Fourth pillar of an SSI network: SSI advocacy

February 17, 2020

Note: In celebration of Sovrin Foundation’s new membership program, the Foundation is writing a series of blogs that highlight the core activities it provides as a nonprofit which Sovrin Chairman Phil Windley refers to as the “Four Pillars of an SSI Network”. Much of the material used in this blog post was originally published on Phil’s blog Technometria. 

“The fourth key function of the Sovrin Foundation is evangelizing self-sovereign identity (SSI) and bringing people and organizations together to spur adoption. The Foundation achieves this using a three-pronged approach.

First, we focus on building awareness of and affinity for self-sovereign identity. Sovrin Foundation is a nonprofit, open-source project formed to advance the development and adoption of tools, products, and services that are aligned with the Sovrin Governance Framework. We believe having a trusted leader in decentralized identity space sets the Sovrin ecosystem apart from other SSI community efforts.

As many organizations actively contribute and participate in the Sovrin ecosystem, we also channel marketing efforts around the individual projects and their own respective value propositions, bringing awareness to specific features and communities.

Finally, Sovrin Foundation works to highlight, promote, and bring awareness to individual use cases and what they are providing their customers. Our aim is to connect all parts of this new evolving ecosystem to grow the adoption and widespread use of self-sovereign identity and the Sovrin Network.

Our efforts include:

• Advocacy: There are numerous organizations, groups, and efforts around the world working on SSI. Some of these are formal standards bodies, policy, and advocacy organizations. Some are community organizations with specific purposes. The Sovrin Foundation facilitates the participation of staff and volunteers in these efforts to guide SSI developments in ways that are consistent with the principles that are part of the Governance Framework.
• Sovrin blog: The Sovrin Foundation blog is read by thousands and provides an opportunity to broadcast the latest news and views to a wide audience beyond the core ecosystem participants. Selected content may include summaries of important updates, both Governance and Technical, but it may also include stories about events, use cases, industry insights, and other topics that may be of interest to the community.
• Community events: In 2019, the Sovrin Foundation participated in nearly 60 events around the world. Employees, volunteers, and active members of the Sovrin ecosystem traveled great distances at great expense to promote, educate, and participate in conferences, workshops, working groups, meetings, and speaking engagements.
• Marketing & PR channels: The monthly Sovrin Newsletter will celebrate its two year anniversary in 2020, never missing an issue. The newsletter provides a regular recap of news, events, profiles, and announcements from around the Sovrin community. Along with the social media channels, Rocket.chat, and forums, Sovrin works diligently to keep the lines of communication open between the employees, volunteers, and community.
• Analyst relations: Industry reports from third parties is a vital part of the Sovrin Foundation community engagement strategy. In 2019, Sovrin communicated with industry analysts (also known as research analysts) from six of the top independent research and consulting firms. These inquiries resulted in multiple mentions and positive attention in key industry reports on self-sovereign identity, decentralized identity, and blockchain.
• Trademark & brand: Adhering to the strong brand guidelines of the Sovrin Foundation offers an important as a trust signal to people using the Sovrin Network. A strong brand also helps avoid market confusion and serves to align the fast-growing community to reap optimal benefits when discussing association with Sovrin. The Sovrin Foundation has registered Sovrin® as a trademark in the United States and other countries to help with this effort.
• Membership: There are many ways to be part of the Sovrin community. As more organizations find their way to Sovrin and self-sovereign identity, the Sovrin Foundation makes every effort to onboard these groups to participate as financial Donors, Stewards, Volunteers, and as open source contributors. Stay tuned in 2020 for more information spotlighting each of these important groups and how you too can be ‘Sovrin’.”¹

Sovrin Foundation Members’ contributions provide the needed financial support the Foundation needs to continue to evangelize SSI and the Sovrin Network around the world. We welcome you and your organization to join us in this important work by becoming a Sovrin Foundation Member. Until February 29, 2020, any organization that wishes to support the Sovrin Foundation by becoming a Donor, and therefore a Sovrin Foundation Member, will receive a 10% discount. To take advantage of this discount, fill out the interest form at https://sovrin.org/join-sovrin/.

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References

1 https://www.windley.com/archives/2020/01/four_pillars_of_an_ssi_network.shtml