Thoughts on Incentive Schemes

[BlueDragon]

Out of interest...

 

What are peoples thoughts on incentive programmes for schools? Specifically ICT departments.

 

Do they work or are they a waste of time?

 

For those where schemes have worked what have been the incentives offered?

 

[WStore_Dan]

What do you mean by incentive schemes?

[BlueDragon]

We have been exploring an idea along with of our suppliers to see if some sort of reward scheme for schools would be a viable idea.

 

Its difficult to explain without mentioning names & products which will upset the moderators as it could be seen as product promotion but something along the lines of a reward, voucher, discount, redeem code etc for some collaborative work with schools on online child protection issues.

[mb2k01]

At the risk of going all "Dragons Den" on you, you've posted two messages in a forum full of educational IT professionals and not stated the intention and/or purpose, so no one is really going to be able to answer?!

 

I'm all for rewards, freebies and incentives, but they would have to be comparatively worthwhile with whatever I was doing in return. "Child Protection issues" is quite vague - but if it was specific details or incidents you were after I think you'd be hard pushed to get the data.

[dwhyte85]

I don't accept freebies or go for incentives.

 

I get the best quality gear I can at the cheapest price I possibly can, i'd hope most schools would be doing that when using tax payer money

[mb2k01]

I don't accept freebies or go for incentives.

 

I get the best quality gear I can at the cheapest price I possibly can, i'd hope most schools would be doing that when using tax payer money

 

In case that was in reply to my comment, just to clarify - I share the same values on procurement.

Procurement aside, if I am in the position to (appropriately) help a company in return for "free" resources which the school can then use, then that's what I meant by "all for"

[dwhyte85]

No... not aimed at you whatsoever! If the school gains from it, fair enough... shouldn't be personal gain though.

 

I think procurement in education should be monitored strictly and greater care should be taken auditing schools on what they spend money on... that's a different matter though.

 

From personal experience the companies offering the greatest freebies and offering the best incentives are generally the companies that don't give the best price. I've seen it in big companies where people have taken a slightly more expensive quote so they get a Wii for personal gain, i'm sure the same goes on in schools...

[BlueDragon]

I don't accept freebies or go for incentives.

 

I get the best quality gear I can at the cheapest price I possibly can, i'd hope most schools would be doing that when using tax payer money

 

Sorry I am vague. I had a friendly wrap on the knuckles a few months back about overstepping the boundaries of this site so want to stay well within the rules.

 

I also think in my vague approach I have sent people off in the wrong direction. The incentives are not in association with buying a product, that would be bribery and a big no no!

 

In a nutshell we want to start promoting FREE online child protection tools to parents and the obvious way to reach a wide parental audience is via the schools. If some schools wanted to make their parents aware of the tools then we where thinking of a way of thanking the schools for their participation in such a way that is did not break any rules or sensibilities.

[mb2k01]

Sorry I am vague. I had a friendly wrap on the knuckles a few months back about overstepping the boundaries of this site so want to stay well within the rules.

 

I also think in my vague approach I have sent people off in the wrong direction. The incentives are not in association with buying a product, that would be bribery and a big no no!

 

In a nutshell we want to start promoting FREE online child protection tools to parents and the obvious way to reach a wide parental audience is via the schools. If some schools wanted to make their parents aware of the tools then we where thinking of a way of thanking the schools for their participation in such a way that is did not break any rules or sensibilities.

 

If that's honestly all you want to do, I can't see why you can't detail the tools here? If they are completely free then you're making us aware of a resource rather than telling us to buy a product...?

 

Do you have a link?

[dwhyte85]

This is slightly besides the point, why would you offer an incentive to a school if you aren't going to make money off of it?

 

I think a school would have to be careful, if they were offering something truly free, eg, OpenOffice on a CD for students & parents it's slightly different to offering something that is 'Free' but you can buy addons/features, it might look a bit like an affiliation which a school would probably like to avoid.

 

I know from my POV, i wouldn't want to offer it as i'd probably get complaints if it didn't work correctly despite me putting 10 disclaimers saying do not contact our ICT dept... if, however it was truly free & bundled with other useful software I might distribute to people who ask for it.

[SteveBentley]

Show the product at BETT or similar. If it's good enough, people will, when asked, give it as a personal recommendation which is probably worth much more than a recommendation based on having received some freebies.

[ahuxham]

This forum is getting totally out of control. Stop berating people, mocking their ideals and ideas and the rest of it, reply from your prospective and stop shooting everyone down.

 

For the past few weeks I've noticed a growing trend in people berating other people because what they do, want to do and the rest of it doesn't conform to your own standards.

 

The idea isn't idiotic either, if they want to provide incentives for schools for promoting a free product then let them do so, there is no need to question why, or examine business motives for this, and lets not forget there are Private schools here who aren't state funded or granted, they could do with all the help they can get. Specially in a Private school, where the majority of the time IT is downsized and pushed to its limits as spending money to improve services costs a fortune that they can't justify all the time.

 

Everyone just needs to chill, either have something positive to say, or say nothing at all.

[dhicks]

something along the lines of a reward, voucher, discount, redeem code etc

 

Vouchers for hardware would be pointless - schools want to buy a classroom's worth of equipment at a time, or identical kit for a number of machines, having random bits of hardware around is more bother than it's worth. As pointed out above, the same goes for software - a school either wants a whole network license or it's not worth the bother.

 

Free teaching resources might come in handy - well-prepared resources, linked to the national cucciculum, that a teacher can use in classes about child protection, Internet safety, etc. Maybe dish these out free on CD, or make them downloadable from your website, or maybe give out free posters, but make sure the teacher is free to edit/remix them.

 

--

David Hicks

[BlueDragon]

Vouchers for hardware would be pointless - schools want to buy a classroom's worth of equipment at a time, or identical kit for a number of machines, having random bits of hardware around is more bother than it's worth. As pointed out above, the same goes for software - a school either wants a whole network license or it's not worth the bother.

 

Free teaching resources might come in handy - well-prepared resources, linked to the national cucciculum, that a teacher can use in classes about child protection, Internet safety, etc. Maybe dish these out free on CD, or make them downloadable from your website, or maybe give out free posters, but make sure the teacher is free to edit/remix them.

 

--

David Hicks

 

Thanks David

 

Thats helpful and something we had thought might be useful. We work with an advisor to schools in the county who delivers talks to parents and pupils and have media that we have created for them thats been well received.

[GrumbleDook]

Non-ICT rewards might be an area worth looking into. PE departments can always do with more footballs, Technology with more raw materials ... this forum might not be the best one to test the waters to get the whole school idea.

 

It might also be worth chatting with BESA about this as they are likely to have a better idea.

 

You could also try the TES forums too as well as schoolzone.

 

Incentives can work, but usually in partnership with another group.

[dwhyte85]

This forum is getting totally out of control. Stop berating people, mocking their ideals and ideas and the rest of it, reply from your prospective and stop shooting everyone down.

 

For the past few weeks I've noticed a growing trend in people berating other people because what they do, want to do and the rest of it doesn't conform to your own standards.

 

The idea isn't idiotic either, if they want to provide incentives for schools for promoting a free product then let them do so, there is no need to question why, or examine business motives for this, and lets not forget there are Private schools here who aren't state funded or granted, they could do with all the help they can get. Specially in a Private school, where the majority of the time IT is downsized and pushed to its limits as spending money to improve services costs a fortune that they can't justify all the time.

 

Everyone just needs to chill, either have something positive to say, or say nothing at all.

 

He asked for opinions on what people think, unfortunately in the real world not everyone is accepting, especially when words like incentive & rewards are mentioned in conjunction with software.

 

We get several phone calls a day from people selling us things offering us rewards if we spend x amount on IT products, we are allowed to be wary.

 

As far as I can see nobody has mocked his idea, it'd make a huge amount of sense to allow us to see the product as it may not be something that is suitable to distribute within a school. An example of blindly handing things out goes back to when I was at my first school... collecting barcodes were all the rage because of the barcode game (Barcode Battler, I think) the school blindly handed out lots of leaflets for a charity campaign to collect barcodes... it turns out it went to an adult who was selling the barcodes. Ok, that sounds pretty pathetic... imagine how the admin office felt after they put these in the registers for the children to take home and how dumb the school looked after they'd fell for it.

 

Obviously the example above is nothing to do with software and a CD, but the damage that could be potentially done. The other issue is if things go wrong, the school would get comeback - especially if people found that the school was being given things for distributing it. Maybe something like a freshers fair exists for parents and schools? That'd be a perfect way to distribute it!

Edited August 13, 2009 by dwhyte85

[maniac]

I've been told by our business manager that it is very dodgy ground to be accepting any sort of gift or incentive from a company or to base any decision making on gifts or incentives offered. The main reason being that we are spending public money at the end of the day and have to demonstrate best value at all times. Gifts and incentives can be seen as making this process unfair by some.

 

Mike.

[K.C.Leblanc]

He asked for opinions on what people think, unfortunately in the real world not everyone is accepting, especially when words like incentive & rewards are mentioned in conjunction with software.

 

We get several phone calls a day from people selling us things offering us rewards if we spend x amount on IT products, we are allowed to be wary.

 

Very well said. I don't see how a company can make something for free and then spend more money promoting it without taking some money out of it somewhere. This detail seems not to have been mentioned.

[dhicks]

I don't see how a company can make something for free and then spend more money promoting it without taking some money out of it somewhere.

 

I.e. if you have to give away other stuff with your system/software/product/whatever, then your product isn't the best on the market and you're hoping that people will notice the incentive rather than look too closly at your product. Or it can give that impresssion, anyway - if you're confident your product is good then don't worry, concentrate on keeping it there, and if you're not hire some more programmers and fix it.

 

--

David Hicks

[K.C.Leblanc]

I.e. if you have to give away other stuff with your system/software/product/whatever, then your product isn't the best on the market and you're hoping that people will notice the incentive rather than look too closly at your product. Or it can give that impresssion, anyway - if you're confident your product is good then don't worry, concentrate on keeping it there, and if you're not hire some more programmers and fix it.

 

--

David Hicks

 

But he hasn't said that he's peddling something else. But then that would get him into trouble because he's too tight to become a sponsor.

[ahuxham]

But he hasn't said that he's peddling something else. But then that would get him into trouble because he's too tight to become a sponsor.

 

You know this 100% before all the facts are shown? You're that confident he isn't being honest and is being mischievous in the background?

 

Maybe the company isn't for sponsorship, maybe a manager has declined this. I can see why the majority of sponsors come on here, they have targeted markets and products, they might have a product only a small minority want, doesn't make them less valuable, as its still a wanted product.

[witch]

But he hasn't said that he's peddling something else. But then that would get him into trouble because he's too tight to become a sponsor.

 

Woah - rein it in a bit! You know nothing about his circumstances so you cannot state that he is 'tight' any more than you would be 'tight' if your boss wouldn't let you spend money on new kit.

 

 

I would like to know what is the reason for it all - as has been said, money must be made somewhere.

BUT - that wasn't the original question, was it....

 

IF there are no costs at all, then free resources are a good idea. I agree though that incentives for the whole school might be better. Smaller schools might appreciate vouchers for such things as cameras, webcams and the like as you don't need lots of those at once