A 451 Alliance partner, the Open Networking User Group (ONUG) is a community-driven organization. When ONUG was established back in 2012, its charter was to provide a forum for IT business leaders to exchange ideas, best practices and deployment challenges associated with skills/culture, process and solutions. Its early members realized that collectively as a community, they are stronger.
No one company can change an industry. The largest of corporations or consumers of IT can get the best pricing, but they can’t change architecture and overall vendor approaches to deliver solutions. Only a community that speaks as one, or close to it, can accomplish that.
A strong community is made up of peer members, each with influence so that when combined, they get the gestalt effect: an organized whole that is more than the sum of its parts. It’s with this in mind that ONUG is launching the ONUG Collaborative Membership program exclusively for IT executives.
ONUG Collaborative’s IT Executive Membership is an annual program designed to combine peer-to-peer networking with industry-changing initiatives. That is, members enjoy exclusive, discreet and private organized engagements with peers where it is safe to share sensitive information.
IT executives in the Collaborative Membership program have the biggest say and impact on changing the industry as they combine their influence behind a set of use cases to drive change. This happens in the ONUG Working Groups, where ONUG created SD-WAN’s $5bn market, and the hybrid cloud and multi-cloud markets now worth tens of billions of dollars annually. The Working Groups are where ONUG is leading the industry in automated cloud governance, the development of the Cloud Security Notification Framework or CSNF, elastic infrastructure, orchestration and automation, practical real AIOps and cloud-native security.
Membership in the ONUG Collaborative is a corporate-level program versus an individual one. This affords a corporation to populate many working groups with IT business leaders and attend as many private meetings (virtual as well as face-to-face, when safe) as appropriate. The ability for corporations to offer technologist staff access to participating in community-driven activities that benefit their career and your corporation has been demonstrated to improve retention. All participating individuals are offered ONUG micro-credentials to show off their own (and your corporation’s) contribution to community-driven industry initiatives.
To celebrate accomplishments and stellar achievement, ONUG recognizes members of the community during its ONUG Insight conference for their industry contribution within ONUG Working Groups, presentations and thought leadership, among other things. These high-profile awards are recognized by and voted on by peers as a source of industry excellence. Awards are distributed annually based on exceptional contribution to the ONUG Community, industry leadership and mentorship.
Members also enjoy the benefit of understanding and comparing where they are in their digital transformation journey relative to peers, which is extremely helpful to understanding the effectiveness of your digital investments. Members contribute topics of interest and participate in blind surveys that drive a biannual state-of-the-industry report, which details aspects of digital enterprise activities so you can compare your company’s process vs. peers
The ONUG Collaborative’s IT Executive Membership annual program was developed by the ONUG Board and current Collaborative members. Membership is by invitation exclusively. Each member candidate must receive a recommendation from two existing members. All member applications are reviewed by the membership committee for final approval.
For more information on joining the ONUG Collaborative IT Executive Membership Program, you can visit here or you may apply online to join.
A community is only as strong as the strength of its network. We welcome your participation to usher in a safe, diversified, thriving and sustainable digital economy within the ONUG Collaborative. ONUG is a global community of 2,000 IT business leaders – and when this group collaborates, the gestalt effect is profound.
This blog post was originally published on the ONUG blog and has been republished here with permission from the author. ONUG partners with the 451 Alliance.
