The Business Caf Project

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The Business Café Project

• Dr Gilly Salmon
• Director of Presentation
• Open University Business School

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Business Café-urls

• Business Café
• http//www.open.ac.uk/businesscafe
• Paper and these slides on
• http//oubs.open.ac.uk/gilly
• Gillys e mail
• G.K.Salmon_at_open.ac.uk

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Context of the Business Café Project- new
broadcast environment

• Changing patterns of higher and management
  education
• rapid technological advances
• notions of integrated packages
• lifelong learning and potential of broadcast
• Radically different approach for OUBS

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Brief History of OU Broadcasting

• For 27 years BBC/OU partners
• OU delivered distance learning teaching through
  broadcast - BBC2 and Radio 4
• BBC Production on campus
• New BBC/OU agreement from December 98
• New approach to OU audiences and products

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Broadcast Strategy for OUBS

• Need for understanding of potential market for
  branding rather than teaching
• Two or three projects during 1999 to provide data

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Business Café Concept

• Target audience commercial managers
• Also existing OUBS community
• Programmes and Web site designed for these targets

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Programme Format

• Feature
• Studio Discussion
• Update on Web activities
• Market roundup
• Taxi ride
• Office of my own
• Book review

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The Programmes7.45-8.15am Sundays Feb-April 99

• Week 1 E commerce
• Week 2 Intellectual Capital
• Week 3 Social Entrepreneurship
• Week 4 Innovation
• Week 5 Knowledge Management
• Week 6 Family Values
• Week 7 Regeneration
• Week 8 Risk
• Week 9 21st Century manager

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Business Café Web site- changed weekly with TV
Programme

• Clips of feature- video streamed
• Book review video streamed
• CMC (using open version of FirstClass)
• Briefing- downloadable document
• Web links related to feature
• Questionnaire
• Links to previous programmes, BBC, OUBS brochure
  request, Amazon

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Costs

• Production 1/4 million
• Web site 45,000 (using existing OUBS framework
  and facilities)
• Staffing project officer, half time, 6 months,
  Web project officer 10 days, moderators and
  consultants, academics, series consultant 1/4
  time 6 months.

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Business Outcomes?

• 8 of TV audience at 8 am Sunday mornings
• only small percentage came into Web site
• downloadable documents and links liked on Web
  site, CMC and video streaming little used
• Web data collection very effective
• Those who filled in questionnaire-were kind of
  audience aimed for

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Worth it?

• Still evaluating- probably not for branding
• Probably only worth it if better time/day in
  broadcast schedule
• Very useful as understanding of media integration
  project
• All film is digital and can be used for other
  purposes- some course teams showing interest

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Some Learning Points

• All of what we know about enabling effective
  conferencing -doesnt work when dealing with TV
  audiences
• Putting the Web on a TV screen to promote looks
  very odd and doesnt achieve much
• Making 9 magazine style TV programmes with many
  different academic and practitioner inputs is
  extremely stressful and time consuming
• Integration of Web and TV has a long long way to
  go
• Its absolutely essential to ensure roles and task
  are clarified at the beginning of partnerships
  and throughout

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Business Café-urls

• Business Café
• http//www.open.ac.uk/businesscafe
• Paper and these slides on
• http//oubs.open.ac.uk/gilly
• Gillys e mail
• G.K.Salmon_at_open.ac.uk