Reviewing Our 2001 Strategic Accomplishments

A s my presidential year draws to a close, I want to report to the IEEE Computer Society membership about our 2001 accomplishments. This " year in review " will serve to inform members about our progress toward achieving our strategic goals. The priority project for the Board of Governors this year was the selection of a new executive director. I am pleased to announce that after an extensive search, David W. Hennage joined the Society as our executive director on 1 November. David brings with him a broad background in association and not-for-profit management. He impressed the Interview Committee with his expertise, intellect, sincerity, and enthusiasm. His strong financial and negotiation skills, coupled with his experience in leading organizations to fulfill their strategic mission, will be an invaluable asset to the Computer Society. Several exciting new Computer Society initiatives were launched this year. These initiatives targeted the three primary challenges identified in our 2001 Strategic Plan: addressing member demand for digital products and services, increasing the value of membership for computing professionals worldwide, and improving the Society's organizational nimbleness. The overarching objective for these initiatives is to provide our members with the best services. In pursuit of the IEEE Computer Society's vision as the " leading provider of technical information and services to the world's computing professionals, " the Strategic Plan proposes to position the Society as a " total information provider " in computing technology. To respond to member requests for concise, relevant, up-to-date technical material in diverse topical areas in digital format, the plan recommends numerous electronic services that support computing professionals and add value to that information. It provides a method of offering broader content from within the total scope of the computing literature and for synthesizing that information to focus on specific technical areas. The project also offers tools to help members address their problem of information overload and their need for access to essential and timely information with anywhere, anytime delivery. The approach will be to develop a portal to the Society's technical interest areas, focusing on making the Society's core value-added expert knowledge structured and accessible. This portal will bring together appropriate intellectual property, aggregating the Society's rich peer-reviewed material with additional content from other scientific publishers, professional magazines, and news feeds. It will also offer value-added services for individual members, such as personal-ization, customization, discussion forums, and bulletin boards. Services for groups …