AllianceHub Connects Professional Wisdom

2025-04-16

The Path to Standardization: Invisible Challenges in Collaboration

In the realm of international standard setting, a notable trend is becoming increasingly evident: as technological complexity grows, collaboration on standards not only encounters technical challenges but also grapples with complexities in collaborative processes. Experts are tasked not only with contributing their specialized knowledge but also with coordinating diverse opinions, tracking document versions, managing meeting schedules, and more. These activities consume valuable professional time and focus.

The collaborative complexity in the standard-setting process is directly proportional to the depth of expertise involved. When experts participate in multiple working groups simultaneously, switching between different roles, they must expend considerable energy adapting to varying work environments and collaborative procedures. This scenario is particularly common in international standards organizations.

Motivated by observations of these phenomena, the Comentropy Industry and Standard Innovation Service Center began exploring ways to offer more efficient collaborative support for international alliances. This initiative stemmed from team members' firsthand experiences in the International Telecommunication Union (ITU), IEEE, and open-source projects, with the goal of enabling experts to concentrate more on contributing their specialized knowledge rather than being bogged down by process coordination.

Virtual Space: Reconstruction of Cognitive Environments

From One to Many: Innovative Thinking in Virtual Spaces

Traditional collaboration platforms typically treat each user as a singular entity—an information receiver and producer. However, in the actual work of standards organizations, an expert often participates in multiple working groups, assuming different roles in various contexts—sometimes as a technical contributor, other times as a working group chair, or even as a member of an alliance council. Switching between these multiple roles demands that experts invest additional effort adapting to different work environments.

The “virtual space” concept introduced by AllianceHub is specifically tailored to address this characteristic. The platform creates independent collaboration environments for each working group, proposal, and project, with each space featuring specific members, documents, and decision-making processes. Crucially, the same expert can hold different permissions and responsibilities across various spaces without needing to switch accounts or platforms.

Zheng Liansheng of the GIIC HarmonyOS Ecosystem Promotion Committee explained the practical value of this mechanism: “AllianceHub establishes permission-controlled working group spaces, enabling members to stay updated on meeting schedules and proposal dynamics, while restricting process documents to review within the working group, thus preventing confusion in standard version management.”

This design helps experts maintain a clear and consistent cognitive environment when participating in multiple projects, alleviating the mental strain associated with context switching.

Cognitive Security and Granular Permissions

The core value of virtual spaces lies in their granular permission management mechanism. Through the UniAccount module, the platform enables differentiated permission configurations across various spaces under a unified account, addressing the intricate collaboration needs unique to standards organizations.

This design is not merely a technical achievement but reflects a deep understanding of collaboration efficiency. Effective standard collaboration requires appropriate information boundaries—experts need to focus on internal discussions at certain stages without external interference, while at other times they benefit from broader feedback and interaction. The granular permission mechanism supports this natural workflow, allowing experts to concentrate their cognitive resources on professional content without constant concern over information boundaries.

Zhang Zhiyong of the Network Innovation and Development Alliance (NIDA) Data Center Network Working Group shared his practical experience: “AllianceHub’s online voting feature has brought unprecedented transparency to our decision-making process. All details can be viewed and recorded in real-time through the system. This transparent mechanism significantly enhances members’ trust in the organization and boosts our working group’s cohesion.”

Adaptive Collaboration: Supporting Diverse Standards Processes

Configurable Processes: Respecting Organizational Diversity

Each international alliance and standards organization possesses unique ways of working and process traditions. While there are commonalities in standard setting, differences often exist in specific processes, role definitions, and decision-making mechanisms between organizations. AllianceHub respects and accommodates this diversity through process configurability.

Wang Peng of the World WLAN Application Alliance (WAA) Testing and Certification Department explained the value of this flexibility: “AllianceHub’s flexible customization capabilities allow us to configure business processes according to different project requirements. Whether it’s testing and certification processes or meeting decision support, the platform can flexibly adapt, reducing daily management workload while providing crucial support for the organization’s digital transformation.”

This configurability is not just a technical feature but also demonstrates respect for the inherent diversity of standards organizations. A true collaboration tool should not enforce uniformity across all processes but should adapt to the unique forms and needs of different organizations.

From Documents to Conversations: The Value of Structured Proposals

““Standards are not documents; they are conversations.” This simple yet profound insight redefines the essence of standards.“这一简单而深刻的洞察重新定义了标准的本质。

AllianceHub’s support for the standard proposal process is rooted in this idea: standards are not merely document outcomes but structured conversation processes that harness collective wisdom. The platform transforms traditional static document editing into a more organized dynamic collaboration dialogue through structured proposal templates and discussion mechanisms.

Diao Yuanyao of GIIC observed the changes brought about by this shift: “The proposal management process is now more standardized and transparent, with progress clearly visible. The platform’s online voting feature brings high transparency to decision-making, with voting details available for real-time viewing and recording, enhancing member trust and boosting working group cohesion.”

The value of structured proposals lies in focusing on key aspects while managing the overall structure, allowing experts to concentrate more precisely on critical elements of the content, reducing cognitive load related to document formatting, version control, and comment integration. By breaking down standard documents into distinct components and providing clear review and discussion mechanisms, the platform helps experts maintain clarity of thought and efficient collaboration in complex knowledge work.

Chen Shuanglong, Vice Chair of the NIDA Network Evolution Working Group, experienced this efficiency boost: “AllianceHub’s digital management of standard proposals offers us unprecedented convenience. From proposal editing, reviewing, to archiving, everything can be done online, ensuring accuracy and consistency of versions.”

Reducing Cognitive Load: Unlocking Expert Potential

Meeting Management: Streamlining Coordination

Coordinating meetings for international standards organizations is a vital task, especially in cross-time zone, cross-cultural environments. AllianceHub’s meeting management module embraces the principle of simplicity, helping experts engage in meetings and discussions more effectively.

Miao Fu, Vice Chair of the NIDA Campus Network Working Group, shared his experience: “AllianceHub’s meeting management module fully addresses all our meeting arrangement needs. From creating meeting schedules to distributing materials and archiving results, all steps can be completed on the platform. The system also automatically generates meeting reminders, ensuring no member misses important meetings.”

The value of this meeting management mechanism extends beyond simplifying processes—it links meetings with related proposals, documents, and decisions, creating a coherent work environment. It helps experts redirect their energy from procedural tasks to professional discussions that truly require creative thinking.

System Announcements: Precise Information Delivery

In complex international organizations, information delivery is a critical task. Ensuring the right information reaches the right people, without omission or over-distribution, requires meticulous design. AllianceHub’s system announcement feature provides a solution for this need.

Li Xuanju of the WAA Industry Development Department explained the practical value of this feature: “I need to communicate with various members and sometimes issue formal documents, so I frequently use the ‘system announcement’ feature in AllianceHub, which helps me accurately target every member unit that needs to receive information. It ensures every member receives information released by the secretariat on time and reliably. This feature greatly facilitates my daily work and improves efficiency.”

Zheng Liansheng of GIIC added: “By creating alliance-level announcements, we can push standards drafted and released by working groups to all members, reducing the time cost of individual requests and communication.”

Continuous Evolution: Growing Together with Users

AllianceHub is still in its early stages of development. Since the release of the first version in January 2024, the platform has undergone 16 version iterations and is continuously refining its functionality and user experience based on actual user feedback. Currently, over 1,000 professionals from six major international alliances are using the platform, collectively creating 81 proposals, 75 working groups, and organizing 135 meetings. These real-world usage data provide valuable guidance for the platform’s ongoing evolution.

Users not only contribute feedback but also express expectations for the platform’s future. Li Yanchun of WAA hopes: “Through further open interfaces, the platform could achieve integration of functions like online document editing, agenda and minutes management, and online meeting reservations in the future, elevating the platform’s automation to a new level!” Zheng Liansheng of GIIC also looks forward to: “More functions and features supporting alliance operations, such as template-based proposals, sub-working group creation, and IT-based certification test application processes.”

We plan to release version 3.0 in December 2025, further strengthening the platform’s capabilities in three core areas: deepening cross-cultural collaboration support, enhancing data analysis capabilities, and improving integration with testing and certification processes. Through continuous iteration and co-creation with users, we aim for the platform to gradually become a trusted collaboration partner for international alliances.

Reconstructing the Cognitive Foundation of Standards Collaboration

International standards collaboration is a complex and vital endeavor. Through collaborations with multiple international alliances, we have developed a key insight: “Standards are not documents; they are conversations.” This understanding prompts us to rethink the essence of standards work—it is not merely a process of producing documents but a structured exchange and fusion of professional wisdom.“Standards are not documents; they are conversations.” This simple yet profound insight redefines the essence of standards.”这一理解启发我们重新思考标准工作的本质——它不仅是形成文档的过程，更是专业智慧的结构化交流与融合。

Based on this understanding, AllianceHub is dedicated to optimizing the collaboration environment, reducing experts’ process burdens, and enabling them to focus more on contributing core professional knowledge. We believe the value of a collaboration platform lies not in altering experts’ work methods but in supporting collaboration patterns that align with their natural thinking processes.

While 1,000 professional users may seem modest compared to mainstream internet applications, these users represent the core force in industry standards setting. Their work efficiency directly influences the innovation pace of the entire industry. As Shen Yi of the NIDA Secretariat shared: “AllianceHub not only improves our work efficiency but also strengthens interaction and cooperation among alliance members.” This impact far exceeds the platform’s user count alone.

In today’s rapidly evolving technological landscape, the speed and inclusiveness of standards setting have become more important than ever. When experts worldwide can collaborate more seamlessly and collective wisdom can be harnessed more efficiently, the entire industry’s innovation capacity will be significantly enhanced. We hope to provide standards organizations with collaboration tools that better meet practical needs through continuous exploration and improvement, jointly driving technological innovation and industry development.

The development of AllianceHub continues. Through close collaboration and co-growth with users, we look forward to exploring more efficient and natural professional collaboration methods with various international organizations, unlocking the collective wisdom potential of the global expert network. This is not only our product philosophy but also our vision and reflection on the future of standards collaboration.