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"As an active member of the Consortium, I have been able to help develop and implement the latest practices in Knowledge Management. Our support organization has had tremendous success with the concepts of the program teams. We have a strong commitment to the next generation of support practices currently in development . I enjoy collaborating with other companies to develop standards for support excellence". -Jan Young

"My association with the Consortium has been one of the most productive and challenging experiences of my career. I have been able to contribute to and benefit from this collective experience. Meeting and working with bright energetic professionals in the support industry has been tremendously rewarding. This is an exciting time for support, and I am looking forward to defining and contributing to practices which will be widely adopted." -Dave Thorp

"The Consortium has been a place for me to try new ideas in a very supportive environment. I have been encouraged by the team members and projects to think in a way that is innovative and creative. Successfully bringing home the concepts and implementing them at HP has been very rewarding. My work in the Consortium challenges me to look for new ideas and approaches to support in a positive and stimulating atmosphere. I attribute much of my personal and professional growth to my participation in the Consortium's work." -Christina Kulick

"The Consortium is the place where I collaborate with the best thinkers and leading practitioners in customer service and support. It provides an unparalleled opportunity to learn and contribute in an environment that is open to exploration but firmly grounded in the realities facing support professionals today. That's why participating in the Consortium is at the core of my professional life." - David Kay

"Throughout the past six years, Consortium participation has provided a wellspring of ideas on implementing KCS. Regular interaction with those applying and refining KCS principles in a day-to-day business setting has promoted success and nurtured the creativity that KM practices demand. KCS by definition is a collaborative effort. Managing this challenging business relies on innovative thinking and an on-going exchange of information. Consortium members demonstrate KCS in action" - Emil Kobylecki

"My participation in the Consortium over the past eight years has been intellectually challenging and immensely rewarding; our combined efforts have developed a robust and proven philosophy for effective Knowledge Management. Equally exciting though is the ongoing collaboration with industry thought leaders to identify not only how we can improve on what we have today, but to continually push the horizon, to proactively identify and solve the problems of tomorrow. I highly recommend active participation by anyone wanting to make a lasting difference in the area of Knowledge Management". - David Stanley-Jones

"Working with the Consortium has provided an opportunity for me to expand my thinking, work with others to validate and extend new ideas, and get excited again and again about the potential for improving the support industry. The people I've met and events I've attended have been among the richest, most powerful and most rewarding experiences of my professional career. Together we've created substantive, innovative work that has had a real impact on support organizations and their customers. There's a reason I'm a long-standing member: it's too much fun to stop, and there's too much still to do!" - Johm Chmaj

"The Consortium has been of tremendous benefit, providing opportunities to share knowledge and ideas with key industry peers. I would highly recommend active participation as a strategy for personal growth and career advancement." - Dave Cutler

"The reason that I’ve been an active member of the Consortium for the past 8 years is because of the strong membership from top companies and the ability that I’ve had to shape industry-leading changes rather than just react to those changes later on." - Tom Ford

Innovator Award Winners

These visionaries join a small, select group of members who have provided guidance and insight to the Consortium. Their work with the program teams has provided an important element of continuity. We are pleased to have recognize them with the Consortium Innovator Award in appreciation of their contributions.

Christina Kulick, Dave Thorp, Jan Young

Lala Mamedov, David Kay, Emil Kobylecki, David Stanley-Jones,

John Chmaj, Dave Cutler, Tom Ford, Gig Griffith,

Greg Liverman, Lisa Manchester

Christina Kulick (2006) - Christina has been an enthusiastic and valuable contributor to the KCS Operations team for the past three years. Her "can do" attitude and understanding of the KCS practices allows her to effectively translate the concepts of the working groups to proven practices at HP NonStop. In particular Christina has championed the Solution Quality Index and developed performance management spider charts to illustrate the value of triangulation. Additionally, she continues to share her experience and feedback while contributing to the KCS V4.0 practices guide.

Dave Thorp (2006) - Dave has been an active member of the Consortium for the past five years. He began while working for StorageTek and has continued while sitting on the Knowledge Management Steering Committee at Sun Microsystems. Dave's area of focus in the work of the Consortium has been on Organizational Network Analysis and the Adaptive Organization. Dave's KCS adoption experiences have made concrete contributions to the evolution of the KCS methodology. He has also played a key role in engaging the field in KCS processes, Content Standard and Solution Quality Review.

Jan Young (2006) - Jan has demonstrated a strong commitment and understanding of the KCS practices over the past six and a half years at Novell. She has been instrumental in their KCS adoption and her feedback has helped to shape the current model. She was instrumental in empowering the line management to own the KCS adoption, making it one of the most successful transitions to date. Jan is also very involved with the operations team working on the KCS V4.0 practices guide, the CRM KM integration and the Solution Quality Review. Jan has been very influential within the industry working with KM software vendors to integrate the power of KCS into their tools.

Lala Mamedov (2004) - Lala became an active member of the Consortium in 2001. As the Director of Technical Support Operations at Verisign, Lala supervised one of the quickest and most successful KCS adoptions to date. Lala advises, "The most important thing in a new KCS adoption is to have the support delivery organization own it and drive it, NOT the project managers." Lala considers participating on both of the Consortium's operations teams to be the most rewarding aspect of membership due to the creative synergy. She continues to be a strong advocate of the Consortium and KCS, participating on various industry speaker panels at CSI Member Summits and events.

David Kay (2003) - David has been a member of the Consortium for over four years, having served on the Sponsors Committee, the Support Futures team, the Strategic Issues Working Group, and the Adaptive Organization team. David has been certified as a KCS trainer, and contributes to the Consortium's work through a variety of deliverables including case studies illustrating benefits of CSI practices.

Emil Kobylecki (2003) - Emil has a long association with the Consortium as a partner while at HDI and more recently as a member of the KCS team and is one of the early KCS adopters. He has been involved in multiple KCS adoptions including Oracle, Legato and StorageTek. As a longtime member of the KCS program team, Emil has been instrumental in the evolutions of the operational model.

David Stanley-Jones (2003) - David has been a member of the Consortium for over four years, having served on the Sponsors Committee, the Support Futures team, the Strategic Issues Working Group, and the Adaptive Organization team. David has been certified as a KCS trainer, and contributes to the Consortium's work through a variety of deliverables including case studies illustrating benefits of CSI practices.

John Chmaj (2002) - John has been a member of the Consortium since its inception in 1992 and his contribution spans the entire scope of work of the Consortium. He has participated as a member as well as spent a few years on the Consortium staff managing the Exchange Standards team. John promoted the work of the Consortium while employed by Microsoft and continues to actively evangelize the Consortium models.

Dave Cutler (2002) - Dave has participated in the Consortium's work since 1996 with active involvement in the Strategic Issues group, the Virtual Support Community team and the Support Futures team. He has supported and promoted the adoption of KCS at Novell and is now part of the executive management team that are early adopters of the Adaptive Organization.

Tom Ford (2002) - Tom was an early adopter of KCS while at Attachmate and has provided insight and significant support to the evolution of KCS. He continued as a KCS advocate when he moved to Microsoft. Tom has participated in numerous program teams over the years including the Betty team and has made significant contributions to the development of the Adaptive Organization model (aka Betty) in his work on user communities at Microsoft.

Gig Griffith (2002)- As a long time member of the consortium Gig has participated in numerous program teams including Support Futures, KCS and the Betty team. Gig was part of the inception of the Betty team and while at Novell, Gig was instrumental in the KCS adoption.

Greg Liverman (2002) - Among his many contributions, Greg played key role in the historic conversation that launched the Betty team in November of 2000. He has been an active contributor to the KCS and Betty teams. As the Global Program manager for KCS adoption at Compaq he promoted the KCS methodology.

Lisa Manchester (2002) - Lisa has been a champion for the global adoption of KCS at Oracle and has been an active participant in the Consortium's work since 2000. She has made significant contributions to the KCS and Betty teams and provided continuity between the two.