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We’ve done a lot of thinking and groundwork over the past few weeks to help OAI move from being seen as 'the OpenAPI spec' to being recognised as the organisation safeguarding the future of API standardisation.
This issue is the top‑level home for that work. It links out to smaller, focused issues so that different people can pick up specific pieces - website, member programmes, content, events, etc. - making it easier to navigate and track discussions/conversations than in one epically huge document.
The core idea is:
OAI stewards a family of specs (OpenAPI, Arazzo, Overlay and registries)
Organisations already rely on these every day, and there's clear ROI to using them
Membership should feel like a natural, strategic way to fund and influence that work, not an optional extra
To get there, given the limited resources available, we need a small, realistic MVP for the next 12–18 months which will help to reposition the organisation, clearly communicate its critical role in the API ecosystem, and ensure that the benefits of membership deliver a clear return on investment to the organisations who join.
Big picture outcomes
The project is aiming for three outcomes:
Awareness
More people understand what OAI is, what it does beyond the OpenAPI spec, and why it exists.
Authority
OAI is seen as a leading voice on the future of APIs - especially around the topical areas of AI‑readiness, more complex workflows, and governance.
Membership growth
Organisations see membership as a strategic way to influence and support the standards they depend on, and to ensure that their team have a clear way to get unblocked and provide input on areas of the spec that they are finding tricky to work with.
What’s already been done
From the initial six-week engagement here's what I've worked on:
Clarifying the proposed membership value proposition and benefits structure (mostly covered in the earlier MVP project work - great job there folks!),
Developed an event engagement pack (Resource: Event promotion and lead capture pack #73), a prospecting tool prototype to identify existing LF members who are using the specs and who might be good targets for outreach, and creating swipe copy for speaking about membership before, during and after conferences, on social media and elsewhere,
At a high level, the MVP for 2026 might look like:
Make the new membership benefits page and PDF the default for all 'join' conversations
Pilot and then regularise member clinics and member‑led panels
Keep a light but steady presence on LinkedIn and via member emails
Feed the new positioning into the website redesign so the site matches how we now talk about OAI
Capture a handful of simple metrics so the BGB can see what’s working
The sub‑issues below break this into pieces that can be picked up and moved forward independently.
Related / sub‑issues
Each of these will get its own sub-issue with this one as a parent where I'll pop more detail so people can comment, volunteer and iterate.
Notes
I’ll be offline from early April to the middle of July. The idea here is that there is enough clarity and material for OAI to start small - especially on the membership story, clinics/panels planning and LinkedIn/email - without needing more consulting time. When I’m back, we can look at what’s been tried and decide together what to focus on.
Summary
We’ve done a lot of thinking and groundwork over the past few weeks to help OAI move from being seen as 'the OpenAPI spec' to being recognised as the organisation safeguarding the future of API standardisation.
This issue is the top‑level home for that work. It links out to smaller, focused issues so that different people can pick up specific pieces - website, member programmes, content, events, etc. - making it easier to navigate and track discussions/conversations than in one epically huge document.
The core idea is:
To get there, given the limited resources available, we need a small, realistic MVP for the next 12–18 months which will help to reposition the organisation, clearly communicate its critical role in the API ecosystem, and ensure that the benefits of membership deliver a clear return on investment to the organisations who join.
Big picture outcomes
The project is aiming for three outcomes:
Awareness
More people understand what OAI is, what it does beyond the OpenAPI spec, and why it exists.
Authority
OAI is seen as a leading voice on the future of APIs - especially around the topical areas of AI‑readiness, more complex workflows, and governance.
Membership growth
Organisations see membership as a strategic way to influence and support the standards they depend on, and to ensure that their team have a clear way to get unblocked and provide input on areas of the spec that they are finding tricky to work with.
What’s already been done
From the initial six-week engagement here's what I've worked on:
Focus for the next 12 months
At a high level, the MVP for 2026 might look like:
The sub‑issues below break this into pieces that can be picked up and moved forward independently.
Related / sub‑issues
Each of these will get its own sub-issue with this one as a parent where I'll pop more detail so people can comment, volunteer and iterate.
Notes
I’ll be offline from early April to the middle of July. The idea here is that there is enough clarity and material for OAI to start small - especially on the membership story, clinics/panels planning and LinkedIn/email - without needing more consulting time. When I’m back, we can look at what’s been tried and decide together what to focus on.