The IoT M2M Council (IMC) has established a new level of membership to attract individuals that wish to exert influence on the IoT technology sector.

The IMC has long been comprised of adopter members, who are 25,000 individual enterprise users and product makers that deploy IoT technology, and sustaining members, which are companies that provide IoT products and services and pay membership fees. The new level of influencer members will pay significantly smaller fees with a reduced set of benefits.

“The idea put forward by the IMC board of governors is to broaden our reach to smaller systems integrators and apps developers that want to help set the group agenda, but who don’t have the resources required for sustaining membership, or who simply want to test the IMC’s benefits,” said IMC executive director Keith Kreisher, “This gives individuals the chance to kick the IMC’s tyres for a nominal fee before committing their companies to sustaining membership. It’s absolutely in keeping with our mission to accelerate the deployment of IoT for the greater public good.”

Influencer memberships are on offer at the IMC’s web site for $295 a year and can be obtained by simply filling out a demographic form and providing a credit-card charge. IMC influencers can become part of the group’s speakers’ bureau, gain access to the group’s template RFPs and guidelines, be able to participate in group events, and help set IMC priorities by joining committees and meetups. Lead generation, promotions and research will continue to be benefits reserved for IMC sustaining member companies only.

“The foundation of the IMC continues to be its 25,000 adopters, who qualify for membership as IoT buyers,” said Kreisher. “Our adopters cover 27 different vertical markets of application, with roughly 30% coming from North America, over 20% each from Europe and Asia, and the rest dispersed around the globe. Interestingly, a plurality of the rank-and-file identify as operations, so these are business people with problems to solve.”

The IMC is the exclusive IoT partner for the massive Consumer Electronics Show, where it organises the IoT-dedicated pavilion and conference sessions.

The IMC is the largest trade group dedicated to the global IoT and M2M sector with more than 25,000 IoT enterprise users, product makers, designers and apps developers that buy IoT products and services as members.

Board companies include Aeris, Airgain, Astrocast, AVSystem, BeamLive, BICS, Blues Wireless, Digi International, FloLive, Fibocom, Ground Control, Gurtam, iBasis, Ignion, Incognito, IoT Launch, Keyfactor, KORE, Losant, Microsoft Azure, MultiTech, Pelion Technology, Pod Group, Quectel, RevX Systems, Sateliot, Somos, Taoglas, Tata Communications, Telit, Utimaco and Vodafone.