John Vig
Candidate for 2007 IEEE President-elect
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
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
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