There’s an old technology riddle about the power of the networking effect. It goes something like this:
What’s the value of one fax machine? Zero.
What’s the value of many fax machines? Infinite.
The network effect basically says the more network “nodes”, the more valuable the network, and it is NOT a linear equation, it’s generally logarithmic.
I attended the Avectra User Group Conference in early March and I saw the networking effect in action. Several hundred Avecta clients were there and we generated some interesting sales opportunities, which is generally how most vendors judge the success of these events. But even more importantly, I forged new relationships with some other Avectra partners that I think can help propel us forward. All of these partners provide valuable goods and services to the same customer base we are calling on, so naturally it stands to reason that we can help each other out. There’s a whole lot of good technology out there serving the association space, and we don’t need to reinvent the wheel, so expanding our partner network delivers value to our customers and saves our precious product development resources for the stuff that our partners don’t have expertise in. We’ll stay focused on developing the best continuing education delivery platform in the industry and we’ll bring other technologies to you that are delivered by companies that are first in their respective fields.
InReach lives by an old African proverb: If you want to run fast, run alone. If you want to run far, run together. Technology development is a marathon, not a sprint and we are always looking for more partners to fill in product and services gaps—if you’ve got a need or an idea, tell us about it and we’ll try and find a fit.
