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Submitted by Dani Martin on
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Hi Mike and Mark! I know I've said it before and I'll say it again... thank you for an excellent conference last week! It was awesome.

I've been asked to lead a session for 10 of my peers in another division. They want me to cover how to succeed with our largest fundraising event (Relay For Life) while balancing other competing priorities. Some of the areas of focus are targeting the monitoring of progress, balancing time, expectations and delegation while managing all revenue sources to goal. They are presenting me as somewhat of a "case study" since my state increased revenue this year with 40% staff vacancies. My response, of course, is O3's, feedback and delegation... with some prioritization and a lot of team work added.

My question for you is what can I use/talk about from MT? Can I refer to O3's, feedback, etc? Do you have a preference for how presenters should refer their audience to MT?

Thanks so much!

asteriskrntt1's picture

Dani

Great question. I am teaching a marketing management course and a personal selling course right now. Tons of the MT materials would be appropriate if we could use it.

M&M, when you get a moment, can you post some guidelines or send an email as to what we can do? Thanks

*RNTT

MikeK's picture

Considering that all the content is also covered in free online podcasts, I can't imagine that there would be any reservations to sharing it. The one rule that MT has had is that you don't share the content on your own servers or anything like that. Simply provide the information (taught or otherwise) and give out the links for individuals to acquire the info and podcasts for further information.

Hope that Mike and Mark comment, but this has been asked before so otherwise you could search back into the forums.

Mike

tomas's picture

A good starting point would be the Manager Tools Terms of Use. [url]http://www.manager-tools.com/terms-of-use/[/url] If you have not read the Terms of Use, you probably should.

An excerpt from the Terms of Use:-

"[i]Use of Manager-ToolsTM Information is only permitted for your personal and noncommercial use. Personal use is defined as the use of the Information solely for an individual’s personal, private, educational and other non-commercial use. Noncommercial use is defined as the use of the Information by an individual that is not, directly or indirectly, intended for or directed towards commercial advantage or private monetary compensation. Use of the Information for any purpose by any non-individual entity, including but not limited to any commercial entity, corporation, non-profit organization, educational institution, governmental body or group, is not permitted under this Agreement. You may not modify, publish, transmit, participate in the transfer or sale of, reproduce, create new works from, distribute, perform, display, or in any way exploit, any of the Information in whole or in part. "[/i]

It appears that a company or organisation cannot use the Manager Tools copyrighted materials.

An important point to remember is that (in my estimation) the Terms of Use only apply to copyrighted material. Copyright attaches to a particular expression of a creative idea, not to the idea itself. So you can discuss general management concepts such as One on ones, feedback etc. I'm sure Mike & Mark would not claim to have invented these concepts. You just can't use Manager Tools copyrighted material to do it in a commercial setting.

I'm sure this something that Mike & Mark are putting a lot of thought into and will want to add their own clarification. It is a pretty complex area, and it may be worth emailing Mike or Mark about a specific situation.

rachaelip's picture
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I am a US intellectual property attorney and I would definitely ask Mike and Mark for permission to use any of the copyrighted material. Because of the idea-expression dicotomy mentioned by the previous poster, this can be a complicated issue.

Remember that if you reproduce copyrighted material, display copyrighted material, perform the copyrighted work publicly, or prepare a derivative work based on the copyrighted material without the permission of the owner, you're infringing.

bflynn's picture

Following that up - I've had some training in intellectual law, although I do not exercise it on a daily basis.

Remember that ideas and expression are separate. Copyright covers the creative expression of an idea. Ideas themselves cannot be copyrighted. It fine for you to mention the idea of managerial excellence through the use of feedback, weekly one-on-one meetings and coaching and how the components of the system reinforce each other. However, you cannot use any Manager Tools developed materials (i.e., handouts) in your training. You can develop your own material based on the ideas of Manager Tools; that would be your expression of the idea.

As a usual disclaimer, I'm not a legal professional. If you're not absolutely sure you understand what I said, consult your legal department for clarification.

Brian

rachaelip's picture
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[quote]You can develop your own material based on the ideas of Manager Tools; that would be your expression of the idea. [/quote]

Yes that's where things get tricky.

I suppose I''ll add my own disclaimer as well...I''m not giving legal advice. I hope you wouldn't rely on it.

stephenbooth_uk's picture

[quote="bflynn"]However, you cannot use any Manager Tools developed materials (i.e., handouts) in your training. You can develop your own material based on the ideas of Manager Tools; that would be your expression of the idea.[/quote]

You could, of course, write to Mark and Mike and ask permission.

Suppose, as part of preparation for a particular course, you wanted the attendees to listen to certain of the free podcasts. You could ask Mark and Mike if it's OK to give the attendees a CD-ROM with the MP3 files on and a link to the site, or if they would rather you gave the attendees just the link to the site and instructions to download the podcasts themselves.

That way it's their decision and you are covered. You do have to make sure that what you ask for is what you actually intend to do, permission to give copies to 10 internal trainees on an internal training course done as part of your day job does not confer permission to give copies to 10 external trainees on a public training course who are paying you as a trainer.

I am not a lawyer but have used IP law to prevent others from using my work without permission (some people still think that if it's on the web it's public domain and they can use it, some of those people discovered the hard and expensive way that they were wrong) and frequently approach others for permission to use their copyrighted work (or excerpts thereof not covered by Fair Use provisions).

Stephen

Mark's picture
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We have given Dani permission to share her successes with Manager Tools' material with her peers.

Rachel, THANK YOU for being an expert that generally agrees with us.

We go back and forth on this issue - while we can't imagine that anyone would doubt that we are trying to be quite open and modern with our life's work, we also can't imagine someone just TAKING it.

We try very hard to allow folks to share stuff..but like to know what's going on.

If Dani were being paid for her work, and not pointing folks to us, we'd have an issue with that. But we're glad that our members want others to benefit.

Mark

Mark's picture
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If you have interest in using our materials, you'll have to ask on a case by case basis. We generally have a good attitude about it, but also frown upon others presenting it as their own, using it without attribution, or profiting from it.

We're at the intersection of podcasting ( so much of which is free, happily), and intellectual property (much of which is hard earned)...and we're still figuring it out.

I talked to someone the other day who said, "you should give it all away." When I told them this really was our job, they said, "oh."

We're doing our best!

Mark