Report from the Communications Committee

With the new year we are printing a new, one-page, flyer on the IEEE and NPSS as a promotional piece for recruiting new members at meetings and by mailing to the general IEEE membership who are not currently NPSS members and have a item in their interest profile that overlaps with the NPSS. This flyer will also serve as a reminder to our members of the broad and far-reaching interests of the activities of the society.
Ken Connor and Dick Kouzes continue to work on the web site and keeping it up to date. However, they mostly manage the content and rely on the members of NPSS, and particularly the volunteers who run the society, for the content. Please use the web site as a source of information and if you have comments, preferably constructive, please send them to the webmaster. Even better, if you have content prepared about any aspect of the society, including introductions to your field for those who might be interested.
Vern Price will be at the meetings this year with the recruiting booth and material to introduce meeting attendees to the IEEE and NPSS. Please feel free to drop by and chat – even better, send a friend who should really join and get more involved with our community.

We have recently been made aware, by Ron Jaszczak, that the journals are printed with a multiple of four pages while the number of pages taken by the articles has no such order. Thus, on average, only one in four issues have no pages “free” and left to their own devices, the IEEE places general IEEE information in this available space. I have produced pages promoting conferences and the NPSS generally to be used in this space and other meetings could well use this space for promotion. I arranged the content and a professional design house produced the actual copy. With publication schedules and printing and delivery time, this has to be done well ahead. NSS/MIC should benefit from this promotion in TMI and TNS in coming issues.

As ever, I welcome comments and suggestions as to how we can do better. Material is available from me and my company looks after the storage and shipping of NPSS literature and the booth to the meetings. We are always looking for volunteers to help and I am sure that Vern would enjoy a break from looking for new members if you have a moment at a meeting.

Peter Clout can be reached at Vista Control Systems, Inc., 176 Central Park Square, Los Alamos, NM 87544-4031, Phone: 1+505 662-2484; Fax: +1 505 662-3956; E-mail: clout@vista-control.com.