From: sec-r03@ieee.org on behalf of George F McClure
[galaxies@cfl.rr.com]
Sent: Sunday, March 19, 2006 2:07
PM
To: r3-excom2006@IEEE.ORG; sec-r03@IEEE.ORG
Cc:
d.green@IEEE.ORG
Subject: R3 Director's Report
Region 3 Director’s Message
Last
year, I had an eye-opening interaction with a member who said that he saw no
value in the IEEE organization above the section level – he heard from Region 3
only when reports were late, and he thought there were no resources we had to
offer to sections for smoother operations. If he were right, this would be
a stinging indictment, but the truth is that he did not know how the Region
could help section volunteers – either because we had not communicated or he had
not read the materials we offered. Either way, this showed that we need to
sharpen our processes to better support our volunteers and our membership at
large, and to make the information more readily available..
Our
January planning retreat was a big boost toward our goal of enhancing member
value in IEEE. There were nine initiatives identified that we will need
your help with. I’ll mention the nine, then zero-in on a
couple.
First, improve use of existing capabilities to deliver
services more effectively to our members, sections, and chapters. This
includes renewed emphasis on the Region 3 Awards and Recognition program as a
means of expressing appreciation to volunteer members and others for a job well
done in promoting aspects of the engineering profession.
Second,
improve the effectiveness of Region 3 Organization and Operations. One
innovation is the R3 Help Desk concept contributed by Bill Marshall and
being developed by him, to help provide answers to questions about section and
chapter operations and to form a repository of such answers in a FAQ
file.
Third, to avoid reinventing the wheel, capture our lessons
learned in a digital archive for Knowledge Capture and Document
Management. Charles Lord has agreed to spearhead this
effort.
Fourth, provide tools and training to enhance volunteer
recruitment.
Fifth, continue our mentoring
initiative through Leadership by Developing Others. A CEO recently said
industry can’t be bothered with mentoring – it is too labor intensive and his
managers are not to devote time and effort to it. https://online.wsj.com/article/SB114220403238296037.html To
the extent this reflects general sentiment, our mentoring services assume added
significance as a benefit for our members.
Sixth, recognizing our
need for outreach, we have a membership development initiative, ably led by Lee
Stogner.
Seventh, Region 3 was the birthplace for the Teacher
In-Service Initiative that now forms a cornerstone of the IEEE pre-college
initiative, and we will continue training members who desire to participate in
that program to help secondary school teachers make math and science interesting
so that students will be motivated to seek more knowledge in related
fields. This supports the national goals of innovation and competitiveness
through the recommendations recently identified by the National Academy of
Science, in “Rising Above the Gathering Storm”. https://fermat.nap.edu/execsumm_pdf/11463
Globalization, spurred by free-trade agreements, is a fact of life
today. The arrival of the Information Age made possible by
ubiquitous computing, low- or no-cost global communications, and the Internet
has been called the Third Industrial Revolution. https://www.foreignaffairs.org/20060301faessay85209/alan-s-blinder/offshoring-the-next-industrial-revolution.html?mode=print
It is important that we, as engineering professionals, recognize and embrace
the flat world reality, counseling our members on surviving and prospering in
this environment – our eighth initiative, being led by Bob
Duggan.
To improve our ability to follow-through on these important
objectives, we have a ninth initiative, to enhance R3 capability to increase
income.
Your support and assistance in any and all these
initiatives is welcomed.
At Southeastcon in Memphis, you will hear
more about a member survey conducted last year which guided our planning
retreat. Key among member needs that IEEE can satisfy are delivery of
training, mentoring, leadership development, continuing education, and
unemployment assistance. Training that volunteers receive in IEEE duties
can assist them on the regular job – it’s a risk-free way for them to gain
experience in team-building and program management that their employers can
benefit from. All of these fit under our first
initiative.
The reason for that survey was the decline in our U.S.
membership – about 20 percent of our members fail to renew each year.
Recruiting new members is more difficult that retaining existing ones, but we
need to do both. Lee Stogner has passed to our 41 sections the information
on lapsed members – who had not renewed by the end of February – so that their
membership development chairs can arrange to contact them about their reasons
for non-renewals. At the same time, he has a goal to increase our Region 3
membership by 5 percent this year. Past Director Jim Howard has issued a
challenge for every Excom member to get five new members this year. Beyond
this, we continue the Senior Member elevation campaign where Region 3 led all
other regions in exceeding our goal last year. Statistics show that the
retention rate for higher grade members (above member grade) is better than for
member grade.
George F McClure
g.mcclure@ieee.org
1730 Shiloh Ln
Winter
Park, FL 32789
407 647-5092
Fax 407 644-4076
Mobile 407 758-0321