PRESIDENT’S REPORT

I’m going to do something different for this Newsletter article. Rather than give an overview of many things that are happening within the higher levels of IEEE, I’m going to focus on a single issue that is important at all levels of IEEE, and that is volunteers. Volunteers are the one thing that IEEE absolutely could not survive without, and so is the one thing that we need the most. To a certain extent, we tend to take them for granted, despite their immense value. Thus, I’d like to talk a little bit more about them and about what “IEEE” is.
When I first joined IEEE, I heard a lot about its size. It is the world’s largest professional association. Over three hundred thousand members. Holds more meetings and publishes more journals than any other professional association. IEEE Spectrum is a very attractive, professional, high-quality magazine. IEEE is the big player in its field — the Microsoft or the General Electric. The amount that I pay for dues is nontrivial. Therefore, my mental picture of “IEEE” was a large, faceless, well-to-do corporation located somewhere far away, presumably in Piscataway, NJ. When I got together with other IEEE members at a conference or a chapter meeting, we often had ideas for how “IEEE” might do things better. We tended to be a little disappointed that “IEEE” didn’t think of these ideas first, but sometimes went as far as passing along the idea to somebody so they could pass it to “IEEE.” The disappointment invariably continued as the crack squad of attractively dressed IEEE operatives never appeared to promptly implement the idea.
I confess that the previous statement is a bit exaggerated, but it is not too far from the way that I felt when I first began to get involved with IEEE. I recently heard a statistic that showed me just how ridiculous that picture was. There are 300 paid staff in “IEEE”— on average one staff person for every 1000 members! For a Society the size of NPSS (3000 members) that would imply three staff people. Yet NPSS runs eight international conferences, sponsors or co-sponsors four peer-reviewed journals, and has 15 chapters (many in collaboration with other IEEE Societies). This is far, far more than three people could possibly accomplish — how do we do it? You guessed it. Volunteers!
Volunteers provide not only the intellectual vision for what IEEE should be doing, but also the muscle and sweat that actually gets it done. Volunteers really do it all. What I visualized as a shiny, titanic corporate headquarters in Piscataway is really a small group of people that spend most of their effort fighting desperately to keep 39 Societies from going in 39 totally different directions.
By now you might have guessed where I’m going with this. We need you! If you believe that IEEE is doing good things, we need you to volunteer some of your valuable time to make sure that these good things keep happening. We are fortunate in NPSS (and in IEEE) that our volunteers are high quality and that we have enough volunteers to operate very effectively. But we always need fresh blood and your new ideas, and there are always more things that we would like to do.
I have personally found volunteering in the IEEE to be very rewarding (although I would be awfully foolish to continue volunteering if I didn’t). It is a little difficult to explain why, just as it is difficult to justify the pride in earning an advanced degree or to explain the rewards of parenthood to somebody who doesn’t have children. A large part of the attraction is the people — the other volunteers. They are intelligent, dedicated, and basically fun to work with. I think that it is possible to rise relatively quickly through the IEEE organization if you have the desire to. Promotion often comes slowly in the universities, corporations, or national laboratories where we work, while “promotion” within the IEEE is often just a matter of saying “I’ll do it.” I get a lot of satisfaction from “giving back” to the field. I feel that I have personally profited from the ability to present and publish my work through IEEE and have also benefited from access to other people’s work through IEEE conferences and publications, and so I would like to make sure that others get this opportunity. Finally, I believe that it has helped me advance in my day job. The organizational and management skills that I have learned by taking on IEEE projects have come in quite handy in my workplace; I have made a tremendous number of very valuable contacts, and being a conference chair or journal editor sure looks good when you are being considered for a raise or promotion.
So how do you go about volunteering? First, realize that you are probably going to start small — your first task is unlikely to be a conference chair or journal editor. Once you start getting involved, how high you rise is really up to you. Go with your interests and what you are familiar with. If there is a conference that you attend, contact the conference chair and offer your services. There are lots of tasks that need to be done with every conference. They are not always glamorous, but they are all necessary. Once you start working within the conference, you will start seeing things that need doing and start making contacts with other volunteers. Similarly, if you frequently publish in one of the NPSS journals, tell the Editor that you would be interested in reviewing papers. If you are already reviewing papers, mention that you might be interested in becoming an Associate Editor should an opening occur, or would perhaps be willing to put together a special issue. If there is a chapter near where you live, contact the chapter chair and ask what needs doing. Contact information is available on our web site: http://ewh.ieee.org/soc/nps/.
In short, “IEEE” is us. It is the volunteers that spend so much of their time to make sure that it runs smoothly. Maybe not perfectly, but we are number one for a reason, and that reason is our outstanding volunteers!
If you have any thoughts on these or any other issues, please feel free to contact me.
Bill Moses can be reached at the Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, One Cyclotron Road, MS55-121, Berkeley, CA 94720-8099; Tel.: +1 510 486 4432; Fax: +1 510 486 4768; E-mail: wwmoses@lbl.gov.