Getting involved with standards organizations – the conventions and best practices

The first thing you should do to start participating in standards is to determine your role. Will you plan to lead this effort or are you looking to contribute or just to observe? Are you there to monitor, influence, or drive? Is this effort going to be long-term and strategic or a short-term engagement?

As we discussed, there are many benefits to participating in standards – finding out the latest developments, preventing unfavorable or “bad” things from happening, getting cross-industry perspectives on issues, and encouraging collaboration and innovation. Standards activities can influence standards important to you or your company.

There are also perception-related advantages to participating in standards such as communications, marketing, and mindshare increases in the market. Remember that standards participation is a two-way street: standards influence products...