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11.08
Arriving
at Sections Congress 2008 Recommendations
By George
McClure
More than 300 IEEE delegates
convened at the triennial Sections Congress 2008
in September in Quebec City to learn from
numerous sessions for volunteers, and to arrive
at their own recommendations to bring forward to
the IEEE Board of Directors to guide future
directions.
To arrive at the final list of
recommendations, each of the ten IEEE Regions
submitted their top four recommendations from
all the recommendations submitted to that
respective region. All forty recommendations
were then considered in issues caucuses on
Sunday, prior to the Monday voting. Those
caucuses, organized by topic, were charged with
reducing the forty recommendations to twenty for
voting.
The topics and number of region
recommendations for each were:
|
Topic |
Number of
Recommendations |
|
Recruitment/Retention (Membership) |
4 |
|
IT Operations |
4 |
|
Operations |
4 |
|
Member Benefits |
6 |
|
Business/Financial Operations |
6 |
|
Membership |
5 |
|
Member Growth and Development |
6 |
|
Public Awareness and New Technology |
5 |
| |
40 |
Delegates and other attendees
participated in caucuses according to their
interest (all were conducted in the same 2-hour
period). In the caucuses, some recommendations
were combined, while others were simply dropped
in arriving at the number that would be voted on
at the closing ceremony on Monday. There were 21
recommendations on the final list. The voting
went quickly, with each delegate having a
wireless electronic “ballot” enabling votes to
be cast on each issue in less than a minute.
Delegates prioritized their own votes on a scale
from 1 to 10. After a break following the
voting, the final ordering for all 21
recommendations was shown to the delegates.
Here are the top 10
recommendations, which will be presented to the
IEEE Board of Directors in November for
assignment and action.
|
TOP 10 |
|
Ranking |
Group |
Recommendation |
|
1 |
Member Benefits |
Every member to have an annual
entitlement to a limited number of
free IEEE Xplore downloads. |
|
2 |
Business/Financial Operations |
Payment Flexibility Members,
especially students and those in
developing countries who do not have
credit cards, need flexible payment
methods
-
regardless of location and
banking methods
-
supporting aggregated payments
in local currency.
-
minimizing transaction costs and
processing overheads.
|
|
3 |
Member Growth & Development |
Provide "Leadership Training
Handbook (Text and Multimedia) for
Section Officers” to include:
Volunteer Recruitment, Roles &
Responsibilities of Section Chair
and Section Committee, Presiding at
Meetings, Documentation - Websites &
Forms, Time Table for Elections &
other formal IEEE Required
Activities, and Transfer of
Responsibilities to incoming
officers. |
|
4 |
IT Operations |
The MGA Board to assign staff to
develop, a user-friendly system and
support to enable Sections, Chapters
and Affinity Groups to deliver, at
low cost, teleconferencing,
collaborative technologies, and
webinars as a free member benefit.
|
|
5 |
Member Growth & Development |
For digital libraries: develop
additional, smaller tiered packages
(10, 20 items, etc.) which allow
members to purchase defined
quantities of digital content
without expiration. Provide members
permanent electronic access to
previously purchased content. |
|
6 |
Operations |
Improve the implementation of
recommendations identified at
Sections Congress. |
|
7 |
Member Benefits |
There are a good number of IEEE
member benefits that are relevant or
accessible to Regions 1 - 6 members
only. IEEE should implement similar
benefits of local relevance across
all Regions. |
|
8 |
Business/Financial Operations |
Sections and chapters need a
web-based payment solution for small
local events that is:
- Low
cost
- Secure
and immediate
- Capable
of depositing into a
concentration banking account or
international equivalent with
event and payer identification
|
|
9 |
IT Operations |
Provide support and tools for the
creation and maintenance of easy to
update Section web sites with
“single sign-on” authentication via
IEEE web accounts featuring at least
blogs, meeting calendars and member
surveys. Use commonly available,
best practice technologies not
requiring programmer support for day
to day use. |
|
10 |
Membership |
Implement Sustained Membership
options for all membership grades
exclusive of student grade:
- Single
dues payment for multiple
years/life-long membership
-
Increasing benefits in
proportion to the length of
renewal
- Lowers
IEEE administrative expenses
related to “annual” membership
cycles
|
Following are the bottom 11
recommendations, as agreed upon at SC '08.
|
Recommendations 11-20 |
| |
Group |
Recommendation |
|
11 |
Public Awareness and New Technology |
Develop IEEE Brand awareness globally
through marketing and communicating the
value of IEEE and its professions to
industry, schools, and the public. |
|
12 |
Business/Financial Operations |
IEEE should provide tools that interface
with Concentration Banking to enable:
- Electronic bill payment
- Electronic funds transfer
- Budget
tracking with common financial programs
- L-50 interface
|
|
13 |
Recruitment/Retention (Membership) |
Research, implement, ande communicate
IEEE benefits and engagement
opportunities across the member life
cycle, with emphasis on the needs of
young members (in collaboration with
Student Activities and GOLD). |
|
14 |
Recruitment/Retention (Membership) |
To improve support from member
employers: * Develop technical and
professional tutorials and training
(e.g., Expert Now) to match member
employer needs. Survey membership to
prioritize content. *Content should be
made free or at reduced cost to OUs. Highlight employer while increasing
publicity of member's IEEE
contributions.Initial report 1Q2009 and
review annually to ensure currency with
members technical needs. |
|
15 |
Membership |
Create a volunteer recognition program
to acknowledge volunteer service by
having MGA send a service pin and
certificate to volunteers at five year
milestone intervals, allowing members to
display their IEEE service. Each
milestone item shall be uniquely
designed to display length of service. |
|
16 |
Membership |
Present new members with modular,
online/computer-based training upon
completion of application process.
Training shall introduce all aspects of
IEEE, particularly a member's role
within MGA model. Training resources
should show how to leverage IEEE
membership for the benefit of the
member, IEEE, and society. |
|
17 |
Operations |
The MGA Board and the Technical
Activities Board to review the issues
among Sections, Societies and Chapters
associated with conference planning and
management. In particular this would
include early information exchange,
shared knowledge, cooperation and
resources to clarify the expectations of
any of these units in conducting
conferences. |
|
18 |
Member Benefits |
To promote involvement in accordance
with the core goals of the IEEE, provide
free membership in one Technical Society
for a limited number of years after
first paying full dues. |
|
19 |
Member Growth & Development |
Gather and supplement the best resources
of all appropriate entities (including
IEEE-USA, Technical Management Council,
Region/Society LD Committees, and EA) to
establish a curriculum of standardized
leadership training with appropriate
metrics to empower IEEE leadership with
skills needed to foster the engagement,
life cycle support, and growth of the
Member |
|
20 |
Public Awareness and New Technology |
Be a leader in sustainable development,
i.e., development that meets the needs
of the present without compromising the
ability of future generations to meet
their own needs. |
|
21 |
Public Awareness and New Technology |
Create a program that addresses problems
and issues of a global nature by
improving collaboration between IEEE and
stakeholders. |
Presentations from Sections
Congress 2008 are archived at
http://ewh.ieee.org/ieee/sc/presentations/.
The recommendations from
Sections Congress 2005, and action status on
them, are found at
www.ieee.org/portal/cms_docs_iportals/iportals/volunteers/sections-congress/2005/sc05-rec-final.pdf.
George McClure is Technology
Policy editor for IEEE-USA Today’s
Engineer and a member of IEEE-USA's Committee
on Transportation and Aerospace policy.
Comments may
be submitted to todaysengineer@ieee.org.
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