John Vig

Candidate for 2007 IEEE President-elect

J.Vig@ieee.org

www.JohnVig.org

IEEE Region 1 BoG MeetingSyracuse, NY, USA

August 19, 2006

Outline

• Brief bio

• Contributions to IEEE

• Major challenges

• A few ideas for dealing with the challenges

Who am I?

Born in Hungary (R8)

Retired Feb 2006; after 36 yrs of R&D in a gov’t lab

>100 publications; 9 book chapters

55 patents

IEEE Fellow; IEEE Cady Award, IEEE Sawyer Award, Distinguished Lecturer…

2005 VP for Technical Activities

34 years of accomplishments (pubs, conferences, membership, standards, finances/investments…)

Contributions to IEEE

Founded the IEEE Sensors Council

IEEE Frequency Control Symposium, IEEE SENSORS

Associate/senior editor of two IEEE journals (T-UFFC, SJ)

>30 years experience as conference chairs: technical program chair, general chair, editorial & publicity chair

~25 yrs w. standards (IEEE; Chair, SCC-27; IEC; NATO)

Membership: MDC, REP list simplification/elimination, website, IEEE Press new initiative

Contributions to IEEE - BoD

Investment Operations Manual

E-mail voting by OUs

Trust issues – budget CD, BoD archives, tax returns on website, confidentiality policy

Conferences & publications strategic planning

Marketing & Sales Comm.; initiatives, rebate program

Transnational scorecard

Challenges

Reserves vs. investments: +$31M $169M vs. <$3M invested

Publications: Open Access, timeliness, practical content

Membership value (IEL impact*), dues structure

Marketing, PR; the image of IEEE & of engineering and science

Agility, innovation & risk taking – “Venture Capital Fund”

Globalization (“flat world,” networked world, piracy of IEL?)

Member involvement – only 14% voted in 2005

Complexity – resource and overhead allocations

Trust (19 mentions of “trust” in BDO Seidman report)

Transnationality (at OU series’, ~10% are non-US!)

*~36% of members have “free” e-access to our IP

~2M nonmembers have free access to our IP

2005 Sections Congress

Priority #1 of top 10 recommendations:

“Increase membership value. Include as part of the basic membership free limited access to online publications…”

Membership Dues

Membership dues are on autopilot

"Membership is too expensive" is the number one reason, by far, for non-renewal (membership peaked in 2002)

2005 IEEE dues revenues w. assessments ~$35M ~12% of total revenues; IEEE reserves ~$169M

We can afford to experiment!

Experiments: Lower dues for fewer services? Lower dues for IEL org’s?

Any others???

Membership strategy (especially for less developed countries)?

Membership “New Initiative”Proposal For An Experiment (2007 New Initiative proposal)

IEEE Press has >300 out-of-print + >250 in-print books

Press books have lots of content for practitioners

Member Value Project: 33% of members would include IEEE Press books online in their ideal membership (10th)

IEEE Press has lost $4M since 1995

Make IEEE Press books available in Xplore to members, and to members only (i.e., NOT to IEL customers)

Membership by Employment Category

2005 2004 2003 2002 2001 2000 1999Private industry 50.6% 49.6% 52.3% 54.8% 60.3% 62.9% 59.2%Academia 23.5% 24.8% 20.3% 16.6% 15.8% 10.6% 13.7%Public/Government 8.3% 9.0% 8.6% 9.6% 8.7% 10.6% 13.7%Self-employed 6.0% 5.7% 6.5% 5.8% 6.7% 7.1% 5.4%Retired 4.7% 3.9% 4.9% 5.3% 2.9% 4.4% 3.9%Other 4.7% 4.5% 3.4% 4.0% 3.7% 2.7% 2.9%Unemployed 2.0% 2.7% 3.9% 4.0% 1.9% 1.5% 1.3%

Source: IEEE Member Satisfaction Surveys from 1999 to 2005

Margin of Error ± 5%

> Two-thirds of members have no Ph.D.

Content for PractitionersWhat Has Not Worked Well Enough

- Solicit "practical" papers

- Solicit more review and tutorial papers

- Special issues devoted to practical content

What May Work Create a new class of peer reviewed publications,

Application Notes: “How to…,” state-of-the-art design solutions, “Understanding…,” case studies…

Add blogs to Xplore: practical impact statements & other comments by author, reviewer, editor, or ANY reader!

E-books. Any other ideas??? Let’s Experiment!

Why John Vig?

• Knowledge and broad experience

• Accomplishments – lots of them

• Ideas – lots of them; willingness to experiment

• Ability to lead – to get things done

www.JohnVig.org

J.Vig@ieee.org

Please vote!

• Only 14% of eligible members voted in 2005

• Therefore, 7+% can determine the future of IEEE

• Division 8 director’s winning margin was 3 votes

• 36% voted when a controversial petition candidate, Irwin Feerst, ran for IEEE president. Lesson?

• “THE INSTITUTE is the newspaper of the IEEE.” Is it a newspaper or a “house organ?”

• www.ieee.org/elections

Per Capita Gross Domestic Products(in US $)

Luxembourg 63K

Norway 42K

USA 42K

Switzerland 35K

Denmark 34K

Canada 33K

Belgium 32K

Japan 30K

Sweden 30K

Lithuania 13.7K

Russia 10.7K

Bulgaria 9.0K

Armenia 5.1K

Egypt 4.4K

Serbia-Mntgro 2.6K

Kenya 1.2K

Eritrea 1.0KTanzania 0.7K

The electric lightbulb was not discovered via incremental improvements to the candle.

Mildred Dresselhaus, MIT, 2 May 2006

TAB Complexity Stifles Success*

• In 2006 there are eighteen different factors on which TAB revenue and expense allocations are based

• The situation is so complex that no volunteer or staff person can figure out the impact of a change in any one of these factors until the whole series of recursive allocation algorithms is run

* From “A New Organizational Structure: The Status Quo is No Longer an Option,” Gerald Engel, 2005 CS Pres., Nov. 2005

You do not really understand something unless you can explain it to your grandmother. Albert Einstein