Just When I Thought I'd Heard it All!

by Skip Cohen

I've got a minor challenge that came up last week I want to share.  At this point it's my own internal wrestling match. I got involved defending a completely absurd accusation and just should have walked away. My wife, Sheila, has a favorite line, "Don't should on yourself!"

I was accused on Friday of misleading all of you by calling this a "University". I was told I was dishonest. I was told,  "Until they are accredited by the University System or provide proof of accreditation OUS accepts, they should drop the "university" from their name. It's misleading at best."

We set out to have fun with the university metaphor and we're going to continue to do just that. The site is "FREE" and the partners in the project represent some of the best supporters of education in photography. 

However, the best part of all was when my accuser let his ego get in the way with the claim, "I guarantee these people I could give them more of an education for no cost than your "university" at any rate."  I'm assuming he's about to take on the faculty: three Pulitzer Prize winners and some of the finest artists, photo-educators in the world.

I have no intention of dropping the "U" in SCU or of slowing down in building content on the site to help you build a stronger business model.  The SCU site and content is FREE as well as my time whenever you write or call for help.  I won't always have the answers, but I've got an amazing network with people who do and I talk to dozens of photographers every week. We're all here to help.  In fact, we're going to ramp up in 2014. Stay tuned next week, because we've got some new features and programming we're going to announce for 2014.

In an attempt to reason with this "stickler for strict interpretation" I even tried to explain my apparent abuse of the word "university" with a few great examples, Hamburger University at MacDonalds, Hasselblad University, WPPI University, Disney University and the list goes on and on...

You simply can't please everybody and Bill Cosby said it best:

                          "I don't know the key to success, but the key to failure is trying to please everybody."

Have a great Friday and thanks for listening to my rant! Make it a great day and the doorway to a spectacular weekend. I hope to see many of you in NYC next week. If you're headed to PPE check out ShootNYC. I'm the opening speaker on Thursday morning and the two day event is free, but you have to register. Looking forward to seeing you in NYC!

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