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News Room: News & Announcements |
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President pushes software group in new directions
Friday, April 23, 2010
by Erik Siemers
Portland Business Journal
Matt Nees’ task is straight forward: He needs to change the world’s view of Oregon’s software industry.
"The impression worldwide is there’s a desert between the Bay Area and Seattle,” said Nees, president of the Software Association of Oregon.
Nees, in other words, is on a mission to prove that Oregon’s software industry is more than just a mirage in that desert.
To do that, Nees, who took over as executive director last July, is working to raise the profile of the state’s software industry trade group.
Part of that mission comes in recognizing that its name - Software Association of Oregon - is something of a misnomer, that its reach should expand beyond just the software space.
So far, he’s casting the net wide.
"Any business in Oregon or who wants to come to Oregon that develops technology or adopts and uses technology should know about SAO,” he said.
The trade group, which has 450 member companies, needs to expand its focus, he said, rather than just marketing to all the software companies that a database query can deliver.
So in the past year, the Nees-led SAO has put itself in front of more so-called traditional businesses like utilities, manufacturers and insurance providers — non-software industries that are often software-reliant or employ their own software engineers.
In January the SAO began an aggressive public-private outreach effort, bringing chief technology officials from state agencies together with private sector software companies in a get-to-know-you event held in Salem.
The group has also boosted the breadth and depth of its intra-industry networking events featuring panels of CEOs, chief technology officers, and other key corporate executives.
Meanwhile, the SAO is working to strengthen its voice as an advocate not just for the software space, but for Oregon’s overall economic growth.
Nees said the SAO’s membership held strong during the economic recession and is on a growth trajectory.
But unlike in recent years, SAO is gaining momentum with an executive director and board of directors working in apparent lockstep.
That’s notable, considering Nees was the third person to lead SAO last year and its fifth chief in five years.
The SAO’s previous full-time executive director, Harvey Mathews, announced his departure in March 2008, expressing frustration over an organizational structure that stymied change.
Mathews later reversed course following a board restructuring, but resigned for good in February 2009, again citing disagreements with the board over the SAO’s direction.
Scott Kveton, CEO of Portland-based software start-up Urban Airship, stepped into the job on an interim basis before Nees was appointed full time in July.
SAO’s current board leaders are reluctant to drudge up the past, but they had plenty to say about the trade group’s current direction.
"My job as chairman has been made a whole lot easier for two reasons,” said Ryan Buchanan, CEO of Portland Internet marketing agency eROI Inc., who became SAO chairman in August.
One reason has been increased engagement by SAO’s board of directors, a major issue in the past, Buchanan said.
The second reason has been Nees.
"Matt’s really stepped up and taken a vocal role and done a good job at these business leader events,” Buchanan said. "Matt galvanized the board. . . . He was what we needed to make things happen.”
Nees joined the organization from StickIt Communications, his own marketing and communications agency. Prior to that, he held various executive-level positions with Xerox Corp., Hewlett-Packard Co. and Intel Corp., where he spent 12 years.
"The opportunities I had at Intel after 12 years were fabulous,” Nees said. "What I hadn’t realized is the amount of talent going on outside of Intel.”
The idea now is to give other sectors that same eye-opening realization.
To some degree, the strategy is working.
The joint SAO-state government event in January was a first-of-its-kind attempt to link the private software sector with a state government that spends about $1 billion each biennium on information technology.
"One of the things we heard loud and clear was there are applications being marketed to the private sector that are not thought about as a public sector application,” said Dugan Petty, the state’s chief information officer. "There’s a tremendous amount of opportunities there.”
That isn’t to say the state is ready to go on a spending spree with regional software developers. But understanding the region’s expertise in the software spaces increases that possibility.
Already, Petty said the state employs Portland-based Jive Software’s social collaborating platform to allow agencies to enhance inter-agency communication. The state’s also had some conversations about Portland start-up JanRain Inc.’s online identity management software.
"I don’t know where this goes or if it fits into our need,” Dugan said of JanRain. "But we’re smarter about what we’re going to do with that conversation and they’re smarter about the opportunity.”
As the word continues to spread, that desert between Silicon Valley and Seattle is going to look a lot more like fertile ground, with success stories popping off like fireworks.
"Portland is going to start hearing these pops going off over time,” Nees said.
The SAO’s job, he said, is to make sure the world outside of Oregon knows about the companies, products and services the state offers.
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