PCS Website Update
New, Improved PCS Virtual Community Online October 1
by Brian Still and Sandy Bartell
For the past few months efforts have been underway to overhaul the PCS web site. Beginning with member surveys early this year, followed by the testing and eventual adoption of a suitable open source content management system (CMS), the process has now reached a point where we can report that on October 1, 2007—timed to coincide with the start of this year’s IPCC in Seattle—the new PCS online home will go live.
The web address will remain the same: www.ieeepcs.org. However, almost everything else, including the way it looks and what it offers, will change. Here are just a few of the features that will be found on the new PCS virtual community:
- Timely podcasts from experienced communication professionals offering useful training and tips on a variety of subjects. Senior IEEE Member George Hayhoe, an award winning, internationally recognized expert in professional communication, will host the first podcast, “Three Tips for Effective Email.”
- A constantly updated Events Calendar detailing opportunities for training or for meeting face-to-face with other technical, scientific, and engineering professionals interested in improving their professional communication skills.
- Pages dedicated to the regions where you work and live.
Member-Only Access
Around October 1, members will be able to log in to access certain features available just to them. They will also be able to maintain their own blog and participate in discussion forums.
Registered members will also be able to post comments on particular stories or pages on the site. For example, when abstracts of presentations accepted for the 2008 IPCC in Montreal come online, PCS members will be able to respond to them, or to comments other members have posted about them. Hopefully, this will initiate fruitful and informed discussions that extend the impact of face-to-face meetings such as conferences, and, at the same time, also strengthen the bonds of our virtual community.
Volunteer Opportunities
Along the lines of establishing a true sense of community, we’re looking for volunteers interested in playing a more active role in contributing to the support of the site. So if you’d like to help us maintain a region home page, or write stories, create podcasts, moderate discussion forums—whatever else you that enables us to make the PCS virtual community a vibrant, useful resource— let Brian (brian.still AT ttu.edu) know.
Look for the new virtual PCS community in early October.
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Brian Still and Sandy Bartell are members of the IEEE-PCS AdCom. Brian is an assistant professor of technical communication and rhetoric at Texas Tech University. Sandy Bartell works for The Boeing Company in Seattle, Washington.
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