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!
3 Comments
No doubt this guy is 60+ years old and has been wearing his medals from print competitions from the past 40 years. No doubt he has won awards for decades. Has a "Master of Photography" award plastered all over his website. Not to diss any of those that have all of that fluff as it does take a lot of time and talent to earn those. But a lot of the guys that have those "medals" are mean and nasty men that are against the very thing that SCU is all about. UGH..... Keep on keeping on Skip! (Again, I have respect for the photographers that have earned those titles....but not for the ones who have earned them and feel they are above photographers who do not walk on that path.
Reply
Scott Stuart
10/18/2013 04:15:15 am
Hey Skip, don't forget about iTunes U! "The world's largest online catalog of free education content." I don't think anyone has given Apple a hard time about their choice of the name.
Reply
Leave a Reply. |
Our Partners"Why?"Check out "Why?" one of the most popular features on the SCU Blog. It's a very simple concept - one image, one artist and one short sound bite. Each artist shares what makes the image one of their most favorite. We're over 130 artists featured since the project started. Click on the link above and you can scroll through all of the episodes to date.
Categories
All
|