Dear LPI Professionals, Sponsors and Partners:
On behalf of the Board of Directors of the Linux Professional Institute please accept my best wishes for the coming year. Your efforts in 2007 ensured the ongoing success and growth of LPI. We look forward to working with all of you toward greater achievements in 2008. In early 2006, LPI established a strategic plan for stability, innovation and growth. The work of ensuring organizational stability was largely completed in 2007 allowing us to turn our attention to innovative approaches in both our internal infrastructure and the larger external forces that shape global IT certification. We will continue to focus on innovation in all we do, thus driving substantial program and organizational growth in 2008 Innovation is not possible without a certain degree of program and organizational stability. This was achieved in the past year, on a program level, through the introduction of our enterprise level LPIC-3 certification. We also stabilized business development efforts through our network of Area Operations Management. Both efforts were the result of a strong commitment to improving the organization to best serve the industry. LPI continues to champion industry adoption of Open Source technology through our leadership in vendor independent skills measurement. In this role, we know that creating a valuable program requires the ability to harness the power of global contribution. Other industries understand this concept as well. An interesting parallel to our approach is demonstrated in a recently published study <http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/5760.html> that heralds a "new" form of disruptive innovation (sometimes known as the orchestra model) which focuses on organizational collaboration. In this model key development efforts are not necessarily "outsourced" but rather distributed and managed through a network of players that collaborate and partner to create new offerings for the market. This collaborative model is best exemplified on the global stage by the development of the Boeing Dreamliner <http://hbswk.hbs.edu/item/5750.html> but is equally evident in the day-to-day work of LPI. Much like the process of building the Dreamliner, LPIC-3 was developed by a collaborative partnership with our affiliate channel, several leading international IT companies and a committed global network of professionals from the central core of Linux. The associated benefits of this collaborative model (cost, capability and contextual knowledge) are best demonstrated by the expansion in LPI's business development channel. LPI supports the global workforce by identifying organizations with pre-existing infrastructure and resources and recruiting them to become part of our team. In this way, LPI is able to set a global vision, yet focus on regional execution to ensure program growth. As a result , in 2007, LPI added approximately 100 LPI Approved Training Partners and expanded our sales and marketing presence to cover 15 additional countries. Other evidence of collaborative partnerships we pursued this past year include: * A first-time "LPI Day" of educational and networking events for alumni at a major IT event in Germany, * A region wide meeting of all Master Affiliates for knowledge sharing in EMEA * A Taiwanese version of LPIC-1 exams * Inclusion in a government educational program for Veterans in the USA. * All these successful activities were due to the initiative and hard work of committed and collaborative local partners. This ethic of collaboration was also employed in significant activities by LPI internationally: we actively pursued multinational IT organizations to include our program amongst their pre-requisites for their own professional designations--news of which we will be announcing soon. Furthermore, we collaborated with enterprise level organizations to form the Information Technology Certification Council to ensure industry-wide standards on exam security, program excellence, and workforce development. In so doing we have cemented our industry reputation as the Linux and Open Source certification organization of record. In 2008 we will pursue this innovation model further by embracing the four "pillars" of successful collaborative capabilities: people, process, platforms, and programs: People: Effective collaboration requires people with different skills. We have already begun this work by moving our Operations to Northern California in the US where we will have greater access to a readily available talent pool and exposure to Silicon Valley. However, this investment in people will be further enhanced by the development of a new marketing task force within the LPI global network. Process: LPI will continue to evolve our processes to ensure effective collaboration. An example this past year has been the EMEA knowledge-sharing event--a process we will evolve for other regions. In addition, we will also look at innovative approaches to enhancing our models of Computer-based and Paper-based test delivery. Platforms: Collaborative organizations invest in tools, standards and working methods that facilitate distributed work. We will continue to embrace such virtual collaborative tools in the coming year as Google Apps, VOIP technologies, and improved reporting capabilities to facilitate our work in the field. Programs: LPI has learned important lessons on program development through our unique exam development process. We will apply these "lessons learned" to other aspects of our business activities to find new ways to develop adjacent business opportunities for both our partners and LPI as a whole. This coming year will provide an opportunity to build upon the foundation we now have in place. I look forward to engaging with all of you to continue on our course of innovation and growth! Sincerely, Jim -- _____________________________ Jim Lacey President and CEO Linux Professional Institute Sacramento Office 1024 Iron Point Rd. Folsom, CA 95630 v: 916.357.6625 f: 916.357.6501 _____________________________
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