Voices for Innovation - giving ISVs a unified voice
At my ISV team meeting this week Matt Pilgrim led a really interesting discussion around an initiative we're supporting through our Managed Partner Group. I thought I'd share some background on it with the group:
Our Industry is widely associated with Innovation and change, IT has affected lives across the world and allows people and businesses to innovate to create new and exciting solutions that directly benefit broad society including Governments, Businesses, Communities and Consumers. Innovation allows businesses to grow. To sustain growth, individuals and businesses need to operate in an environment that is conducive to innovation and entrepreneurship.
External forces such as Policy and regulation impact change, sometimes smaller enterprises and individuals do not have an opportunity to understand or express views of them.
Voices for innovation is a Global online community, a collaboration of Professionals, business leaders, innovators and entrepreneurs. It is an open community so anyone can join. The idea is that it represents a diverse spectrum of knowledge, experience, opinions and expertise
VFI aims to make the policy debate open to anyone, its an easy, low commitment platform to introduce people to the debate and the issues surrounding it, there are two main aims:
- Educate and inform
- Provide a vehicle for people to be heard
Microsoft are supporting Voices for information and encouraging Partners to join. We are trying to encourage a percentage of Partners to become “super activists” meaning they are asked to write letters, actively lobby and encouraged to meet twice annually. Microsoft will be promoting Voices for Innovation with the IAMCP (International Association of Microsoft Certified Partners) and there is a plan to localise the message.
An example of where Voices for Innovation can help is the Open XML debate. This is the debate over the standardisation by ISO (International Organisation for Standardisation) of Microsoft’s Open XML. It is often referred to as a battle between two Goliaths: Microsoft versus the IBM/ Open Document Format front. Unfortunately there is often no mention of an essential point: the real benefits that Open XML as an international standard would bring to customers, businesses (particularly small companies) and to innovation overall. Voices for Innovation helps give individuals and small enterprises the whole picture and offers them a vehicle to give their own opinion and lobby to change IT Policy.
If you want to get involved and be kept up to date on changes that can impact you, your friends, your family and your business then sign up! It is free, anyone can join . You get out as much as you put in, you can choose to simply receive updates and newsletters or you can attend events, raise your profile, get references to your business and make a difference!
