In April, Talkstandards.com hosted an open forum on the topic of formal review/ranking of Standard Setting Organisations (SSO). Contributors were asked to discuss whether such review/ranking of SSOs would foster or impede efficient standardization?

Ajit Jaokar argued that any “standards for standards” effort risked the creation of a “class system between consortia” based on an arbitrary set of criteria and will only be more difficult to apply as new innovation becomes increasingly cross-domain (e-health, Mobile health, etc).

Helen Disney, arguing that the priority of an SSO should be promotion of both competition and innovation, identified the criticism that formal review creates more bureaucracy within the standard setting organisations and as such may slow change in dynamic markets such as the IT sector.
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In late 2008, IBM published a new corporate policy, which set guidelines for the company’s behavior in different standards setting organizations. While initially well received, such an attempt to standardize the process of standardization may prove to have negative effects on innovation as no single consensus-view on openness currently exists.

The initiative strives to ultimately increase the level of openness throughout the whole process of standards development and was the result of a six-week discussion in 2008, in which 70 independent experts debated whether modern SSOs manage to keep up with reality (commercial, legal, social etc.). Interestingly, the discussion was not open.
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The British Standards Institution (BSI) announced in a 2009 press release in a that work had begun to formulate the PAS 98 “Code of practice for the establishment and management of Consortia”, a good practice guide. The code is to be internationally applicable and provide support for consortia in e.g. standards development and interoperability.
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