President’s Message: Cost-Benefit
Analysis
Georgia Briscoe
Cost-Benefit Analysis (CBA) is a well-established means of assessing the net value of an activity. It is a tally or comparison of expenditures and advantages in dollar terms resulting from various actions. We go through life making one CBA decision after another. Most are so minor that we don’t even consider them decisions. For instance, I decide to awaken at 5:30 each morning (to Bob Edwards’ deep voice on NPR) and to brush my teeth upon rising. The benefits of this time and activity far outweigh the costs of rising later or not brushing my teeth. Why am I bothering you with such mundane issues? Because after I attended the CoALL Institute at The University of Denver Law School last month, I was struck by the absolute outrageousness of the Institute’s cost-benefit ratio. (Incidentally, did you hear on NPR that the first issue of the Journal of Mundane Behavior is just out? View it at: http://www.mundanebehavior.org/index2.htm)
Membership in CoALL comes at a cost of $15/year, plus whatever time and energy I invest in the activities, as well as the opportunity costs (the benefits lost from not doing something else). On February 26th, the two outstanding professional development programs which I attended would normally have cost me somewhere between $500 and $1000 to attend. As a CoALL member I paid NOTHING, ZERO, ZILCH to attend, and I was fed cookies, pizza, muffins, and drinks to boot!! Yes, I gave up 8 hours of my precious weekend time—and on my husband’s birthday no less—but the cost benefit ratio is still amazingly high!
CoALL membership is definitely the best bargain possible to enhance my career. Yet, sometimes I am unable to take advantage of the great advantages CoALL offers. The high-speed living of today does not allow me to do all I want. Science writer, James Gleick tells us in, Faster: the Acceleration of Just about Everything, "We do feel that we’re more time-driven and time-obsessed and generally rushed than ever before." That’s why it’s all the more important that we make careful cost-benefit decisions on the use of our time. For me, the benefits I gained from attending "It’s All About Money" the strategic planning program by LEXIS-NEXIS and the "Managing Your Priorities" program by WESTGROUP were outstanding. Many thanks to the sponsoring companies, the presenters (Jenny Kanji, Gayle Lynn-Nelson, Louise Litts), the organizers (Linda Rose & Caryl Shipley) and DU Law School for housing the programs.