MINUTES. Chen, Hsiao-Hwa Hou, Tom. IEEE Div. III Dir. (voting): Desmond, Celia. Invited Guests: Drobot, Adam Moyer, Stan

Transcription

1 Attendees at the meeting were: IEEE COMMUNICATIONS SOCIETY OpCom2 Anchorage, Alaska October 2016 MINUTES Officers (voting): Members-at-Large (voting): Recording Secretary: Bregni, Stefano Fish, Robert Fonseca, Nelson Fratta, Luigi Freeman, Harvey Xue, Larry Chen, Hsiao-Hwa Hou, Tom Brooks, Susan Cronin, Carol Officers (non-voting): Atkinson, Scott Dutta, Ashutosh Shapiro, Bob Zhang, Tao Zuckerman, Doug IEEE Div. III Dir. (voting): Desmond, Celia Invited Guests: Drobot, Adam Moyer, Stan Staff: Lee, Daphne Attending by Phone: Brooks, Susan Worthman, Bruce October 17 (Day One) [All presentations are available on the Agenda Tool] A. Opening Remarks Harvey Freeman, President Harvey called the meeting to order and extended a welcome to all. Doug took a count of the room (10 voting members present) and quorum was declared. A motion was made to accept the agenda. Nelson mentioned his report was not on the agenda. Harvey stated that he is only asking for five slides and for them to be submitted on time. Nelson will be on the agenda during Day Two and he will send in shortened report. Celia asked to be moved to Day Two as well for the discussion on the IEEE Constitutional Amendment. The agenda was then passed. 1

2 B. ComSoc Executive Director Susan Brooks (by phone) Susan presented her report. The key points of her presentation centered on rebuilding membership and member benefits and the activities surrounding that. Larry mentioned that he was also at POCO and found it to be helpful. Ashutosh stated that Adam G. took minutes of the 5G Workshop and those will be posted. Rob asked about the status of SSO (single sign on). He also asked staff to look at the Computer Society s site as a reference for this. Tao stated that progress has been made and Rob requested that it be looked into and completed. Harvey stated that Daphne will go into more depth on marketing tomorrow. C. Finance Bob Shapiro, Treasurer and Bruce Worthman, Director Finance and Business Operations Bob presented his report. His committee does have some motions and those will be discussed in detail tomorrow. Bob suggested ComSoc should consider attributing staff and time to conferences and Harvey stated that this doesn t work. Bob stated that it would be done with volunteers and Harvey stated again that it would not work. Bob presented that ComSoc is financially in good shape with surpluses projected for both 2016 and Harvey stated that could be good or bad dependent upon what is done with the surplus and how it is perceived. Tao asked about funding for the CRM system and Celia stated she needed funding. It was determined that ComSoc needed to have a clear path of how it plans to use its projected surplus. Harvey felt the 2017 infrastructure will be more than this year, however, Bob stated his budget already accounted for the three new staff managers. A further discussion on the allocation of surpluses from GLOBECOM and ICC will be discussed tomorrow. Bruce then followed Bob and reviewed the financial impact of eliminating print for optical publications. A question was raised about did we know how members reacted when Computer Society stopped all of its print and the answer was there wasn t much in the way of backlash. D. Division III Director Celia Desmond Celia presented her report. She stated that she had attended a number of outreach meetings in India and Singapore. She visited several companies and organizations in India. Her report outlined several potential areas for IEEE/ComSoc to become involved. The August 29 th IEEE Board meeting will discussed tomorrow. Doug asked about strengthening activities within India. Discussion was then centered on the actual results delivery in addition to the outreach effort of relationship building. 2

3 E. Technical Activities and Education Luigi Fratta, Vice President Luigi presented his report. This was the second year for the Summer School in Trento and it was deemed successful. Harvey asked a question regarding Best Review and Best Survey papers as to which was the correct title and it was determined it should be Best Survey paper. There was discussion around the ETC s and the FEC and the number of nominees. Action Item: Luigi to determine how many nominees were put forth for each committee The consensus of the group was that more nominees are needed especially from industry. Doug stated that Russell is addressing this through the Fellow evaluation. This then led into a conversation about industry and academia and how to balance the needs of the two within ComSoc. Rob stated he thought there were some activities that Luigi s area should take on, specifically the following: Awards expand to include more industry focused awards; Industry Standards the Industry Standards team is ready to go and needs help from Luigi s team; and Fellows Rob feels there is still an under-representation from industry in the evaluation process. Action Item: Luigi and Rob need to set-up time to review these items with one another Stefano stated there are too many lecturers and that George Rouskas has said we can aim for 40 DL s per year. There also seems to be a low number of tours to date and that DL s should not be renewed if they do not give a tour. It was felt a process needs to be determined to ensure the DL s go on tours. F. Industry and Standards Activities Rob Fish, Vice President Rob presented his report. There are many activities taking place on multiple levels to attract industry and to be at the forefront of standards. Rob feels there needs to be more standing committees which can tackle the sheer volume of opportunities coming into ComSoc. Per Alex, the Steering Committee for the Standards Magazine has run into some editorial problems as there has been no call for papers. There needs to be a cohesive process for bringing opportunities into ComSoc and then following them through their respective life cycles (this would include the tracking of results, etc.). 3

4 G. Membership and Global Activities Stefano Bregni, Vice President Stefano presented his report. The Student Competition will come to a close in September/October. This year, both volunteers and staff have done a great deal of work to drive submissions, but the numbers are lower than last year which could be due to the overall decline in student members in ComSoc. Through the LA community, there has been a request for membership promotional material. Action Item: Susan/Kerrianne to update Stefano on the progress of promotional kits in general Stefano still has a concern about the funding for the AP Global Office which was cut in December Action Item: Stefano/Susan to review what work the AP office used to do, what they are now doing or need to do, and who should pick up any items to ensure all work is being covered A discussion was held on membership with a main concern being the loss of student members. It was generally felt that the membership fee is not the problem, but that a strong value proposition and benefits need to be determined to draw in members. More discussion will be held tomorrow. Susan stated that she is more concerned about the continued drop in member grade. H. Conferences Larry Xue, Vice President Larry presented his report. Larry stated he received a complaint about registration fees for author papers being collected after submission with the suggestion being that the registration fee be collected prior to submission. A larger discussion was then held on fees and expenses, pricing at different locations, etc. The discussion then moved to the ComSoc website, specifically the conferences section of the website. Rob asked Daphne if there was an IEEE website that she liked and then went on to state it would be a big bill that ComSoc would need to take on were it to tackle this project. The discussion then focused on how the website should differentiate between members and non-members; that we should look to appealing to new customers and the customers / members we already have; and exploring what should we be doing that we are not. This then led into a discussion on content marketing. Adam D. stated that he thought things are hard to find and to locate, especially locating the speakers at conferences. Larry stated that this is being looked at for the keynote speakers. There was then a brief conversation around patronage and how ComSoc needed strong paid conferences with strong patronage. Bob asked what our business goal was around conferences which generated more discussion. 4

5 Daphne stated that one of the goals could be to change the perception of ComSoc for non-members which is something that can and should be done. We have great content, however, it is difficult to find. Rob stated we need to add the key goals of ComSoc in order to fulfill the business needs. Ashutosh asked how we get the YP s involved. Susan stated that we need to think everything like this through before we arbitrarily change the website. IoT Initiative - Adam Drobot, Invited Guest Adam presented his report. Key meetings have been held over the last several weeks to prepare for the transition of IoT out of FDC and into the ComSoc-led framework. The planned transition meeting in mid-september will be critical as will the support of additional volunteers. The formulation of IoT Vertical Summits has begun and should launch in early I. Industry Outreach - Ashutosh Dutta, Director Ashutosh presented his report. The 5G initiative became an approved FDC initiative in June with Gerhard Fettweis and Ashutosh as its two co-chairs. The initiative s kick-off occurred in August with good participation from 15 societies. Tracks and priority projects have been identified. ComSoc s 5G Summits are continuing and planning is beginning for a 5G start-up event. J. Fog Update - Tao Zhang, CIO Tao presented his report. Great progress has been made on a number of fronts including funding proposals, preparations for pre-standards workshops, proposal preparation and organization of panels and workshops (PTC 2017 Fog roundtable, OFC 2017 Fog panel, IMS 2017 Fog keynote speaker, IEEE Symposium on Edge Computing, and NSF Grand Challenge Edge Computing Workshop), and Fog submissions to CommMag. Next up is preparation for FogWorld 2017 and continued progress in workshops, pubs, and proposals. October 18, 2016 (Day Two) [All presentations are available on the Agenda tool] K. Strategic Deck - Susan Brooks, Executive Director (by phone) Susan presented her report on Complex Strategic Integration (CSI) (an important element in the process of improving organizational performance because it facilitates the continuous alignment of business strategies within the ever-changing business environment.) CSI incorporates the dimensions of both reach and scope. Some key takeaways were as follows: the need for tighter collaboration between work flows, services, and relationships within ComSoc, making the time to look across ComSoc horizontally 5

6 for opportunities, the need to create a strong sense of urgency, and the need to ensure our vision is compelling and communicated in a way that attracts members. L. Marketing - Daphne Lee, Director of Marketing Daphne presented her report. She discussed the assessment she had completed of marketing efforts within ComSoc and then focused on what was working well, what are we doing that needs to be refined, what is broken and needs to be fixed, and what should we be doing that we aren t. The key takeaways were as follows: our marketing plans needs to be strategic in nature and driven by data, brand consistency needs to be established across all channels, our brand strategy should be comprehensive and longer term in nature, our website needs to be redesigned, and we should utilize content marketing to attract and engage new and existing audiences. There was a great amount of discussion around the web redesign with affirmation to move forward with this initiative. There was also discussion on the COCO (Chief Online Content Officer) role and the decision was made to craft language before the vote was taken later in the day. M. Constitutional Amendment and the 2030 Celia Desmond, Division 3 Director Celia presented her report on the proposed Constitutional Amendment which would provide for a restructured Board of Directors, establish a new Enterprise Board, and maintain the composition of the Assembly, but increases its duties. The Amendment covers six key points as follows: allows for the separation of the role of an IEEE Delegate from an IEEE Director, allows for Corporate Officers to remain Officers without being on the Board of Directors, allows for all individuals who serve on the Board of Directors to be elected by the full eligible voting membership of IEEE, mandates that various diversity factors be considered with regard to Board composition, mandates that the IEEE Executive Director will be a non-voting member of the Board of Directors, and mandates the ability of the Assembly to initiate and consult with the Board on amendments to IEEE Bylaws. N. ByLaws Changes and Motions The Governance Committee brought forth several motions for consideration and approval. These motions will then be taken to the BoG for final approval. Stefano raised the point that there had not been enough time to read over the motions because they were sent out the night before the meeting. Carol mentioned she should have sent them out earlier and will do so the next time. The Bylaw changes for three motions were passed: Tech Committees to Communities language revisions, the establishment of Young Professionals as a Standing Committee, and the establishment of the CMO and CCO positions. The motion to change the name of Special Interest Groups to Industry Communities did not pass and was the subject of much debate. 6

7 O. Discussions & Motions A motion was brought forward by the Finance Committee to tie ComSoc membership dues increases to those of IEEE: A Motion for OPCOM2 2016: Suggested dues increases in 2018 and beyond based on IEEE increases in the same fiscal year. Once dues increase for IEEE determined in IEEE FINCOM, the same % used for COMSOC dues increases (rounded up to the nearest $1). A motion was made and seconded to table the motion. This did not pass. Rob asked what the next step would be if this motion were to pass OpCom. The next step would be to put it on the Consent Agenda. After more discussion, Bob makes the motion and it does not pass. P. Chief Information Officer Tao Zhang, CIO Tao presented his report. There was extensive work done to evaluate a Standards and Education platform. The Standardization Programs Development group will determine the content and platform. Work is progressing on moving outliers to WordPress sites and there needs to be further discussion around Collabratec s capabilities. Tao presented the work done to date on the CRM system for ComSoc. The proposed solution will use Salesforce.com as the engine and Cloud4Good as the implementation group. The following motions were made and approved: 1) to approve the purchase of 25 Salesforce licenses at a total annual cost of $9730 2) Cloud4Good one-time consultant service of $38,520 Susan was asked how long it would take before the process would begin and she stated that if everyone agrees, it can be done right away. Bob asked about the financing and wants Bruce to be aware of the components. Rob asked for a document with all of the information. Action Item: Provide Rob with the CRM document Harvey stated that he was impressed that the ICT team was performing. Q. Publication - Nelson Fonseca, Vice President Nelson presented his report. The Green Communications and Networking magazine is fully operational and the Phase 1 document for the Network Software magazine is being prepared. There has been discussion on ComSoc s role in the preparation of the proposal for the creation of an IoT magazine and the accountability of same. Upcoming activities include the PRAC review of China Communications magazine, support for the preparation of the Phase 1 proposal for the Data magazine, and the 7

8 finalization of the preparation of the operational aspects needed for the first issue of the Standards Magazine. R. Future Meetings BoG2 December 6-7, 2016 in Washington, DC (GLOBECOM) Management Retreat January 14-15, 2017 in Honolulu, Hawaii (PTC) OpCom1 April 1-2, 2017 in Japan (Tentative) [as of 10/14; London/Dublin] BoG1 May 23-24, 2017 in Paris, France (ICC) Harvey thanked everyone for their participation and the meeting was adjourned. Respectfully submitted, Susan M. Brooks Secretary 8