John Vig
Candidate for
2007 IEEE President-elect
J.Vig@ieee.org
www.JohnVig.org
IEEE Region 1 BoG Meeting
Syracuse, 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
Private industry
Academia
Public/Government
Self-employed
Retired
Other
Unemployed
2005
50.6%
23.5%
8.3%
6.0%
4.7%
4.7%
2.0%
2004
49.6%
24.8%
9.0%
5.7%
3.9%
4.5%
2.7%
2003
52.3%
20.3%
8.6%
6.5%
4.9%
3.4%
3.9%
2002
54.8%
16.6%
9.6%
5.8%
5.3%
4.0%
4.0%
Source: IEEE Member Satisfaction Surveys from 1999 to 2005
Margin of Error ± 5%
> Two-thirds of members have no Ph.D.
2001
60.3%
15.8%
8.7%
6.7%
2.9%
3.7%
1.9%
2000
62.9%
10.6%
10.6%
7.1%
4.4%
2.7%
1.5%
1999
59.2%
13.7%
13.7%
5.4%
3.9%
2.9%
1.3%
Content for Practitioners
What 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
Norway
USA
Switzerland
Denmark
Canada
Belgium
63K
42K
42K
35K
34K
33K
32K
Lithuania
13.7K
Russia
10.7K
Bulgaria
9.0K
Armenia
5.1K
Egypt
4.4K
Serbia-Mntgro
2.6K
Kenya
1.2K
Japan
30K
Eritrea
1.0K
Sweden
30K
Tanzania
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