OPCOMM Meeting Minutes - 31 March, 2009

[Mark B.]

OPCOMM Meeting Minutes - 31 March, 2009
(Also posted to http://ieeeboise.org)

Attendees: Mark Bussert, Gary Ashton, Elisa Barney Smith, Randy Wolff,
Dorian Kiri, Steve Groothuis, Greg Gatlin, Joe Rekiere, Chris Gunning,
Nader Rafla, Kristen Hopper
Agenda:
1. Ideas & Suggestions from Region 6 meeting
2. 2009 Budget
3. GOLD Chair Position
4. Planned events for 2009
5. PACE
6. OPCOMM meeting notification list
7. Email addresses on website
8. Banquet survey results
Discussion: (Action items are in BOLD)
Ideas & Suggestions from Region 6 meeting. Randy and Elisa attended
the 1½ day meeting in LA. It included a half day of officer training.
Ideas and suggestions they presented included:

1. Increase awareness of IEEE Xplore digital library. One idea is
to get a section subscription and make it available for use by
members. Not clear what the process would be for managing access or if
this would comply with the terms of use for individual (non-corporate)
subscriptions.
2. Present or promote “Expert Now” educational courses. (http://
www.ieee.org/web/education/Expert_Now_IEEE/) We could purchase a short
(~1 hour) course on some topic of broad interest and show it at a
section (or maybe a PACE or GOLD) meeting.
3. Promote TryEngineering.org. This is an IEEE web site for
students, parents, and educators about engineering and engineering
careers. Joe: mention this resource in the next newsletter.
4. Improve recognition through awards. Give recognition to
individuals and companies at our annual banquet. Examples: “Engineer
of the Year”, “Senior Engineer of the Year”, recognize new senior
members.
5. Highlight student engineering activities. There is a team of BSU
engineering students working with NASA. Maybe they could give a
presentation?
6. Hold a membership upgrade event. Member to Senior member (http://
www.ieee.org/web/membership/senior-members/ ) ; student member to
member. Section gets funds ($10/person) for each upgrade. Nader:
research what would be needed to set up an event.
7. Contribute information about our section to Region 6 history
wiki.
8. Increase PACE activities. There was a lot of region funding for
PACE left over last year and they are encouraging applications for
funding this year. There is a June deadline.
9. Plan budgets early. Sections should plan their budgets early in
the year and review them mid-year.
10. Start officer election cycle early. Nomination process should be
started six months in advance of election to get new people involved
and better visibility. National is developing an online voting tool.
Mark: work with Kevin to get survey links set up on our section site.
11. Take advantage of training available to membership development
chair. Example: making effective use of the SAMIeee database for
membership retention and upgrades. Nader: contact Region 6 membership
development chair (Zack Cohen.)
12. Recruit student members. Greg Gatlin will contact student
branch.
13. Have an IEEE membership information table at campus career fairs
and IEEE education events. Can we get one set up at WMED conference?
We need current literature when events do come up. Nader: order
current recruitment literature.
14. Participate in IEEE virtual communities. See https://www.ieeecommunities.org/
.
15. Retention in a down economy. IEEE discounts membership cost by
50% to members that lose their jobs. Joe: mention this in next
newsletter.
16. Set up workshop on consulting. Possible PACE activity with help
from Gary Blank?
17. Have new volunteers help organize events and bimonthly meetings.
18. Network with technical/entrepreneur organizations. Gary Ashton:
contact Kickstand chair to discuss ideas for a joint meeting or social
event.
19. Establish and maintain corporate liaisons. Mark: contact current
company liaisons to find out who is still active and where we need
replacements.
20. OPCOMM meeting notification list. Mark will add everyone on
OPCOMM invitee list to IEEE Boise officers Google groups list.
21. Email addresses on website. Mark will work with Kevin to make
sure these are current. He will also ask Kevin to put a link from the
new web site to the new one and investigate how to get the second one
to show up first in google searches.
22. Banquet Survey Results. We received 17 responses from ~50
attendees. Mark reviewed the feedback and responses to the “Future
Topics?” and “What activities should we sponsor” questions.

2009 Budget:

Randy presented the draft budget and he’ll send out an update based on
feedback he received. A couple items of note:
He will add a line item for section meetings. Idea is to have a
section meeting/”Expert Now” training event/social, following an
OpComm meeting.
Dorian: follow up with Steve on how to set up a student scholarship.
If this looks viable, there may be a line item added for this in the
budget.
Budget is set for two PACE events this year, maybe one with a local
speaker and one with an out-of-town speaker.
Newsletter budget:

Most of it was spent with first two newsletters. We will change policy
to only send printed newsletter to members that don’t have an email
address. Nader: find out from SAMIeee how many members don’t have an
email address.

GOLD Chair Position: Greg Gatlin volunteered (thanks Greg!) and we
voted him in on a voice vote.

Planned events for 2009:

* We need to publish a calendar of upcoming events. Mark will work
with Kevin to set up an events calendar on the web site. Gary Ashton
will help fill it in.
* The Micromouse contest and student paper contest will be held at
BSU on April 25th. Volunteer judges are needed. Mark will send out an
email to the membership on this.
* Target May for a networking or social event.
* PACE. See notes under Region 6 meeting ideas and 2009 budget.

[TA Admin]

Thanks for keeping me apprised of IEEE-Boise activities.

 

Let me propose a possible PACE program, although only 3 weeks away.

 

My company is co-hosting a special health IT technology / telemedicine Summit with Boise State. Speakers / Summit attendees will be coming from around the USA to Boise on Apr. 23-24th. We could use sponsorship to defray Summit attendee costs. In return, IEEE-PACE can attend a special screening of health IT presentations (we'd reserve a number of seats for IEEE-Boise), and be invited to an afternoon reception with Intl. Health IT researchers. Story of the upcoming event is attached.

 

Please let me know if this interesting. Sorry for short notice.

 

Ron

 

Ron Oberleitner

CEO – Caring Technologies / TalkAutism

1423 W. Franklin St.

Boise, ID  83702

609-306-9181

 

PS.  Science Daily recently covered BI Capture featuring our CRO Gregory Abowd – who will be speaking.