Winner of the Best Business Enabler 2005 Category

MFAA supports LIXI

A message from LIXI CEO

The beginning of each New Year introduces a set of frantic activity across all aspects of LIXI’s organisational infrastructure.

The Board and Business committee are busy with strategy and focus on key projects that reflect the needs of members and the industry, budgeting, allocating resources and prioritising.

The Communications committee evaluates the impact of last year’s media coverage and events and is busy planning this year’s Forum, update events, the LIXI website and how to best inform members and the industry about LIXI and its activities.

The Technical committee oversees the completion of existing Working Group activity, plans the deliverables of new projects and ensures that the available resources, paid and volunteer alike are utilised in the most effective manner.

Last but not least, the IP committee together with admin and accounts are busy orchestrating the renewal of memberships and licenses, answering queries and guiding licensees to achieve the most cost effective licensing model depending on their business and operational needs.

LIXI often gets queries about the structure of the license and IP agreements and the need for membership and license fees. You may know that LIXI is a not-for-profit organisation, but may not be aware of the cost of offering the type of services that LIXI provides to it’s members. It is true, we don’t have office rent or equipment overheads due to the generous nature of some members that provide LIXI with meeting rooms and other types of facilities. We do however have paid resources that assist the volunteers with technical know-how and support. This way we get predictable outcomes in planned timeframes. These activities have a cost associated with them, which is funded solely and directly by the annual fees. If the annual fees stop, then funding for LIXI stops and just like any organisation LIXI will be forced to cease operations.

I don’t want to contemplate what the industry would be like without LIXI. Doing so may be perceived as scare tactics. We all have a notion of the value of LIXI in our minds, otherwise we would not be so passionate about it and strive for its success. We can however, help minimise unproductive efforts such as chasing unpaid fees by making sure that each member organisation pays promptly.

This way we can focus on the interesting stuff.