Ambassadors Spread the CompTIA Message

If you haven’t checked out the jammed-packed agenda for next week’s annual Breakaway conference, you’ll find a wealth of sessions, presentations, workshops and community meetings on the docket. Breakaway is one of the events I look forward to each year since there’s always something new starting or coming out of the confab. This year is no exception, and there’s one particular initiative that has my attention: The CompTIA Ambassador program.

In the words of Annette Taber, the association’s vice president of channel strategies: “CompTIA’s Ambassador Program is intended to harness the talents and energies of the most active, engaged and committed CompTIA members for the benefit of the association, while formally recognizing those who make such a positive impact representing CompTIA.”

What exactly does a CompTIA Ambassador do? In a word, “represent”.

At Breakaway, CompTIA will induct and deputize the inaugural class of ambassadors, giving them the mission of acclimating new members, supporting association and community initiatives, and recruiting new members to the CompTIA family.

Not just anyone can be an ambassador. The program is enlisting the support and participation of the most seasoned and active CompTIA members, ranging from its board of directors, members of the community executive councils and members with at least five years vested in the association. In other words, CompTIA is looking for the truly committed.

The CompTIA Ambassadors will have two committed leaders out of the gate: Stuart Selbst, the founder and chief executive officer of Stuart Selbst Consulting, and Mike Semel, the vice president of business continuity and compliance services at Connecting Point. Selbst and Semel are shepherding the Ambassador program because of their faith in CompTIA to deliver support and services to the channel community. And they recognize that only through active participation will the CompTIA community continue to strengthen and better serve its members.

“I am getting involved to help CompTIA create programs that will help the micro, small and medium VARs and MSPs develop their businesses to find a level of success. As a co-chairman of the Ambassador committee, my hope is that other CompTIA members will work with us to develop the association. If you are not a CompTIA member yet and want to do something to change your industry, you need to join today and get involved,” said Selbst.

The beautiful thing about the Ambassadors is that they’re not just an outreach group working on CompTIA’s behalf. Ambassadors are listeners within the CompTIA community, collecting and conveying ideas, critiques, requests and complaints of rank and file members. Through their regular contact with CompTIA’s executive leadership, Ambassadors will carry messages – good, bad and ugly – from the greater community that will ultimately improve the quality of CompTIA services and create new value-add member programs.

How will you know who’s a CompTIA Ambassador? Easy. They’ll be the ones with special lapel pins and Ambassador ribbons on their name badges. I’m sure any one of them will be happy to share with you how you can get involved.

I applaud CompTIA for creating the Ambassador program. It’s exciting to watch a grassroots effort such as this take form. As management guru Tom Peters once advocated, find your true fanatics and they will do extraordinary things to promote and advance the interest of the organization. That’s basically the idea of behind the Ambassador program, and they will work to be ambassadors equally for CompTIA’s leadership and community.

By Lawrence M. Walsh, a new contributor for CompTIA's Connect blog.  He is president of The 2112 Group, an independent consultancy specializing in technology and channel strategy, communications and intelligence services. He is also a participant in several CompTIA special interest groups and communities, including cloud computing and security.