Case Study:
Consortium Learns to Please 19 Bosses from Competing Companies
Challenge: How do you make progress when 19 competitors are simultaneously giving orders? Such was the dilemma faced by the fledgling Embedded Linux Consortium as it endeavored to promote an underdog technology vs. the world's largest software company and the world's number-one ranked embedded software vendor.
Solution: Working in pro-bono stealth mode, Rick Lehrbaum
(co-founder of Ampro Computers) and CommPros Group Associate
Partner Murry Shohat designed a business plan for the trade
association whose goal was very clear: promotion and implementation
of the Linux Operating System for thousands of embedded applications.
About 80 industry executives responded to an invitation to
attend a briefing on the plan in early 2000 at the Embedded
Systems Conference. Completely operations-oriented, the plan
called for the instant establishment of a non-profit trade
association to be headed by Shohat and paid for by membership
dues.
Mission, vision, structure, website, trade shows, colloquia, marcom, timetable and tactical objectives were revealed, ratified and chartered in less than four hours. Money was pledged. Lots of it.
The only downside of working for the trade association was
trying to please the initial board of directors, all 19 of
them, each with the agenda to be first to market.
The solution was instant traction, achieved with publicity. By promoting the group's community objectives ahead of individual agendas, Linux leapt onto the competitive stage all at once, gaining foothold quickly. Sensing traction and an imminent tipping point, more corporations piled on, bringing the group's membership beyond 150 in as many days.
Unfortunately, trying to hold a teleconference board meetings with 19 seats proved so impractical that the first official motion was to reduce the board to a core of seven, through democratic election. The team of seven then agreed to give ample leash to the executive director. By the time the group was a mere three years old, it was able to declare mission accomplished, pleasing everyone.
Operations-centric marketing at its best.
Linux on servers and personal computers has now become ubiquitous.
And who has not heard about Linux for cell phones, PDAs, vending
machines, telematics, simulators, supercomputers, consumer
electronics, wireless networking, industrial automation and
hundreds of other applications? Even the world's Number One
Embedded Software Vendor now champions Linux ahead of its
own proprietary products. Now that's traction!
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