Will Sheward for Board 2008
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Who Am I?
I'm currently the VP Marketing for Isode, a UK software company that produces Directory and Messaging Server software. I've been involved in technology marketing for most of my career. There's a little bit about me on the Isode website (together with a terribly old photo that makes me look as though I've been mainlining donuts for about a year) and you can view my LinkedIn profile, if you're into that sort of thing.
Why I'm standing
In no particular order:
It meshes nicely with workplace philosophy
Some of you may know of Isode as a company with a commitment to Open Standards, active in both the IETF and XSF. We've always taken the view that the promotion of the Open Standards to which we adhere is, ultimately, in our own interests even though that promotion will inevitably lead potential customers into the evaluation of alternatives to our own products. You might call this approach 'rational self interest'. Obviously this is a view that I share (or I'd have quit/been fired by now) and am enthusiastic about.
Irritation
Open Standards can be (deliberately) mis-interpreted by evil marketing departments seeking to portray their products as complaint, when in reality they have only a distant familial connection to the standards they seek to leverage.
I get quite annoyed about this (please don't get me started on 'Push IMAP') and I don't want to see this happen with XMPP. The way to avoid this fate is for standards bodies to be clear in their communications, use appropriate language when correcting honest errors and educate opinion formers. A lack of communication, or worse a lack of appropriate communication, can do an immense amount of damage. I am, essentially, putting myself up for election for the sake of my own blood pressure.
Enthusiasm
I'm actually pretty good at what I do (see below) and I'm enthusiastic enough about both XMPP and marketing that I'm happy to combine the two in my spare time.
(Please note that I'm standing for the council out of a personal interest in the promotion and development of XMPP, although I have the full support of my employer, Isode.)
What can I contribute to the community?
Broadly speaking there are two types of marketing people:
- The strategic thinkers who generate the fabulous (and sometimes not so fabulous) marketing ideas
- The tactical do'ers who get things done
I'm the second type, which is just as well as 90% of all marketing is actually doing stuff. My career to date has been spent working with minuscule budgets in technology companies that have, or start out with, 'one-man marketing departments'. That means I've have to do, and continue to do, everything from writing copy, to chatting to partners and press (traditional and non-traditional), contributing to product development, opening markets and rolling up my sleeves to make sure the website accurately reflects developments and opportunities.
The mission of the XMPP Standards Foundation (XSF) is to build an open, standardized, secure, feature-rich, widely-deployed, decentralized infrastructure for real-time communication and collaboration over the Internet.
From my perspective there's something missing from that mission statement, a standards body should be engaged in promoting that standard to interested individuals, companies and bodies. In other words:
The mission of the XMPP Standards Foundation (XSF) is to build an open, standardized, secure, feature-rich, widely-deployed, decentralized infrastructure for real-time communication and collaboration over the Internet and tell people about it.
I think I can make a small contribution towards those last five words.
Other Will-related stuff
- I hold an MBA from Lancaster University's Management School (please don't hold the MBA against me).
- I'm a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts.
- I volunteer as a Business Mentor for the Prince's Trust - a UK charity that helps young people from disadvantaged backgrounds start their own businesses.
- I enjoy mountaineering and, recently, geocaching.
- I'm in danger of spending far too much of my spare time this winter playing WoW (you can help me avoid this fate).
Contact & Blog
If you want to talk about any of the above, ridicule, dispute or agree then please feel free to contact me either via IM at xmpp:will.sheward@isode.com, or by email at at the same address.
If you're a LinkedIn user you might want to consider chatting to a few of the people I've worked with previously, to see if they think I'm the normal marketing 'bag of wind' type.
After a long break, I've recently started blogging again. The blog can be found at willsheward.co.uk.
