The lengthy title of the blog entry is taken from the title of the presentation given this afternoon by Paul Hirsch at 2:30 in the presentation theater area of the exhibit hall.
I've gotten to know Paul as the founder of Equentity and as a WHIR blogger and regular contributor to WHIR magazine. He's also a moderator on WebhostingTalk. But this year, he's at HostingCon representing the nascent hosting association of which he is one of the early architects - the Association of Internet and Hosting Service Providers.
Paul says the idea was formed at last year's HostingCon, and came from a conversation about the needs of the business that could be addressed by something like that. The conversation led to a real determination by a few of the people involved that they were going to do something about it.
The other people involved in the project at the moment are Dan Garon, who does media, marketing and PR work for hosting providers, and Michael Yablonowitz, CEO of hosting provider Uplinkearth.
He was very careful in the presentation to make the point that what he's discussing isn't a matter of "us" and "you," or rather that he's not out to dictate the terms, but to invite the people here to take an active role in shaping the organization.
He outlined the "lacks" that he feels make it necessary for there to be an organization. Saying that smaller businesses need a means of acquiring benefits, insurance and accounting, tax and legal resources. Larger businesses lack crisis coordination, a body of research and technical certification. And all businesses lack a unified public voice, political representation and standardized recognition of good business practices.
He listed what he anticipates will be the priorities of the organization (more specifically, of its members) in this order: employee benefits, business standards, technical certification, public/media relations, legal resources, research repository, broad political representation, an upstream crisis network, accounting resources, a certified employment portal, insurance.
I'll admit I have certain negative feelings associated with the "high hopes" sort of optimism that can't help but be going into this organization at the moment. And of course there have been several failed attempts to organize similar organizations in the past.
Paul says the main reasons those past efforts failed was simply that the project is a lot of work, and at this stage it's a lot of thankless work. To his credit, Paul is pretty obviously committed to the cause and is determined to put in that work.
I'm not so sure that was the only reason they failed in the past. Earlier efforts at forming hosting associations have also been determinedly and unmistakably small-potatoes. And I think the emphasis on things like benefits and legal resources - necessary things that would definitely benefit the smaller organizations - have the effect of turning off the larger organizations that might consider being involved.
I'll admit I'm very intrigued by the idea of an industry organization with the power to create and dictate policy for the industry - policy in the sense that it could determine standards of practice, or verify certain common claims. For instance, it would be great if somebody could explain precisely what "green hosting" refers to, or at least assemble some unanimous thought about what could rightfully claim that distinction.
It's going to be a difficult battle though. He says the association is in the process of pulling together volunteers at the moment, and that he expects it to begin accepting actual paid membership at the beginning of next year.
Right now, he says, they're working (and need help) to create committees, write the standard of conduct, establish certification standards, help establish the dues structure, help develop technical systems, help recruit and donate money.
Long-term the success of the organization is obviously going to depend on its legitimacy, and its legitimacy is going to depend in large part on the ability of the people involved to convince certain of the big organizations in hosting to get on board.
Obviously, there are certain companies that are just never going to see the benefit in getting involved in an organization like this. I'd imagine Go Daddy would be a pretty tough sell, since that company has a pretty solid tradition of doing things on its own. Not bothering to attend HostingCon, for instance, is a good indicator of a general lack of any drive to get involved in something like this. And companies like these would probably also hesitate to make themselves accountable to the policies of an organization they can't control.
But there's a kind of chain of influence they'll have to climb. And I can see it being possible. With each company they bring on board, it'll become easier to get the next, bigger company involved.
Hopefully they'll get to the point where they're actually able to do some good work.
Paul says people interested in getting involved with the association can fill out a form on the website.
He says filling out the form basically says "I'm interested in learning more and basically helping out in some way."
If you're at the show and are interested in getting more info from them or getting involved, they've got a booth that was donated by George Roberts and the conference, number 221.
