Yesterday, Phil Bond, the CEO of the Information Technology Association of America (ITAA) bylined a San Jose Mercury News op-ed that called for his organization's consolidation with other tech trade groups to help make the industry's voice more singular and stronger in DC....
For our leaders to get the message, our industry should speak in a unified, powerful voice. Instead, there are more than 16 organizations clamoring for attention from the same decision makers. Sometimes we're saying the same things. Sometimes we're not.
Check out this alphabet soup: ACT, ACT-IAC, AeA, BSA, CCIA, CSIA, CDT, CompTIA, PFF, EFF, EIA, SIA, SIIA, TCC, ITIC and ITAA. That list does not even include the Silicon Valley-launched TechNet or a council representing about 40 regional IT groups across the country, which recently entered a partnership with us at the Information Technology Association of America (we're the ITAA in the above soup).
Therefore, Washington has far too little appreciation for the fact that IT drives innovation, growth and prosperity across the entire economy....
The bottom line: Our industry's lobbying, our brand, and our political support are all splintered. We do not have our act together.
Bond's op-ed echoes what was said by the Washington Post two years ago and what was covered by the LA Times last month (and both those links contain our commentary on consolidation). More importantly, Bond's words have essentially been debated and discussed at industry cocktail receptions, over dinners and between meetings for nearly a decade.
But, for better or worse, nothing has happened. There are many reasons why.
Let me give you one that isn't obvious...
Those in tech policy aren't blogging enough, reading blogs and, more generally, using existing technology to enable a community dialogue and debate about important issues that impact us. (And, I won't even get into the power of video and vlogs just yet).
If we moved from a 1.0 to a 2.0 form of collaboration, we might be able to raise issues, find ideas and generate consensus in a way that simply can't be as easily replicated offline.
Instead, many in DC take it as a badge of honor that they don't read blogs. Suggesting that they actually write or comment only gets you quizzical stares. "What are you? From San Francisco?"
With a few exceptions, there is a natural irony that those who are the voice of the tech industry in DC have largely avoided some of the biggest tech trends in the last few years that would allow them to amplify and synchronize their voice.
The result? If our community was better socially networked, than an op-ed in the Merc on blowing up the current system of tech industry associations would have generated significant dialogue. Those from other sectors could lend their experience. Folks from the Hill would pipe in and suggest ways to improve (or perhaps debunk conventional wisdom).
Instead, any response has been stove-piped and contained to a few emails pass-arounds and "did you see" conversations. There wasn't a single mention on blogs of the Merc op-ed.
Compare that to this post today on a leading Silicon Valley start-up-focused blog called TechCrunch... In it, the author makes a suggestion (albeit one that is somewhat inflammatory) that a company may have been ill-treated by its investors. That's interesting enough, but the comments below are where you get the real sense of information that can be shared and parsed when communities are created online.
And, let's not use the excuse that no one reads blogs in DC, either. This site is but one voice in the tech policy conversation, but I know from our analytic tools that we get readers from all over Capitol Hill, Commerce, FTC, FCC, the Justice Department, think tanks, top newspapers, and lobby shops. More would read them if there were more voices involved.
So, jump in. Subscribe to a few blog feeds that make it easy to manage the information flow. Start commenting. Then find ways for you and your organization to start developing your own online voice.
If we can do this, who knows, we might be able to start solving decade-old industry issues.
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