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California Bill Brings Online College One Step Closer

In California, public college students are used to waiting to try to register for popular or required courses. But if a newly introduced state bill passes, those students may soon be able to take classes online rather than waiting in line.

The bill, introduced by California Senate President Pro Tempore Darrell Steinberg (D-Sacramento), would allow students at public colleges to take web-based "massive open online courses" (MOOCs) for academic credit in place of certain courses necessary for degree completion if spots are not available in on-campus sections of those courses. Credit would be awarded based on recommendations by the American Council on Education. While faculty panels would have the chance to review online courses and choose appropriate replacements for particular over-registered classes, schools would no longer be able to withhold credit altogether from students seeking online alternatives.

The bill addresses a statewide problem of over-registration for introductory courses in core subjects, particularly at the community college level. The state's community college system has been sandwiched between budget cuts on one side and increasing demand for higher education on the other. As a result, last fall, three quarters of California's 112 community colleges were forced to turn students away. The schools' waitlists averaged 7,000 students. Even those students who are able to matriculate still often find themselves unable to register for the classes they need to graduate or to continue their studies. They must sometimes spend additional semesters in school, simply waiting for spots to open in the required classes.

The online replacement courses promoted by the bill would be offered by third-party providers, some of which are profit-seeking businesses, including Udacity, Straighterline, EdX and Coursera. The program would be paired with an existing statewide effort to promote the use of free, open-source textbooks, according to a press release from the 20 Million Minds Foundation, a California non-profit that focuses on reducing textbook costs. (1)

Using online resources to fill the course gap makes a lot of sense. Allowing students to study introductory-level material in virtual classrooms can keep them on the path to graduation, while freeing up classroom space and time for more advanced classes.

On the surface, allowing online programs to pick up the slack in introductory-level instruction may seem like a professor's dream. My guess, however, is that instructors and administrators at California's public colleges will not be pleased. In fact, if it were not for resistance from within academia, there would be no need for the bill, because students would already be able to take courses online for credit.

The reason students need the bill to pass before they can click "Enroll" is accreditation; so far, very few online programs have received it. The college accreditation process, which is run by private organizations dominated by academics and administrators, serves to entrench existing institutions at the expense of competitors that could prove more cost-effective. Rather than applying objective, outcome-based standards, the accreditors, who are mostly affiliated with traditional schools, judge potential newcomers based on whether they adhere to established methods. This automatically blocks innovation and has kept most online programs out of the accredited club.

By withholding accreditation, the powers that be in academia have effectively prevented newer online programs from being able to compete for students. Most students need to prove that their degrees are from accredited schools before those degrees are considered legitimate. Accreditation is also used to determine federal financial aid eligibility. While accredited colleges could choose to grant academic credits to students who complete courses through non-accredited online programs, few do. This is why students wait to get into in-person classes at accredited schools, despite the availability of online programs capable of delivering the same knowledge and skills.

While university faculty and administrators maintain control over the accreditation system, financial pressure will ultimately make change unavoidable. The ever-higher tuition bills and ever-larger student debt that are the byproducts of the current academic arrangement simply cannot be sustained for much longer.

The California bill is a sign that those financial pressures are having an effect. The arrangement proposed in the bill effectively overrides the accrediting agencies by forcing public schools to lend the strength of their own accreditation to high-caliber online classes. This sort of legislative jerry-rigging may not be sufficient in the long run, but at least it is a step in the right direction, bringing us closer to the day when students can choose from a multitude of accredited programs that are online, on-campus or a combination of the two.

The share of high school graduates who go on to college has risen from 45 percent in 1959 to 70 percent in 2009. In that half-century span, employers who once might have accepted candidates with only a high school diploma now use college degrees as their hiring standard. Yet we continue to rely on academic models that were developed when only a minority of students pursued higher education. It is no wonder that those systems are being overwhelmed. We owe it to students to ensure that the educational infrastructure is repaired before it breaks beneath them. If colleges themselves can't or won't do this, then lawmakers, particularly at the state level, will need to step in.

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When Sales Go Wrong: What to Do When You Can't Keep Your Delivery Commitment

slack alternatives open source? Here's my story when the unexpected and unplanned happened. Read on to discover what I learned and seven ways you can reverse the situation if it happens to you.

My story

I had a recent situation where I wasn't able to meet a commitment to my customers. (And some of you reading this were impacted by the situation. Thank you for your patience with me.)

It wasn't my fault-a delayed plane flight because of weather meant I missed a telephone-based training event that I was paid to deliver. Yet it was my responsibility because I agreed to deliver the class and knew that I would be coming off of a flight 90 minutes before, not leaving a lot of margin for error.

But arrogant confidence got the better of me and I didn't make alternate arrangements. And my customers paid the price of my choices because I didn't deliver. Now I get to make it up to them. And I'm going to do that with an article on what to do what something goes wrong. Duh!

I want to share with you the seven things to do when you can't keep your commitment to your customer.

But first, a little background...

When I ask a group of sales professionals, "What do you think gets a buyer-someone who is in procurement-fired? What is their key performance indicator that if they keep it high, they stay in their job, but if it's low, they get canned?"

Almost every group answers, "Paying too much!"

That's a reasonable answer based on how buyers behave. They always act like if you don't give them the best possible price and undercut the competition that they'll lose their job. Or at least that's what they're taught to say in negotiating classes. If you didn't believe them, you'd never give them a better deal.

Reality is something different. Buyers get fired if they are out of stock or can't get delivery by their internal deadline because if the company doesn't have what it needs to run their business, they're out of business.

According to a survey by Laurence Steinmetz in his book "Selling at Prices Higher Than Your Competitors" (which, notably, costs more than other sales books of the same size), a buyer's greatest fear is non-delivery. Eighty percent of buyers interviewed stated that they choose the vendor with the best delivery record.

Think about it this way, a buyer never gets fired for paying too much, because if they did, the most expensive companies in the world would never get orders. Taking a page from IBM's sales playbook, "No one has ever been fired for buying IBM." You can replace IBM with a wide variety of vendors: Cisco, HP, Xerox, AT&T, and so forth. Rarely are these vendors the cheapest and often they are the most expensive. Yet, they command the lion's share of their market for their areas of expertise. Customers buy from these market-and price-leaders because they deliver!

This means that you have got to deliver when you promise or you lose credibility with your customer, damaging your critical relationship.

Your entire sales life, you've heard the phrase, "Under promise and over deliver." I suggest that you take it a step further. "Promise what the customer needs, and over deliver on that." Which brings me to the first point of seven.

1) Make Room

Make sure your delivery promise matches the customer's requirements, with room to adjust it sooner or later if their situation changes. While many customers will do their best to make accurate delivery demands, if they've been burned before, they'll require that you deliver sooner than they really need in response to the sins of other venders (hopefully not in reaction your transgressions.)

Most prudent, experienced customers will include a time buffer for critical orders. And who could blame them; for example, expectant parents always set up the nursery months before the scheduled arrival date, just in case...

There are always flat tires, and someone gets sick, and a kid or three needs to go to the doctor. You've got to make room for life to happen. With that in mind, you'll need some buffer.

2) Options?

Brainstorm options to make the delivery schedule. What can you think of that could solve the problem? Explore other sources for the product or service, even if you might have to take a loss on the deal. Better to buy from a competitor and keep customer commitment than spoil your valuable relationship.

Or maybe you can hijack a demo unit for a couple of weeks.

Surely you can shuffle another customer delivery that has more slack in the schedule.

What if you slipped the delivery for that customer that just called to say, "Can we push out delivery by a month?" Everybody's happy with this outcome.

3) Alert the Boss

The instant you detect that there might be a delivery problem, let your management know. I learned early in my career to approach the boss with a list of options and an attitude of, "...and I'm open to other suggestions." (Just a technical note: the word, alternative implies only two choices-that's why they call it alternating current, either plus or minus. That's why I use the word, options instead of alternative.)

Your manager often has solutions to problems that you haven't yet faced--otherwise they wouldn't be managers (theoretically). They might know an easy fix or have access to resources and contacts that you don't (yet).

One of the things I've learned about management is that they hate surprises. If you wait until the last minute, they'll have to scramble-reprioritizing elements that you don't know about--and you'll be tagged as a problem child (a career-killing label). Give your manager breathing room and they can be their best. And when they're their best, you make more money and get what you want in your career.

4) Communicate!

Communicate with the customer as soon as you can with your alternatives options. The sooner you let them know, the more breathing room they'll have, and the better it will go for everyone.

(In my case, the moment my delayed plane hit the ground, I unsuccessfully battled the iPhone browser to access my list server to alert my customers. I ended up crashing an airline-club WiFi connection to get on-line with my laptop. The alert hit their mailboxes two minutes before show time. I'm not trying to sound heroic, I sure learned from that experience!)

Although you might think it will be painful, I recommend the personal touch with a phone call. Most customers will really appreciate that you called to fill them in and in the face of trouble, you'll reinforce your relationship.

An alternative is a well-written e-mail that outlines the situation and your solution. Keep in mind that email counts as a written communication in many courts of law, so make sure that you write in integrity, knowing that you'll have to deliver on that promise, too. (Note to self: you missed this one, too. The promise for this article was Friday, and here it's Thursday! Okay, so I'm still working the bugs out of me.)

5) Customer Comfort

If there are things that you can offer to improve your customer's situation, find out what the customer thinks. That could bring them some comfort.

Don't make your customer wrong and whenever possible, don't make your customer take the hit. Your customer will go through their emotions ranging from disappointment to fear, so even though this is business, be prepared for something emotional to show up.