Daily Archives: July 27, 2007

Another Public Nomination

Astute readers will have noticed a comment yesterday by one Ron Holland of FreedomFest News, regarding the creation of the Free Market Hall of Fame where members of the Freedom Movement (not clearly defined or referenced on the site) will have the opportunity to initially vote on individuals contributing most to the success and advancement of free markets and free people around the globe during 2007. My first instinct was to delete it, since even if it wasn’t spam, it was obviously some sort of non-approved advertising, and more than likely in violation of at least one of the Sourcing Innovation Blog Comment Rules, and Rule #1 in particular (since it did not seem to have anything to do with the post).

However, I decided to check it out since I really couldn’t see too much harm leaving it as long as it did not put forth the views of any particular government party or political association. And although I’m still not entirely sure what it is, I am a bit intrigued. I’m particularly intrigued by the fact that write-ins are permitted and “journalists and writers” is a category. After all, I think the supply and spend management space needs all the attention it can get, and a few bloggers in particular definitely need more attention.

So it got me thinking. Specifically, it got me thinking that maybe if not a lot of people vote and maybe if a lot of sourcing and procurement professionals vote (for the same write-in candidate), maybe one of our own can get an honorable mention. (After all, you know Stephen Colbert is going to win once the Colbert Nation picks up on this, assuming it hasn’t already.) And that would make a great story.

So, even though he’d probably tell you it’s likely a big waste of time, if you have 30 seconds, please go to the Free Market Hall of Fame Survey, write-in Jason Busch for Question 1, and enter a valid e-mail address and zip code for question 2 and submit.

Then, if you have another 30 seconds, as the comment instructed, please e-mail ron@freedomfest.com and nominate Jason Busch for a Free-Market Hall of Fame Position under the “journalist and writer” category. To aid you, I’ve created a short nomination that you can cut and paste.

For the last two years, Jason Busch, a pre-eminant thinker in the supply and spend management space and author of the Spend Matters blog, has been diligently blogging multiple times a day on issues, events, best practices, and thought leadership in an effort to raise not only the profile of the space, but to inform each of his readers - peers, consultants, vendors, and general practices alike - of it's, and their, potential.

As one of the first practitioner's to realize that procurement is undergoing a transformation into a strategic supply and spend management function that will cross all boundaries and borders of the business, Jason's thinking is second to none. He was also one of the first to realize that forward thinking organizations not only need to consider long term price hedging contacts to insure supply and spend stability but also need to consider securing, and securitizing, raw production capacity, which they can then trade on a new type of open market if they secure more, or less, than what they need. (For example, see his great post "Sourcing Innovation: Securitizing Direct Materials" on August 28, 2006.)

He is a firm believer in free markets who strives hard to get the message across that as procurement evolves into the most strategic supply chain function, so does it's position and recognition within a corporation. Considering that good sourcing and procurement can save an average billion dollar company tens of millions while bad sourcing and procurement can cost them tens of millions, or more, it's important to have such a forward thinking journalist embrace the web, the new medium for content delivery, and blog almost religiously in an effort to simply open the minds and increase the understanding of others. And in this regard alone, he is a thought leader of the Free Market Movement and deserves to be recognized as such.

He may not win, but if the Colbert Nation can convince Google that Stephen Colbert is the Greatest Living American by overloading the system, maybe we can do the same and finally get this sector a little limelight!