USENIX Board Meeting Continuation of the Strategy Discussion June 24, 2008 Boston, MA

1. USENIX Board MeetingContinuation of the Strategy DiscussionJune 24, 2008Boston, MA

2. GENERATED 2/29/08 BOD MTG Review of our ground rules • Scope for our discussion: 1-3 years • It is admissible to table discussions such as: • Subjects that have been covered repeatedly in the past without conclusion • Discussions that need data not available in the room to resolve • Decision-making: if there is not consensus: • If there is a clear minority, then the minority should agree to disagree so we can move on • If it’s close – we vote • If there is an even split – we need more work • Roles of participants: • Advocate passionately for your position • Ultimate goal is to do what’s best for USENIX as a whole • There should not be side conversations. • It’s ok to walk around as we talk. • Computers should only be used for the purposes of this discussion (with some exceptions) • Nancy will: • Perhaps stop discussion in order to ensure we reach our goals • Use the parking lot if necessary • Suggest modifications to the agenda if it seems like the most productive way to get things done. • Capture points of agreement and lack of agreement as possible

3. Highest level plan for the day • Review the last meeting and its results • Set the context for what we are going to accomplish today • Then I’ll give you the detailed agenda…

4. Reminder of the goal of strategy • Identify an implicit or explicit need in a group of people • That we are well-suited to serve • And for which we have some passion to serve • In a way we think we can do better than others

5. Our first step was to identify the needs that our customers or potential customers are looking to have filled (industry mapping)

6. GENERATED AT 2/29/08 MEETING Our industry maps generated some insights on our strengths and weaknesses at serving various segments • We do well for admins and academics • We lack buzz! • We ignore: developers, OSD, entrepreneurs, managers • Developers have lots of needs that we’re not good at providing today • For tech grazers: we are close, but we don’t focus here? What if we focused more and marketed to them explicitly? • Companies: don’t consider us strong across the board (of values we provide) • For salarymen (aka 9 to 5ers): • certification is critical. • They don’t care as much about the features associated with the conference • Recognition is HUGE but • Differs in how its conferred by constituency • Certification is not necessarily the best form of recognition • On-line is an opportunity

7. Then we generated ways we could address spots in the map

8. GENERATED AT 2/29/08 MEETING And finally, we took a first pass at defining our goals(“What we will accomplish/do to be successful in 1-3 years?”) • We will change the academic publishing world (forcing IEEE and ACM to follow suit) through: • the use of discussion links, presentations, and live streaming of all past proceedings, • free access to people will want to publish with us, • We must: • attract younger members (10% under 25, 50% under 35), • be associated with trends that are “hot” and • continue to be respected as a publication forum • We will: • attract experts in new areas, • share that expertise with new markets and the existing expanding markets • We will: • offer new services, • remind the world of the value of the organization and get our presence out so we no longer hear: “oh, you’re still around” • We must: • be recognized as the place to go for info on at least 3 areas, • offer at least 1 new service that’s highly ranked by our members, and • maintain our membership numbers and conference attendance • Usenix will:: • be an active on-line presence with discussion of papers, established presence in 2nd life, • have many young people including women as members, • have been a launch site for world-changing businesses and products* and • be recognized as an incubator for CS-related projects*

9. GENERATED AT 2/29/08 MEETING Defining our goals (2)(“What we will accomplish/do to be successful in 1-3 years?”) • We will: • continue to identify and serve new leading edge technology sectors, • broaden our reach in ways that enhance our reputation and our revenue base, and • increase our membership outside of researchers and sys admins to include OSD, developers and entrepreneurs, • provide venues and services that are exciting, and • provide recognition for a large group of members • We will: • significantly increase our membership and conference participation by younger members • develop a significant presence among undergraduate students and provide services targeted to them • reclaim our role in the Open Source Dev community • In 1-3 years: • we continue to be financially stable • we have added “20% (x%)” younger members as well as keep what we have • we have ensured that our membership continues to be satisfied • our conferences continue to be well-attended with relevant content; • our academic / industrial collaboration is reinforced and getting stronger • we continue to see and set the standard for publication in the digital world; • companies, end users and developers consider US to be the place to be by being the incubator of the best ideas • We will: • be recognized as the premier supplier of knowledge dissemination services to new communities especially developers and 9-to-5ers • while continuing to serve the communities of academics and sys admins

10. GENERATED AT 2/29/08 MEETING Defining our goals (3)(“What we will accomplish/do to be successful in 1-3 years?”) • We will: • lead the pack in breaking down artificial boundaries and encouraging synergy between development, engineering, measurement, assessment and management. • In doing so, we become an information source for our constituencies by setting quality standards and recording best practices • We will: • continue our tradition of sharing, developing and adopting the best ideas in IT. • have more on-line content and community building especially to sys admins and students, • do more in credentialing, • more effectively engage developers, • be aggressive with new topics and benefits (4 new topics in 3 years, 2 new member benefits), and • bring in the younger demographic. • For USENIX to be a success 3 years from now, we will look back and will be able to say that: • we re-established USENIX as a gathering and communication forum for IT thought leaders and skilled practitioners. • our communities focus on long-term value, deep technical challenges, sustaining technology, and meaningful IT. • our membership grew slowly but steadily. • To do this, we developed a small number of new products that attracted, supported, and enabled the academics and practitioners who are making important differences. • Our products include on-line presence, new community/gathering types to match current interaction methods, and something that expands our brand awareness into the 9-to-5ers, IT managers, and companies. • We associated our brand with IT quality, deep expertise, and enduring value.

11. GENERATED AT 2/29/08 MEETING We generated a first pass at goals we shared • Attract new expertise in new areas • Replace the ACM mind-share for being the organization in CS • which will be reflected in having younger membership, capturing a larger fraction of the > 30 group • 4 new successful* workshops, 1 of which becomes like FAST • Financially stable with enough resource to experiment in new areas • Become valuable to the open source community • Increase our on-line presence • Overall increase in participation • Reach new constituencies like developers, companies, IT managers and entrepreneurs * Need definition of success

12. My conclusions from last meeting • You have plenty of ideas for things you can do that do not require a dramatic change in strategy • You are fairly consistent about what you would like the organization to achieve • But you do not have a good way of comparing these ideas to determine: • How well they fit the organization • How well they will help you achieve your goals

13. Goals for the meeting • Establish a framing that helps us distinguish between the nature of the different opportunities we face • Put in place a portfolio methodology for helping us determine the set of opportunities to address: • Determine the criteria of fit to our goals and capabilities • Apply our criteria to the ideas we’ve identified (and new ones) resulting in a portfolio of ideas that can be compared • Prioritize the current portfolio of ideas • Decide what we’ll do with the ideas as prioritized today and how we’ll use the portfolio methodology going forward

14. Proposed agenda

15. Framing

16. One way to tell the story: USENIX’ implicit strategy is to… • Offer community, recognition, reputation and education: • On the latest technology • From the best minds in the field – joining industry and academia • Focused on solving the hardest problems • Mostly focused on systems and system administration • USENIX plays to the high end niche, which usually means: • harder to serve so barriers to entry • higher margin • smaller size market sys admin systems

17. There are two paths to growth when the original niche is no longer growing or declining 1 Look for ways that our offerings can serve new subject areas 2 • Look for ways to leverage a core, niche capability into the larger population • Different offerings • Different competitors • Different channels What we know about this type of strategy: • Difficult (perhaps impossible at a small scale) to do both: serve the larger volume of less sophisticated users in all subject areas and preserve the brand of highly specialized experts • Difficult (but possible) to serve larger audiences in specific areas

18. Example of growth through extending to new subject areas: Mercury Computer Systems Applications requiring Mercury’s technology Need for real-time, high speed digital signal processing wireless healthcare defense Number of applications

19. Example of growth through migration “down” the pyramid: Palomar Technologies Dermatology and Plastic Surgery General Practice and Other Doctors Technology advances and product cost reductions Spas and Salons Consumers Anti-Aging Cellulite Acne Hair Removal market size

20. The question of how USENIX can grow was inherent in the ideas we discussed last time To what other subject areas can we extend our capabilities? - OSD? Certification? • Should we extend to the larger volume of “less sophisticated” practitioners? • 9 to 5ers? • Certification? OSD? storage security sys admin systems

21. How does the industry map exercise relate to this framing? For each subject area: Offerings segments needs • Last meeting, we looked at all subject areas in one map • Ideally, you consider subject matter separately because they tend to differ: by maturity, by the roles that each segment performs, by size

22. Proposal for terminology for USENIX’ purposes • Subject areas(system administration, security, storage…) • Segments(academics, system administrators, developers…) • Offerings (high end conferences, refereed publications, tutorials from experts…) Subject areas Offerings Segments Segments storage security sys admin systems • All 3 of these need to be aligned • and we have to ensure that we have the right number and type of resources to accomplish them (which we won’t consider today)

23. Examples of using the framework… • What do we think about what direction it makes most sense for USENIX to grow? Should we serve the larger population (aka “salarymen”, “9 to 5ers”, “industry-specific practitioners”)? • How might the needs of this group fit or not fit our current offerings? • What other offerings might they need? • Will we face new competitors? • Will serving this new population require significantly more or different resources to accomplish? • Can we achieve our goals with adding new offerings, new subject areas and serving new segments in our niche at the top of the pyramid? • How do the following opportunities we identified in our industry maps fit this framework? • Extending to developers? • Entrepreneurs? • The fit of other ideas to this framing?

24. Key* New offering New segment New subject area End product for today: a “portfolio” of new subject areas, segments and offerings • That “fits” our capabilities and aspirations (y-axis) • That contribution to goals (x-axis) hi Fit lo hi lo Contribution to our goals *Size indicates effort required – we won’t get to that today.

25. How we’re going to get there • Define how we’ll place ideas on the portfolio: • Refine the definition of our goals (x-axis placement) • Develop our criteria of fit (y-axis placement) • New subject areas • New segments • New offerings • Use our definitions to evaluate each idea and place it on the portfolio • Evaluate our portfolio

26. Defining the structure of the portfolio

27. Key* New offering New segment New subject area The portfolio • That “fits” our capabilities and aspirations (y-axis) • That contribution to goals (x-axis) hi Fit lo hi lo Contribution to our goals *Size indicates effort required – we won’t get to that today.

28. This part we define once and then use to evaluate each idea How we will determine the placement of an idea on the portfolio For evaluating a new offering…

29. Exercise 1: Refine our definition of success/ what we’re trying to achieve“Goals” • Attract new expertise in new areas • Replace the ACM mind-share for being the organization in CS • which will be reflected in having younger membership, capturing a larger fraction of the > 30 group • 4 new successful* workshops, 1 of which becomes like FAST • Financially stable with enough resource to experiment in new areas • Become valuable to the open source community • Increase our on-line presence • Overall increase in participation • Reach new constituencies like developers, companies, IT managers and entrepreneurs GENERATED AT 2/29/08 MEETING • Weighting: (1 = nice to have, 2 = important, 3 = absolutely critical)

30. Developing criteria of fit: NEW SUBJECT AREAS • Generate examples • What is the role that new subject areas play for us? • Upsides? • Downsides? • What does it mean for a new subject area to be a good fit for us? • List of criteria • Weighting • Scale (0 – 5) • Ideas for new subject areas: • OSD? • ??

31. Developing criteria of fit: NEW SEGMENTS • Generate examples • What is the role that new segments play for us? • Upsides? • Downsides? • What does it mean for a new segment to be a good fit for us? • List of criteria • Weighting • Scale (0 – 5) • Ideas for new segments: • Serving developers • Serving entrepreneurs

32. Developing criteria of fit: NEW OFFERINGS • Generate examples • What is the role that new segments play for us? • Upsides? • Downsides? • What does it mean for a new segment to be a good fit for us? • List of criteria • Weighting • Scale (0 – 5) • Ideas for new offerings: • Make better use of on-line, digital capabilities in our service to recognition and career advancement • Living Papers • On-line AV archive of talks • Scan the archives of past proceedings • USENIX degrees

33. Reviewing opportunities and adding to them

34. Reviewing opportunities and creating the portfolio • Summary of research done since last meeting • New ideas? • For each opportunity: • Type • Fit score: • (sum of (criteria score x weighting))/number of criteria • Goal score • Create and the portfolio

35. Exercise: How do we characterize these opportunities?

36. Evaluating the portfolio • What generalizations can you make about the current portfolio of ideas? • Are there any surprises in terms of placement in the portfolio? • Are the set of ideas that are high priority aligned? • Are we addressing all of your goals? • Reading from the portfolio, what is the order of priority of ideas we’ve suggested to do?

37. Completeness check: Have we addressed all of our goals? Goals Ideas

38. Final discussion: next steps and future use of the portfolio • Next steps • Evaluating resource needs • Actions on specific opportunities • Future use of the portfolio

39. Backup material

40. Exercise 2: What is our main approach to growth? • Should we serve the larger population (aka “salarymen”, “9 to 5ers”, “industry-specific practitioners”)? • How might the needs of this group fit or not fit our current offerings? • What other offerings might they need? • Will we face new competitors? • Will serving this new population require significantly more or different resources to accomplish? • Can we achieve our goals with adding new offerings, new subject areas and serving new segments in our niche at the top of the pyramid?

41. Exercise 3: The best and worst portfolios • Give an example of a portfolio that you hope we don’t end up with • What general statements can we make for situations we want to avoid? • Is there something about the mix of subject areas, offerings and segments? • Are all the ideas in a particular part of the portfolio graph or can bad situations be found in other places in the portfolio? • Provide an example of a very good portfolio for us to end up with • Can you make some general statements that describe the perfect portfolio? • General mix of subject areas, offerings, segments? • Are all ideas upper right hand corner?

42. GENERATED DURING MEETING How do our initial stabs at an industry map match the proposed use of the terminology? (1)

43. We do it well Others are better than us opportunity GENERATED DURING MEETING How do our initial stabs at an industry map match the proposed use of the terminology? (2) on-line on-line on-line ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ?

44. GENERATED DURING MEETING How do our initial stabs at an industry map match the proposed use of the terminology? (3) strength competitors mixed ability not of value opportunity