Sunday Morning

Diane Collier hosted the What makes a winner panel discussion today. Before getting into deep discussion she announced the best GOLD poster winner: Region 2 - Rachel Krepps.

For the rest of the discussion, some of the members that were recognized at the IEEE Awards banquet gave a short story or speech on their IEEE membership and what it means to them. Jim Fancher, Ed Perkins, Donald Hill, Richard Kolodziejcyk and Martin Izaak offered inspiring words that should encourage us all to make the most of our IEEE membership. We should stay active, bring others into the circle, help change public policy for the better, continue to outreach to pre-college students, and support our fellow engineers through award nominations and volunteering.

And thats all folks! Have a great year, we will see you in Nashville!

Sunday Region 5 breakout

Welcome to the Region 5 Meeting!

*If Jim Look has committed expenses to you, file for reimbursement with your local section and send a copy of it to Jim.

For all in Region 5 - if you want to get a program up and running but do not have the resources or money, please contact Jim Look.

Region 5 will focus on the Energy Debate. Here are the ideas we currently have:
Legislative action
- Promote alt energy
- Bring sanity to the discussion
- Be tech resource

Providing community awareness
- Educate on energy conservation
- Facts vs. myths
- Pros and cons of being green
- K-12 education on energy

Promoting energy awareness to members
- Local meetings and conferences

Solutions to alternative energy
- Engaging industry in diaglog about energy solutions
- Standards for new technologies

Inter-organizational collaborations
- Habitat for Humanity (design energy efficient homes)
- Engineers without boarders, green building council, AIA

Each section was tasked with developing one PACE project to support the Energy Debate. These ideas will be listed at a later date on the Region 5 Website.

Practicing Lifelong Learning

Mr. John Meredith’s successful career, in which he held a variety of positions, makes him the perfect presenter on lifelong learning. He believes lifelong learning is relevant to an audience of any age, even students. The continuing need to learn arises from the unprecedented rate of technology growth, the constant introduction of new tools into industry, and competitive pressures both domestic and global.

One of the biggest excuses for not increasing your knowledge, skills, and abilities is lack of time. I agree completely because I use that excuse myself. A bit of advice is to stay organized. Organization leads to efficiency, which in turn leaves more time for learning activities. Everybody is responsible for creating their own professional development plan and making it a priority. Mr. Meredith presented a process on planning for growth.

1. Establish your goals both short and long term
2. Do an honest assessment of your knowledge, skills, and capabilities. Talk to your boss, coworkers, and others to learn where they see you and your strengths
3. Determine gaps that need to be filled and identify sources of improvement
4. Carry out your plan
5. Periodically update your plan

Reading is one of the best ways to learn. You can choose different methods of reading depending on the information you are looking for. Skimming is useful to answer the questions who, what, when, or where. Scanning is useful to answer how or why. And studying can be used to answer how or why in-depth. Other ways to learn include surveying documents, asking questions, holding interviews, taking notes, mind-maps, and active listening.

Mr. Meredith’s other thoughts:

• Find a mentor, someone you are comfortable with and you can learn from
• Everyone should have a desire to learn and form learning habits
• Share your knowledge and skills
• Write papers, present and conferences
• Teaching and mentoring (where you are the teacher because you learn from your students)
• Organize educational events in your workplace or for your IEEE Section, Chapter, or Society

I really enjoyed Mr. Meredith’s presentation. He gave a lot of good tips and advice. I particularly like his idea of becoming a mentor or teacher. Teaching and explaining ideas and concepts to others is a great self assessment tool and a great way to learn things you may not know yourself.

A Methodology for Improving Company Wide Energy Efficiency

The speaker this afternoon was Lee Stogner and this session had approximately 30 attendees.

It was interesting to hear that Lee’s interest started by hearing from a friend about building a home using 2x6’s. This allows more room for energy efficient products between studs. He showed us the results from a survey by Price Waterhouse Cooper shows oil prices as top barrier and stated that energy costs affect the bottom line of companies.

Lee posed the question, “What single device consumes the most energy in the US?” The answer was motors consume 23% of all electricity consumed, most of any device.

Lee went on to present the five topics to focus on which is listed below:

1. Improving Energy Management
2. Improved System Operations
3. Improved Asset Management
4. Workflow Improvements through Lean Six Sigma
5. Engineered Capital Projects

Lee summed up the talk by presenting the Methodology for Improving Company Wide Energy Efficiency which includes the following four steps:

1. Energy Assessment
2. Maintenance Improvement Program
3. Systems Optimization/Real Time Monitoring Program
4. ERP/Lean Six Sigma across the Supply Chain

Lee finished by answering questions and asked the attendees and you, the readers, to comment on and discuss the presented Methodology and topic.

He did a great job in give a big picture view into energy efficiency at the company level that we can all implement and relate to.

Eliminating the Vulnerability of the Electricity Grid and Transportation Sector

R. James Woosley, Venture Partner with VantagePoint Venture Partners and former Director of the US Central Intelligence Agency, provided a superb lunch-session dialogue regarding the security of the electric power grid. Woosley began by arguing that there are two types of system failures in the world: those that are malignment and those that are malevolent. Malignment failures are those that happen by chance and not as a result of a motive of an individual or party. The Northeast Blackout of August 2003 would classify as a malignment failure. This event happened due to neglect and accident when a wire touched a branch in Ohio, causing the stability of the grid to be jeopardized. Malevolent failures, on the other hand, are those that happen on purpose, usually as a result of an active motive. Malevolent failures of the power grid, for example, would include terrorist attacks on critical infrastructure.

The vulnerability of the electric grid is, according to Woosley, one of the greatest dangers to the security of the country. Not only is the grid vulnerable to physical attacks, it is also increasingly vulnerable to cyber attacks. Indeed, there is a growing sophistication of ability to use cyber attacks to cause damage to physical infrastructure. The vulnerability of the grid is a serious issue especially when one considers that if there were a serious attack on a critical component it could take months—if not years—to recover.

Woosley maintained that it is essential that the nation focus on securing the grid. He insisted that “this country can do anything it wants to if it gets itself together” and that security of the grid is an issue that the entire nation must come together to solve collectively and promptly. Transportation is the second issue of concern to Woosley due to the notion that the possibility of attacks on oil infrastructure certainly exist and have occurred twice in the last three years. Indeed, oil is a centerpiece of intentional malevolent actions against the West and this situation must, and can be fixed.

To explain how we must fix the vulnerability of the transportation sector, Woosley employed an analogy, comparing today’s oil markets to the salt markets of centuries past. For thousands of years salt was a huge commodity and was even the focal point of some wars and conflict. The importance of salt, which was primarily used to preserve meat, was quickly eradicated with the electrification of the country and the emergence of refrigeration. Woosley argued that we need to do the same thing with oil. We need to eradicate the importance of oil by introducing viable alternatives.

These alternatives, according to Woosley, will take the form of plug-in hybrid electric vehicles accompanied by an emergence of more sophisticated and advanced battery technology. Further, this technology can be complimented by the emergence of advanced biofuel technologies utilizing plant matter that does not compete with food such as biomass and waste. A combination of hybrid technology and biofuel technology could lead to a situation where drivers simply do not need oil anymore—that is, oil would go the way of salt. Oil would still be used in select applications, but it would no longer be a commodity of importance to US drivers.

The mixture of revolution in the electricity grid and transportation industries would yield a tremendously more secure United States. Energy, whether in the form of electricity or fuel for vehicles, would be domestic, plentiful, and less susceptible to price fluctuations or malevolent attacks. Now it is up to organizations such as IEEE-USA to assist in making the revolution happen.

What Can IEEE-USA Do For Entrepreneurs?

Entrepreneurship was discussed during a lively panel session on Saturday morning. Mauro Togneri, the co-founder and co-chair of the IEEE-USA Entrepreneurial Activities Committee and the Entrepreneurs Village virtual community, described several IEEE-USA activities and resources available for entrepreneurs:

1. IEEE-USA Entrepreneurial Activities Committee, which has forums, videos, webinars, mentors and awards. Also available are Twitpitches (140-word elevator pitches), video pitches lasting a few minutes and entrepreneurs communities.
2. IEEE-USA Innovation Institute, which contains forums, the Innovation Network, Innovation Library and e-books.
3. IEEE-USA Employment and Career Services Committee

Then a panel of experts described new things IEEE-USA could do for entrepreneurs. Gordon Young, owner of Young Ideas, had several suggestions for IEEE-USA:

• Develop a better relationship between venture capitalists and IEEE members. One way might be to develop “MicroVCs”, a term he coined, to give smaller amounts of money to entrepreneurs.
• Help with the “not invented here” problem. IEEE-USA could form a committee to review the technical nature of innovative ideas – mainly that an invention works. If IEEE-USA provided a stamp on a product that worked, then when an entrepreneur visited a specific company, they could pitch a product with IEEE’s technical seal of approval.
• Have competitions to solve specific problems and get the government to offer incentives.

Chris Mi, an associate professor in the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering at the University of Michigan, had a couple ideas as well, including helping to develop a bridge between entrepreneurs and venture capitalists and making standards more popular.

Dinesh Patel, a founding managing director of vSpring Capital, told the audience that the key to being an entrepreneur is networking. “All the venture capitalists have a portal that says send your business plan, but 90 percent of them get rejected by my secretary,” he revealed. “We tend to invest with people that we know or if they are referred to us by someone we worked with before.” In Utah, Patel stated that they’ve streamlined the process to make it simple to license technology from universities. They’ve also developed a Web site called Innovation Utah to link professors and companies.

The two major take-home messages from this session were: stay local to find funding and be prepared to give up a large part of your company.

Educational Activities

Dr. Gary L. Blank spoke today about activities to engage members. He suggests obtaining instant feedback from your lower members by asking them what they think of their membership. Learning

He suggests the following activities:

1. Online professional development
2. Member professional awareness conferences (M-PACS == PDS)
   
3. Professional engineer license review (The P.E. is highly recommended, one noted benefit by Dr. Blank is that you can testify in court to aid a lawyer - He mentions that it is really fun!)
   
4. Educational partners program (take an on-line course with one of the participating Universities and get a discount of 10%; earn CEUs, PHDs)
   
5. Expert now (The best 1 hour courses presented at IEEE conferences and meetings, must pay, learn at your own pace, earn CEUs, PHDs)
   
6. e-Books (Downloadable books, less than $10 a book)
7. Webinars (Offered aperiodically and they are advertised)
   

The following websites can assist with setting up the aforementioned activities:

• http://www.ieeeusa.org/careers
• http://www.ieee.org/web/education/profev/pdtopics.html
• http://www.ieeeusa.org/volunteers/pace/mpac.asp
• http://www.ieee.org/web/education/partners/eduParteners.html
• http://www.ieee.org/web/education/Expert_Now_IEEE/Catalog/index.html
• http://www.ieeeusa.org/communications/ebooks/

How can sections organize educational events?
Audience suggestions:

• Set up a meeting around an Expert Now. Project the video so many people can gain the knowledge, but only pay the fee once.

What kinds of educational events make good programs?

• Anything that I can gain a PHD or CEU from.
  

What would you like to see IEEE & IEEE-USA do to help our members educationally?

• Improve the mode of communication. The content is great, but some of the speakers are poor.
• Interactive models on-line that promote learning (i.e. learning about a DC motor)

How to use vTools

Ron Jensen spoke today about vTools, which allows IEEE to become a data driven organization.

Important Links:
vTools site
vTools wiki
Meetings
Web-in-a-box

Current Projects:
vTools.Meeting: This is a great comprehensive tool that allows one to put in as much detail as needed. Registration for the meeting can be added, topic description of up to 8100 chars, fields to enter URLs to point members to a survey or registration are available, menu selections, and so much more! The tool can also auto generate meeting notices or the L31, offer handling of conference services or larger events, can set up internet conferencing, automatically archive the meeting data and will offer credit card handling in the future. Visit all the links on the front page to view RSS, calendar, meeting data, on-line registration, badge printing, meal tickets, feed meeting info to myIEEE or create notices. The tool is ease to you and the information is logically placed on the web-page. Give it a try!

vTools.Webinabox: This tools offers a basic section website. There is a wizard-like interface for creation of a website that is intuitive to use. Plus, this tool integrates with the IEEE database and the meeting tool to display calendars, events, meeting information and a webmaster is not required. It only takes 8 steps to create the webpage! Make sure your members get the most out of their IEEE membership, set-up a page to keep them engaged and connected! (Volunteers are needed to improve this tool, get it out of the Beta stage and make it available to student chapters and affinity groups. Contact R.Jensen@ieee.org or vtools@ieee.org if you can code using Ruby on Rails and are interested in helping this effort!)

vTools.Voting: Allows for electronic election in local sections. Easily create a ballot and post it on the web. Once it is enabled tell everyone to vote! (can set up a paper ballot as well)

vTools.Finance: Financial management to build a budget, handle payments, track spending, auto generate an L50 and more.

OU Demographics: Shows member distribution within a section's geographical area including a breakdown by society membership, however, this is in the prof-of-concept phase.

Future projects: Prospective members, integraion with myIEEE, off-line join, sections congress, section dashboard, integrations with collaboration tools, membership development, volunteer reporting, communication, agendas, awards. If you want to help this effort contact vtools@ieee.org right away!

IEEE Needs help developing vTools

Volunteers are needed to improve these tools, get them out of the Beta stage and make them available to student chapters and affinity groups. Contact R.Jensen@ieee.org or vtools@ieee.org if you can code using Ruby on Rails and are interested in helping this effort!

How to Interact with the Media

‘Public relations’ is the term used to describe the communication between an organization and the public that fosters a favorable view of the organization. Having a good relationship with the media ensures that your group will have an enhanced reputation within industry and a positive opinion within the public sector. This is not a new initiative. In 2007, then IEEE-USA President John Meredith stated “Engineers have a responsibility to communicate with the public, and one of the best ways is through the media”.

The goal of having good public relations is to provide access to information and spokespeople within an organization. From a leadership standpoint the benefit of having good relations is that you are able to more effectively communicate your positions to influencing policymakers as well as increase public support for engineering projects and proposed legislation. Yesterday evening Utah’s Channel 13 ran the clip from Gov. Huntsman addressing our membership so this was a win-win for IEEE-USA because it gave us free publicity and the state of Utah because we have given their state free publicity. There are also rumors circulating that Governor Huntsman may be a 2012 nominee for president so this was a way of getting his name out in the open.

Getting publicity for an event sounds complicated but, in actuality, it’s as easy as calling local media outlets to find a main contact person and then communicating with them directly. Voice contact or personal contact is best but it’s important to note that most reporters prefer email and that’s where having a descriptive subject line becomes crucial. Will it capture their attention? Ideally it should capture the essence of the presentation and provide a smooth transition to the rest of the article. Keep in mind that reporters likely receive hundreds of emails a day so making yours stand out is worth the time and effort. Don’t have high expectations that your event will make the front page however! Many of the major newspaper outlets are unfortunately cutting their technology sections so most engineering news is placed in the business section.

Another way of getting coverage is to send out a media advisory or to put together a press kit (collection of materials about your company or client) that can be given to the various media bureaus. Being proactive and letting the media know that you are a resource with knowledge of technology and are willing to assist them ensures that you will get their attention when you need them. Before doing this you need to make it clear that you represent a section or a specific company (not IEEE or IEEE-USA) or are speaking as a private engineer. Being a media resource also means that you can help reporters explain complex technology principles in basic terms for more effective communication to the public plus. From a career standpoint it’s not out of the realm of possibility that being known as a good communicator can help boost your career.

Social Media outlets such as Facebook and MySpace as well as web technology such as blogs, Wikis, RSS, and Digg are proven ways to relay important information to large amounts of people, especially those under 30, at one time. Multimedia Applications such as Youtube, Flikr, Photobucket, etc. are also being utilized more and more for important events such as technical conferences and even presidential campaigns. Experts concede that the web played a large role in President Barack Obama being elected into office.

In final Chris gave recommendations to all the sectional leaders present:

1. Start a public relations committee
2. Brainstorm on ways to get publicity
3. Appoint a Section PR director
4. Incorporate media relations into section activities
5. Use Chris McManes as a resource

For more info please contact Chris McManes, 202-530-8356