1 Society Relations -- A Briefing by the Region 1 Society Liaison Gene F. Hoffnagle August 18, 2006

2 Scope of This Briefing A focus on your area of technical expertise, rather than on your geographic location A focus on how R1 can take advantage of this liaison role to benefit R1 and its Areas, Sections, and Chapters in terms of benefits to members and volunteers, and possible Section income For background, please see my talk on February 4 at the R1 winter meeting on: –Origin of this role in 2005 and its charter –Recent IEEE Technical Activities Board (TAB) activities affecting Regions

3 What is Being Considered Increase knowledge of and participation in Society activities among R1 members and volunteers –There are about 40,000 R1 members and about 33,000 Society memberships from R1, but about 19,000 belong to no Societies –Trailing R6 (western USA), R8 (Europe/Africa), and R10 (Asia/Pacific) in members and memberships –Increased participation provides new connections to colleagues through shared interests in technologies

4 What is Being Considered Work with Societies and Technical Councils (S/Cs) to bring their technical conferences and activities to R1 venues –S/Cs hold about 500 technical conferences a year; about 20 are held in R1 –Areas or specific cities are chosen long before conferences pick sites –Influencing site choices adds opportunities for members and volunteers, and possible income for Sections

5 What is Being Considered Encourage new S/Cs and new Technical Committees (TCs) within Societies to better reflect the interests of R1 members and volunteers –New S/Cs and TCs being created often as technologies shift and new technologies arise –The 2007 IEEE President (Leah Jamieson) is a proponent of bringing new fields into IEEE –R1 participation helps ensure R1 members and volunteers interests are served by S/Cs

6 What is Being Considered Increase knowledge of S/Cs among R1 leaders, volunteers, and members –Attract S/C speakers to Section and Chapter meetings –Publish interesting insights for R1 about less well known S/Cs –Maintain a connection to S/C activities and stay informed about future S/C issues, plans, and developments –Have the Society Liaison “shadow” the R1 Director at an IEEE Board meeting each year, covering S/C meetings and providing an R1 perspective for and S/C perspective from those meetings –Incorporate knowledge of S/C activities into thinking for R1 strategic plans and activities

7 What Would You Want Done? In participation of R1 members and volunteers in S/C activities? In knowledge about and relationships with S/Cs and their TCs? In bringing S/C activities and conferences to R1? In creating new S/Cs and TCs that better reflect the interests of R1 members and volunteers? In … ?

8 Thanks for Your Time and Interest