present" said John.

"It will take a great deal of change and cost a lot of money" said Edith.

"Yes, yes" said John, "but look at the scheme I've thought out. Each student has to do some tutoring at two levels below where they are learning, as part of their course. We set the amount of tutoring that they have to do so that they each help a net equivalent of two or more other students, so that we get a chain reaction going. The assessments can be done by some of the people who are the tutors at the moment. Everybody will need to move up a step. Senior students will need to become tutors, existing tutors will need to become assessors."

"Ah", said Edith "You might need to make that a net equivalent of five or more students as fewer will proceed to the higher levels, but how are you going to get it started."

"Easy" said John "there are plenty of people who qualified in conventional educational establishments who can work through levels 1 and 2 without tutorial support and can then start working on level 3 and providing tutorial support at level 1. We only need one well qualified person to guide the first students through levels 3, 4 and 5 and then the system can be self-sufficient. We can afford to pay the learning material author to tutor a few students to get things going."

"One for each subject. Do you really think that we can afford it" said Edith.

"We might not have to" said John. "Mention the possibility to Peter Watson when you see him, that will give him something to think about!"

Edith had just returned from her meeting at IFDEP headquarters.

"Well?" asked John "Any change of heart?"

"No" said Edith rather despondently "All very polite, but they've made up their minds."

"Did you mention my idea?"

"Yes" I dropped it in "Jane Hove looked startled but Peter Watson simply said that it sounded all very interesting and wished us every success with it!"

"Well, let's do it" enthused John.

"It's too big a job for us" said Edith "We're fine issuing eutotokens and exchanging them for goods and services and making a bit of a noise about educational standards and so on, but we just can't afford to start a major scheme like you're suggesting."

"But" said John.

"I'm sorry John, it's just not possible" said Edith somewhat wearily.

"John" shouted Edith Gatford about ten minutes after starting time the next morning.

"Yes" said John as he looked up from his computer terminal, knowing full well what this was about.

"I've had IFDEP on to me this morning. They want you disciplined!"

"Me, hang on a minute, IFDEP is only a company...."

"Don't you 'only a company' me, IFDEP is very important."

"To whom, not to us, they pulled the plug!"

Edith knew he was theoretically right but could not quite put her anger into words, even though she knew she was annoyed.

"All I did, in my own time, at home, was to float my idea in a newsgroup on the internet and ask if anybody knew some financial backer who might like to sponsor a new company to provide such a qualification and tutorial supported system with a view to profiting from the advertising revenue."

"All you did" roared Edith Gatford "You know full well that you are one of the world's foremost respected designers of free distance education infrastructure. IFDEP's shares dropped on the stock market this morning, fell like a stone."

"Tough" replied John.

Edith went red with fury.

"Listen Edith", said John "Why are you bothered, IFDEP is nothing to us if they're not buying eutotokens."

"Because, John, last night just before I went home, Peter Watson rang. He wanted to see me 'to see if something could be worked out'. He wouldn't say much but he asked if you could come along to the meeting with me to say 'a few words' about your ideas for the qualification scheme. This morning I've had an IFDEP director on the 'phone!"

John looked rather perplexed.

"Peppermint tea?" he quietly asked.

"So what has really changed" asked John about half an hour later as they sipped their second cups of Peppermint tea in the refectory.

Edith looked knowingly and a little unforgivingly.

"Well," continued John "last night they wanted to see us, they can see us now."

"I'll have a word with them, try to soothe their feelings" said Edith.

Edith left and John began to think. It was a bit unfortunate, but IFDEP had asked for it, they had said that they weren't going to buy eutotokens to give out to authors of learning material any more. They had created the crisis. Still, it was a bit unfortunate and Edith was very annoyed. Yes, very unfortunate.

Edith returned.

"Well, they'll see me. But they won't have you on the premises."

"Oh" said John, half way between peeved and defiant.

"I do hope" said Edith "that until I've been to the meeting and got back you will kindly have the good grace not to discuss your ideas on the internet even if it is from your own home in your own time."

John now felt peeved and not at all defiant.

"It's no use" said Edith after her return from the meeting at IFDEP.

"Peter Watson said that he had hoped to salvage something but the directors had been adamant. They gave me no practical alternative."

"Practical?" John picked up on the word.

"Sack you" said Edith, in a tone that John realized meant that she had given the suggestion no consideration at all.

"Oh" said John. "Still, we're no worse off than when they wrote their letter in the first place."

"Well, we might be" continued Edith "they're threatening to sue."

"Why?" asked John incredulously.

"They say that their decision about the eutotokens was confidential and that you misused their information."

"How?"

"Because you published your idea."

"How does that make me at fault?"

"Look I don't necessarily agree with them but they say that it is well known that you would not have put an item out in a newsgroup like that unless there was something up. People reacted and their share price has gone down."

"Should be a good day in court" said John seemingly unperturbed.

"Oh do be realistic," said Edith, "you know that we can't afford it."

John had just started work the next morning when Edith arrived in his office.

"John, I've just had about 500 e-mails from prospective students asking when the qualification scheme is to start" said Edith.

"That's encouraging" said John.

"Anyway, I've had Peter Watson from IFDEP on the phone again and he has suggested another meeting" continued Edith.

"Are you going?" asked John.

"Of course I'm going. I did, however, ask him which of the directors of IFDEP would be present" she smiled.

"What did he say?" asked John with a smile.

"Not a lot. He said he'd try to find out" Edith smiled.

"Good. It looks like you're getting somewhere" said John.

"So," continued Edith "Could you possibly draw up a full project briefing on how your proposed qualification scheme would work please so that I can take it to the meeting with me. Please include a full explanation of how you see it being possible for IFDEP to run the scheme and still make a good profit."

"Should I put my name on it?" asked John a little hesitantly.

"Yes" said Edith, somewhat forcefully and pointedly looking him straight in the eye.

John felt an uncomfortable pause and a look of fierce indignation looking at him.

Edith then seemed to suddenly compose herself and quietly added

"Oh, and could you possibly work out who you would like in your team to advise IFDEP on getting the project off the ground in an educationally sound manner please. A short document would be appropriate to take along to the meeting."

John felt a little awkward at Edith's clear confidence in him even in the face of major adversity.

"Do you think they'll mind me being involved?" he asked a little hesitantly.

"Mind?" "Of course they'll mind" stormed Edith "I'm Secretary of Encouragement of Creativity and Invention Limited and they'll have to work out whether they mind enough to keep their share price heading downwards." Her annoyance exploded. "They'll have to realize that utopian capitalism is a hybrid of utopianism and capitalism, not a mixture. If they insist on a mixture, then they can mix it with me."

She paused. She looked proudly defiant, then turned on her heels and smartly left the room.

John felt somewhat relieved by all of this for he realized that Edith was clearly going to win again.