Q:  Terry, tell us what PSVillage is about and what the impetus was for creating this community?

A:  PSVillage is a dynamic, on-line community of Technology Professional Services Leaders.  We’re really a hybrid of a social networking group and an association.  I launched PSVillage in response to the enormous growth that was happening in this area as companies moved from product-centric to more services-centric organizations.  I also received a number of requests from Professional Services Leaders who were interested in networking with their peers. 

As an executive recruiter, I got to know many of these executives over the years and with the downturn in the economy many of them were really at a crossroads in their career and were beginning to realize how important it was to stay connected to the larger community.  But they didn’t know how because there was really no way of doing that.  No community of Professional Services Leaders existed at the time.  I realized that with my large network and the obvious need for this sort of community that I could really do a lot to help this very underserved market and that was by creating a forum for them to connect with each other.

What we are is really a grass roots organization, free-of-charge, that has doubled in size each year since our inception and today we’ve grown to nearly 800 members, primarily Director, VP and SVPs of services.  Our membership is comprised of about 70% software companies and 30% system integrators and boutique consulting firms.  But that’s just on the executive level side; we are also in the process of creating programs and offerings for all levels of professional services from Consultant to Vice President.  We also have a discussion forum for Consultants and Project Managers called PSVillageRW - the RW stands for RoadWarriors. My vision for PSVillage is that our community will be a place where all levels of PS have access to content and knowledge they need to be successful in their careers and in their personal growth and development.

Q:  You mention that currently your members are Professional Services Leaders.  Could you give us some examples of who PSVillage members are?

A:  Sure.  We run the gamut from professional services leaders who run PSOs in startups to the VPs and SVPs of Services for companies such as Salesforce.com, SAP, Oracle, Ingres, Borland, Mentor Grapics, Deloitte, Cap Gemini and Fujitsu Consulting.  Many of our members are the thought leaders in Professional Services and authors of well-known professional services books, including David Maister who has written several books on Professional Services, Jim Alexander, author of S-Business: Reinventing the Services Organization, Rajesh Setty, author of the blog and book, Life Beyond Code and Sath Sathyanarayan, author of Offshore Development and Technical Support.

Part of the vision for PSVillage is to create a platform for these and other PS thought leaders to share their experience and knowledge back into the community.  This is a community that is very hungry for this kind of knowledge sharing.

Q:  Why would someone become a member of PSVillage?  What are the benefits of belonging to your community?

A:  The main benefit is the networking aspect of PSVillage.  Not only can people take advantage of online collaboration in our Yahoo Groups Discussion forum to learn how their peers are handling similar situations and concerns but they can also attend in-person events, such as the Eagles of a Feather Executive Networking Event we recently held in the Bay Area and our PSVillage Power Breakfast Series that we’re rolling out nationwide.  The purpose of these breakfast meetings is to enable PS Leaders to get to know their peers and share knowledge and ideas on a local level.

Recently, our members began work on a community book called Tips from the Trenches: Collective Wisdom of 100 Professional Services Leaders. This book is a collection of lessons learned and PS bloopers submitted by our members.  We expect it to be completed by early April, 2007 and plan to make it available as a free download on the PSVillage home page.  It has been a very rewarding project for not only the core team who worked on the book but the entire community as they really pulled together to create something that has never been done in this industry - a book written by the community for the community.

In addition, we launched a niche job board last year specifically for Professional Services.  To my knowledge, it’s the only job board that is targeted to Professional Services.  We also launched an online magazine, called “Voice of the Village”, which is written by our members.  It’s really a kind of community blog and has been an effective way to give a voice to those with the depth of knowledge and experience that others can learn from. 

We’ve developed partnerships with Research companies Service Performance Insight and the Buswell Group to provide research to our members.  One initiative we’ve undertaken with the Buswell Group is to develop a Professional Services Benchmark to capture critical metrics such as operations, compensation, delivery and sales so that PSOs know where they stack up against other services organizations of their size.  This is something that has been greatly needed in the services community and we’re very happy to be able to fill this need.  The results will be available in March, 2007.

We are currently partnering with Service Performance Insight on The 2007 PSVillage PSA Survey was recently completed and is available for sale.  The results show some strong reasons why PSA is being adopted by PS organizations around the world.  We also have created a PSVillage group within LinkedIn and have nearly 200 members participating.

PSVillage is also paricipating by giving back to the community.  In February, 2007 PSVillage became a sponsor of Schools for Humanity (SFH), a non-profit—recently founded by PSVillage members Cindy Warner, SVP, Salesforce.com and David Brown, Cap Gemini—dedicated to building schools and educating children in undeveloped regions of the world.  PSVillage will help raise funds to support this very important cause.

Q:  What are the challenges you face in growing PSVillage?

A:  I think the biggest challenge is the same challenge faced by most online communities and that is getting the members to continue to provide knowledge and content back into the community.  According to Useit.com, in most online communities 90% of users are lurkers who never contribute, 9% of users contribute a little and 1% of users account for almost all of the interaction.  They call this the 90-9-1 rule.  We are looking at innovative ways for our members to participate in a way that works for them.  Many of these folks travel extensively and have little time left for things other than work and family so our goal is to make it as easy as possible for them to participate.  If they can’t make it to the events, they can always stay connected to their peers through our online discussion forum and PSVillage LinkedIn for Groups.

Q:  How are you funding PSVillage and what are your long-term plans for this community?

A:  People often ask me what the revenue model is for PSVillage.  Membership is free and members pay for programs on an ala carte basis, such as the breakfasts and networking events, research, workshops, job postings and webinars.  Currently most of our funding comes from our sponsors, OpenAir, QuickArrow,and Projector PSA.  I’ve been very impressed with the forward-thinking nature of our sponsors who have proactively supported our efforts from the inception of PSVillage.  They were excited to see that there was an initiative underway to form this type of community and they wanted to be a part of it. And that is a win-win for everyone as it greatly helps this community by enabling us to rollout additional programs.  Without their support, none of what we’ve accomplished to date would have been possible.

As for the long-term vision for PSVillage, we will continue to roll out new programs and initiatives.  We have lots of innovative ideas on the horizon and are excited to see them implemented in the near future.  Stay tuned!

If you’d like to know more about PSVillage, go to http://www.psvillage.com or contact Terry Jansen, PSVillage Founder and President at terry@psvillage.com
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