For over ten years IDC Australia outsourced the management of its InTEP executive group to Peter Hind and Launch Pad Marketing. The InTEP forum is an environment free of vendors and consultants where CIOs, IT Managers and their reports can network to learn from the practical experiences of their counterparts in other organisations.
In his time single-handedly overseeing InTEP Peter managed to triple its membership and revenues while working in a part-time capacity with IDC. In the year 2000 he also established a New Zealand group on behalf of IDC New Zealand. In late 2004 Peter Hind parted company with IDC in order to focus on how he could develop the executive group philosophy in other markets.
To this end he has been working with partners in Asia Pacific since late 2004 to create the Coalface Community. At its heart the Coalface Communitywill provide a series of regular, structured, executive forums where participants can network with their industry peers to hear true, real-life, 'warts-and-all', local ICT case studies in an environment conducive to sharing experiences and tactics. Any three staff can attend any session so an organisation can fully capitalise on the networking and benchmarking opportunities offered by the Community.
Compared to other ICT conferences and seminars, sessions of the Coalface Community have some significant differentiators.
Unlike traditional ICT conferences, sessions are closed-door meetings where consultants, vendors, 'sponsors' and the press are deliberately excluded. The desire is to enable people to be open about their experiences and to avoid the prospect of the proceedings, and participants, being hijacked by vendors or consultants with a product to sell or a 'barrow' to push.
Small round table discussion groups are established after the speeches to promote an environment where intimate debate on the subject can be fostered between delegates without the rest of the room looking on.
After thisan opportunity is provided, through a half hour open forum, for the audience to explore with the speaker the approach they have taken. However, the questions emanate from the earlier round table dialogue so the potential debate and dialogue has already been pre-empted.
The proceeding of Coalface forum meetings are professionally facilitated by people with at least 15 years ICT industry experience. A complete written output from each session is generated to give members reference material on the topic for later use.
Outside these forums the benchmarking activities of the Coalface Community are extended through the availability of email requests for assistance. Often the only source of help available to senior IS executives are consultants. Frequently, they learn at your expense. The Coalface Community offers its members an avenue to reduce this dependence on consultants. Members wrestling with a problem can enlist the assistance of other members who may have previously addressed this problem. The philosophy the group engenders is one of self-help where sharing past experiences within the confines of the group can save members from the frustration and expense of having to 're-invent the wheel'.
The final component of membership in the Community will be access to local ICT research. Each year Coalface Research undertakes extensive ICT research projects asking IS executives, among other things, about their technology adoption, the issues they face, how their ICT budget breaks down and their staffing levels. The aim will be to help IS executives by proving local data to answer the standard executive question, especially around budget time, of "what are other organisations doing." Participants in the Coalface IT Executive Community will have access to this research as part of their membership.
The value of the Coalface Community
Subscription rates to the Coalface have been deliberately set at a level that will enable the participation of a wide cross section of local ICT departments without the need to enlist commercial sponsorship. Some of the cost savings that can be achieved through membership of this Community include:
ØAvoiding the pitfalls found by others before you. Such pitfalls cause significant and costly delays in ICT projects. The value of membership in the Coalface community could be recouped by saving just one or two days in the implementation of an ICT project.
ØReducing the need to rely on consultants. Hourly and daily rates among major ICT consultancies, research firms and industry analysts can prove exorbitant. However, their use can be reduced markedly by enabling members to learn from the practical experiences of their peers in other companies.
ØBenchmarking your use of ICT with those of businesses operating in similar local economic conditions. This can help you and your Executive assess whether your investment in ICT is appropriate.
ØDeveloping the skill sets of your staff by providing an opportunity where they can learn from the tactics adopted by their counterparts in other organisations.
ØCutting through the marketing hype that bedevils the ICT industry and better establishing user expectations of what they can expect from potential ICT investments.
ØLeveraging the experiences of others and appreciating that the real experts in the ICT industry are not ivory-tower consultants but rather those 'at the coalface' tasked with the challenge of harnessing ICT functionality to achieve effective change management in their business.
IT Best Practices Workshop
A manual from the workshop is available. Please send an email to Peter Hind.
