Archive for Leadership
Hurry and register!
Posted by: | CommentsThe 2010 ISA Spring Leaders Meeting (SLM) will soon be here! Register now for this must-attend leadership-training event.
Message from Dianna L. Noyes, ISA Administrator, Section and District Services
Date: 12-14 June 2010
Location: Summerlin, Nevada (Las Vegas).
Meeting Registration, Meeting Schedule, and Hotel Information: Click here. Please note that 21 May 2010 is the deadline to register.
The SLM will provide you with many tools you need to be a successful leader. Here are a few highlights of what to expect:
The ISA and the Web session, which includes information on using social media, has been expanded to three hours because of its popularity. Presenters Jon DiPietro and Shari Worthington will be back this year with more information to keep you up-to-date on how to use the web and other electronic media. These media can help you keep in contact with your Members, recruit new Members and leaders, and find new ways to grow your ISA Section.
The Section Leaders Roundtable, with Brad Rupert as facilitator, will surely have some lively discussions as participants share their successes and lessons they’ve learned. Programs, presentations, and promotions are just some of the topics to be shared in this pool of knowledge and experience.
Learn about ISA—the Society, the different technical Divisions, the benefits of membership, etc.—and your role and responsibilities as a leader. Presenters Peggie Koon, William Stange, and Joe Provenzano will lead the discussions about some of the key challenges and opportunities you might face as a leader. In addition, they and other presenters will share their personal experiences within the Society.
Come, join your fellow leaders for an enjoyable and interesting Spring Leaders Meeting. A great program has been prepared for you. Bring your questions, share your experiences, and get re-charged for the year. I look forward to seeing you!
Popularity: 9%
InTech’s Past, Present, and Future
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I was recently asked for my thoughts regarding the reasons for InTech’s (advertising) struggles and how we might improve the advertising market share of the magazine.
I would say that what went wrong with InTech is Web 2.0. The Internet is revolutionizing the way information is delivered and how people organize themselves; the two core value propositions of ISA. Few to realize this, including organizations as large and successful as the Boston Globe and Conde Nast. Here are my thoughts on the past, which are not meant as criticism but analysis on how external trends are affecting InTech:
- The fundamental challenge for InTech is the plummeting value of information. The product quite simply isn’t worth what it used to be. Many people immediately think of Google, but there are actually a few reasons:
- Search engines (Google, Bing, etc.) are the obvious reason information is becoming devalued; it is much, much easier to find.
- Vendors are providing more and more value-added information to their customers. They are realizing the benefits of giving away information and solutions in order to increase sales of their products. Rockwell has been doing this for years, but Emerson is really becoming a content generating force. They get it.
- Web 2.0 is turning traditional content consumers into producers. While automation professionals are probably slower to adopt than others, this is what I call the “silent killer.” The root cause here is the cost of bandwidth and storage approaching zero. This trend will continue as more and more specialists in the automation profession will become their own publishers. Greg McMillan, for example, could be a very successful professional blogger and speaker right now if he had the inclination.
- It is no great surprise to say that the print medium is becoming less and less popular. ISA is dangerously behind the times with regard to all things digital, but I am seeing glimmers of hope from leadership that this is changing (as recently as emails I received this afternoon).
- Advertising in all forms (magazine, web, television) is changing. The traditional, interruptive model is becoming less effective every single day. People are getting better at ignoring those sorts of advertising and effective advertising in the future will be permission-based, inbound marketing. The problem with that approach is that it requires an organizational shift that will be extremely difficult to pull off.
- Due to the exploding availability of information, people are shifting from fewer, longer articles to more, shorter articles. I have ready many statements from leadership about the “world class” content of InTech, and I am not saying that it is or is not. My point is that it doesn’t matter whether or not the content is world class if nobody is reading it. The articles are too long and too poorly marketed right now, in my view. I know this is heretical to say, and many engineers will take violent exception to this statement.
- Another effect of Web 2.0 is the immediacy of information. The process and delivery mechanism for InTech is too bogged down to respond to quickly developing situations. By the time an editorial calendar is adopted, articles are submitted, reviewed, accepted, edited, printed and read, people frequently don’t care anymore or ISA has missed an opportunity to be part of a conversation.
- ISA has killed the golden goose by overwhelming its members with low value, un-targeted, interruptive marketing. As a result, they have unsubscribed from our emails and generally tuned out ISA. That will make everything we do from now on that much harder.
Don't confuse Web 2.0 with social media - they are related but not the same thing.
So those are my thoughts on what went “wrong” and the forces that are influencing publishing in general. Here’s what I think we need to do:
- First and foremost, abandon the traditional paradigms which include viewing InTech as a source of revenue. It needs to be transitioned to a (hopefully) break-even content generation engine that serves a higher calling (e.g. inbound marketing, member engagement, community building). Again, I understand this is heresy and will be very controversial.
- The deal with Automation.com should be undone as soon as possible. This was dilution of the InTech brand and in a Web 2.0 world, the opt-in email list is the most valuable asset any publisher has. Sharing this with Automation.com greatly diminishes its value.
- InTech should formulate a strategy for migrating its focus from print to blog. Many people will misunderstand what I’m saying here. I am not saying abandon print – done properly this can actually become a very high margin product. I am not saying we do this overnight – it needs to be a transition that takes place over a two to four year period. The end result must be a more nimble, online blog that publishes shorter, timelier content from a wider variety of members. The InTech magazine will then become, as Seth Godin calls it, a “souvenir” that people will want to buy because it contains enhanced and embellished versions of the online content. It should be available as an online, downloadable e-book as well as an on-demand (that is, not subscription) purchase.
- InTech needs to abandon traditional concepts of advertising and look at online affiliate advertising, sponsored content, and selling products. And the term “product” needs to be defined as well. Currently, this would encompass books, standards, and training but it remains to be seen whether this remains the case. As an example, a blog article on cybersecurity needs to (automatically) include include links to “Click here to download ISA99,” or “Buy ‘Industrial Network Security’ now,” or “Attend a security webinar.”
- The concept of an editorial calendar is antiquated and needs to be reconsidered. While it was once a necessary tool, it seems to me that it is now an encumbrance. As I’ve said, InTech needs to be a more nimble, crowd-sourced publication platform that can address the most pressing and current issues that are of interest to our members.
- We need to educate our members on how to be better content producers. This does not mean what it used to mean. The skills required to author a five thousand word text article for a print magazine are much different from the skills required to write a shorter (thousand word), more concise, compelling multimedia article (or video).
- If we reclaim sovereignty over the InTech newsletter, it needs to be revived as an instrument to deliver value to our members – not to sell more stuff. This is CRITICAL.
- ISA staff and leaders need to be trained to adopt a “content” mindset, which means thinking about turning every bit of work product (like this email, for example) into content and distributing it through multiple channels. I describe this approach in more detail on my blog.
You’ll notice I have not made a single mention of social media. The reason is that social media is a means to deliver remarkable content to people and then talk about it. Without the content, social media will simply be an empty, uninteresting echo chamber. However, the level of coordination and scope/degree of change required for this transformation make it a tall task to say the least.
Popularity: 20%
Trends & Fulfillments
Posted by: | CommentsThis blog-site has been on line for over a week now and already I have noticed trends and fulfillments of what I said in my perhaps too lengthy piece, Directions.
The most striking is the paucity of comments from our elected leaders out in front.
I suspect there are as many definitions of leadership as there are leaders. Here’s one “Leadership is about setting and not just reacting to agendas, identifying problems, and initiating change that makes for substantive improvement rather than managing change.” (Ann Marie E. McSwain:Lincoln University MO US.)
Benjamin Disraeli (1804-1881) The following leader!
A great leader in Imperial Britain, Benjamin Disraeli is said to have remarked once: “I must follow the people. Am I not their leader?”
Who?
The senior governing body of ISA is the Executive Board, which is composed of the Society President, President-elect Secretary, Past-President, Treasurer, and twelve Vice Presidents chosen by two subordinate boards to represent all interest areas of the Society. The Board of District Vice Presidents selects six Members of its members, and the Board of Department Vice Presidents selects six members to serve on the ISA Executive Board. These are the people with responsibility the continuance of our society, entrusted by us constitutionally with this task. They are without exception truly representative of our profession.
Here is the incoming Executive Board:
Nelson Ninin
Leo Staples
Jerry Cockrell, CAP
Terry Ives
Stu Affleck
Rick Albrecht
Michael Bovenkamp, P.Eng.,CAP
Marcus Coester
Kevin Dignam
Jose Mattiazzo
Nick Sands, CAP
Bill Stange
Jim Tatera, CSAT
Ian Verhappen, CSAT, CAP
Jim Keaveney (Parliamentarian) and Pat Gouhin (Executive Director) who although they sit on the board do not have voting rights.
How many of these have you seen responding or participating in any of the discussions here? Or on LinkedIn conversations or discussions? Or any other of the blogs discussing where our Society is going? One or two? More? I see some of them are following this on the Facebook page let’s hear more from you guys! I believe you are missing a golden opportunity to participate in the conversation and have your messages heard? We are listening too!
My experience
My own experience has been that where I have made an error of fact, somebody has written to me privately to correct it. Or to point out some action that I did not know about. That is fine in so far as it goes but only in so far as it goes. It ought be handled and faced down, right there where it is stated. If I say (as I did in the Direction article).
- “Many others in private like Cleveland, and in public on various blogs and internet-groups, have commented, suggested, cajoled but still the impression given is of a brick wall or worse a soaked sponge! “I accept what you say, within reason,” but …..”
I expect somebody to reply to the blog, not to me or to the administrator privately, with details of what actions if any were taken. But in fact both I and the admin were contacted privately and the blog “Building and Preserving Association Relevancy” written by Jon DiPietro resulted. However it would have had much more effect to my mind if one of our leaders had posted that with links on where to find the relevant paper on the website. (I still haven’t found it though, thankfully, Jon, with his inestimably and infinitely more intimate knowledge of the mysteries of the virtual world has been able to upload it as part of this blog entry!). The fact that I and a large number of members did not know of the existance of this paper is, to use an Americanism, a whole new ball game, which will possibly be addressed elsewhere.
Open participation
Now Walt Boyes, has written a response to Direction which starts “This is the reply that I sent to a broadcast email from Doug Rothenberg…” Now unless you were “in” the broadcast group that Doug Rothenberg mailed you really have no idea what that reference is about.
This makes another point for me. These conversations must take place in the clear light of day with full input from everyone who has something to say about it. Otherwise, I believe there is little or no chance of getting changes through governance and no shot of preserving the Society we love.
Reply
Comments are being made on other blogs too. For instance Keith Campbell asked on Wednesday (16th Dec ’09), “Will ISA take the wrong path again?” He’s asking important questions on the focus of ISA. Has anybody responded? Privately? Maybe, but to all intents and purposes the questions remain unanswered. Unanswered questions or presumptions may tend to become facts.
The right people?
Finally another point which perhaps is overlooked. People are looking to staff to “solve” the problem. That to my mind is not the job of staff. They sometimes recommend but they actually do what we, the members, through our elected leaders, tell them. We owe a tremendous debt of gratitude to our staff who have seen us through over sixty years. They have suffered more than many of us this last year but we must realise that our Executive Director and our staff cannot solve this problem, only we can.
So to the members I say: Speak constructively!
To the leaders one short sentence: Follow the members, you, are their leaders!
Popularity: 21%
A Modest Proposal…
Posted by: | CommentsWe have been bitching about the direction ISA is to take for at least 20 years that I’ve been in the leadership groups. What I think we have to do now is to start making concrete proposals. So, I offer some that I’ve made in my December editorial:
This will be the third straight month I’ve written about ISA. I am sure many of you, especially since so many of you aren’t ISA members and see no relevance in becoming ISA members, are getting tired of this. So am I. So is former ISA Executive Director Glenn Harvey, who expresses himself quite forcefully in his letter in our Feedback section this month. Of course, in fairness to the people who have been leading ISA since he left, many of the problems that face ISA were created by Glenn and his management team. Glenn feels that it is quite possible that ISA has outlived its usefulness, and because of its inability to reinvent itself, ISA is doomed.
Glenn may be right. After all, as I pointed out last month, less than 0.3% of all potential ISA members worldwide actually belong to the Society. This is beyond irrelevance.
The single biggest problem ISA faces is members. Not lack of membership, but the existing members, each of whom has a vote at the Council of Society Delegates meeting. Granted, the votes are representative, so that the section delegate acts like a member of the U.S. House of Representatives, but they’re responsible to vote the way their members want them to. That’s why it took Dr. Tom Stout and me about a decade to get the bylaws changed to permit legislative advocacy, which ISA is now doing quite well, thank you. That’s why it took Steve Huffman and Kim Miller Dunn and a whole band of intrepid leaders over a decade to get the silly name change done.
Major change in the Society must be agreed to by the membership, most of whom won’t sit still for major changes. Many simply like their ISA the way it was.
There are some things a dynamic leadership can do, if they want to, that would circumvent the need to ask the membership—things that need to be done right away. One of the most important is to abandon the abortive Automation Federation. Now that ISA has Automation in its real name, the AF is irrelevant and a duplication of effort. The compliance institute effort needs to be abandoned or cut loose of ISA to live or die. Sometimes you just can’t do all the good ideas.
More staff needs to be cut. Sorry, many of them are my friends, but it has to be done. ISA staff is still far too large for its membership. There are many things that ISA does because they have always done them, rather like the children’s song, “We’re here because we’re here, because we’re here…” Now is the time to do ruthless triage on these things. ISA might want to outsource some of these things, such as publishing books, training, etc. for a royalty or a percentage. Other people simply do these things better than ISA can afford to. I talked about membership last month. But, the Council of Society Delegates is about as likely to vote itself out of existence as the U.S. Congress is.
ISA has another problem—it isn’t really “international at all.” ISA has had great difficulty getting traction in many parts of the world. Some places have their own automation societies, and have no use for ISA. ISA needs to meet this head on.
There have been calls lately for ISA to spend a significant chunk of money ($300K to $450K) on an outside consultant to tell them what to do. Come on. ISA has been doing studies since Glenn was running it, and the end result is the classic rearrangement of the deck chairs. ISA’s executive board needs to hire a business turnaround specialist, not another association manager or do more studies—or divvy up the money and go home.
It is possible that Glenn Harvey is right. But if ISA dies, we’ll have to invent another society to help keep automation a real profession. Maybe we should do that anyway.
Popularity: 7%
Leading the (ISA) Tribe
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Seth Godin gives us this challenge: Can you get your idea to spread or not? His point of view is that no matter what you are doing (selling, coordinating, standardizing, revolutionizing, etc…) this is the only thing that matters. This post summarizes his excellent presentation. However, I hope you can take 17 minutes of your time to watch it and perhaps gain some knowledge, perspective, and inspiration.
Eoin’s opening salvo on this site talked a lot about leadership. This is a hot topic these days, with past and current leaders beseeching newcomers to take “leadership roles.” I have heard these suggestions, but could not help thinking that the type of leadership they advocate and the kind of leadership that is required are two different things. My take is that the type of leadership ISA needs right now is the type that helps ideas spread.
The Television-Industrial Complex
In his presentation, Godin speaks of what he calls the “television-industrial complex,” which enabled people with messages they wanted to communicate to interrupt millions of people and force/trick them into listening to information they may or may not care about regarding a solution to a problem they may or may not have. This is a great approach if you have two things; lots of money and a time machine to bring you back to the 1980’s. This model is broken and the lesson for ISA here is that interruptive advertising no longer works. Interruptive advertising includes print ads, web banners and email marketing. You do the math.
Me-Mail
I think I have, to a certain extent, branded myself as a “social media drum-beater” within ISA. While I won’t shy away from that, I worry that it distracts from the full picture. The point here is that the entire range of technological innovation in the 21st century has enabled a “me-centric” information model. Having more choices and less time to evaluate them today, people now have both the requirement and means to filter out messages that don’t resonate deeply and personally with them. This is not only an online phenomenon – witness the proliferation of DVRs that are rendering the television commercial more and more impotent.
To this end, Godin points out the reality that people don’t want e-mail, they want me-mail. There is much profundity packed into that small phrase and has particular applicability to ISA with its current struggles to find the sweet spot in terms of member emails (which will be the subject of an entirely separate post and discussion).
Be Remarkable
So let’s say you now accept that the world has changed and that people are getting better at filtering out stuff they don’t care about. What’s the solution? The solution is to a) be remarkable and b) communicate with early adopters.
Being “remarkable” means having something to say or sell that is worth other people talking about. It’s that simple. It used to be that if you were remarkable and had the means to get that message in front of enough people (e.g. television, InTech advertising) you were golden. It turns out today that marketing to the middle of the bell curve is pretty ineffective today, so we should instead be focusing our attention on early adopters. Early adopters have all sorts of great qualities. They tend to be Trust Agents, and possess a passion that can be more powerful than print, not to mention far less costly. If you have something remarkable to offer, they will help spread your ideas.
And that’s what it’s all about – spreading ideas.
Popularity: 14%
Direction?
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The member asks!
On the right track?
By Eoin Ó Riain
Over all of this, however, is a very striking thing. A real affection for our society and genuine care and anxiety that we come out of this crisis as a stronger society both for ourselves as members and for the automation profession and discipline as a whole.
First the blame game!
By this I mean the negative comment. “ISA has always been in this business for its own gain, screw the punter and collect the money.” “The books, the courses etc are too expensive and anyway who would buy them etc etc.” “It’s no wonder it is in the situation its in when it treats the member the way it does.” Every effort made by those charged to bring the society forward is attacked and quickly a “them and us” mentality is fostered.
An important point in making these criticisms is that we all must understand the pressure that staff (RTP) are undergoing at the present time. The fact that this family of dedicated, and they are dedicated, professionals has been reduced by one third in the past two months is bound to effect things. People have been given new responsibilities and they have to “grow” into these.
See also the valedictory reflections of President Jerry Cockrell as his year as president ends “This is the first day of the rest of our lives!”
The criticisms in the article are not directed at anybody in particular nor even at a group of people . No! I think I am talking about a general lack of appreciation of the great changes that are occurring not only in our profession but also in the world generally.
1. Fewer Automation Professionals are looking after more and more complex plants.
2. The communication business bears no comparison to the world of the youth of most automation professionals – and indeed most professionals including publicists or spin doctors..
3. Finally the so-called credit crunch has also had an effect but is often erroneously blamed for all the changes that are happening.
Make no mistake about it we are talking about a paradigm shift. A systemic change the like of which has not been seen for four or five hundred years. Those in leadership have an unenviable yet stimulating task of managing change into a future we know very little about. They are making some changes but as this article is hoping to emphasise there is the danger that the changes are based on a model which served us well in the last century, and indeed previous centuries. If that happens then the Society that we love so much will not survive.
Now the defensive game!
This is seen in many organisations. We can see it in virtually every government in the world. Even in Churches! It is seen for instance in a report I read recently that the current administration in the US is reportadly excluding a television news service from access to the sources of information because they perceive their reporting as inimical to their aims. That may or may not be true but this overt attempt to control the media is no longer possible.
Another one is one that appears to be used on people like Jim Pinto. Now Jim is an articulate, thinking automation person. He is a fellow of the society, he is a published author and a proven entrepreneur. He has published many commentaries and ideas, with some of which I agree, with others I do not. His commentaries are by no means limited to ISA and the reactions of some of the commercial entities who do not like what he says are even more drastic and twentieth and even ninteenth century than ISA’s. Though people hear this kind of criticism it appears they are not listened to. Sometimes the reaction is to deflect criticism and/or suggestions by telling them to “get into the game” and “be a leader.” The implication being “If you feel your idea is good then come in and implement it! – otherwise we will proceed as we are no matter what you say!” I think that that sort of response is disrespectful and worse is stultifying to progress. And we are assured that “…ISA is on the right track.”
Reactions from some of the commercial entities include an instruction not to engage with him at all.
The vibrant Cleveland (OH) section made a wonderful and perceptive presentation to the ISA Executive Board in pre-crash 2006. Were any actions taken? The Cleveland guys think not. It was an interesting meeting, they were thanked and things proceeded on their merry way while membership continued to stagnate. “…ISA is on the right track.”
Many others in private like Cleveland, and in public on various blogs and internet-groups, have commented, suggested, cajoled but still the impression given is of a brick wall or worse a soaked sponge! “I accept what you say, within reason,” but “…ISA is on the right track!”
The old school is ended!
Up to the last few years it was possible to manipulate, in one way or another, public opinion through control of the means of mass-communication. Many countries still operate “state” radio and television stations for instance. That was true of the old “eastern-bloc” countries in Europe and it worked for about eighty years but it was bound to fail as access to other resources became more and more possible, radio and television stations accross the frontiers. And so it did, spectacularly in 1998 with the downing of the Berlin Wall or the fall of Ceauşescu.
The new school
Remember Tiananmen Square? The orange revolution in Kiev? Indeed I remember myself in the early years of “the troubles”, being in Belfast – this was the early seventies. The two communities of the Shankill and the Falls taken over by elements who set up rival raidio stations. There was a slight problem on a small street (Percy Street) between them and a call went out on the Raidio Stations looking for people to go to the site. Within about 15 minutes two large and hostile crowds had assembled with a bewildered British army presence between them.
More recently the election of the current US president used the “social medis”, really for the first time. But it wasn’t always favourable to the man who won the election but one thing that was noticeable that dissent was not quashed on his campaign cyber-presence platforms. People were engaged and responded where they were!
Nowadays news is instant. Whether it is an earthquake in China, a corrupt election in Iraq, the death of a popstar, or the nomination of a new president-elect secretary, we know about it instantly.
The world has changed!
So how does this effect ISA in its current difficulties?
On occasion I have made comments or responded to comments on various blogs and forums. I have been approached in private to suggest that some of these comments be made “through the established channels!”
But what are these channels? Section meetings? The ideal place is of course the leaders’ meetings. But these are at best three a year. One district Meeting and two “society” meetings, usually in far-away places. I have attended these in Houston, Anaheim, New Orleans, Vancouver, Phiadelphia, Orlando as well as in many Europen venues. Yes, one can learn a lot at these but it requires your presence there!
What are these channels? Lift up a telephone? send an e-mail? To whom? Not everybody has that information. And in any case the reply may answer MY query but what about the other thousand members who may have the same query?
I remember once in the early days of the internet when, at a conference, the speaker asked how many had a website? A few hands went up. Then he asked, “How many of you have your prices on your site?” Nobody had. Why? Mostly because the site owners feared their rivals would get the prices. In fact they forgot that if these people really wanted their prices they would get them whether or not theu were on the website. For me that was one of those great moments of clarity, when I realised that this media was different. Another was when I showed the web to a printer. I could actually feel his fear as he realised the power of this medium and how it might effect his business.
I have been told that the value for discussions such as this on groups such as LinkedIn is limited because the misinformation can quickly generate a negative herd mentality and take on a life of its own. This may be very true but there is a remedy staring us in the face. PARTICIPATE!
When a comment is made on a LinkedIn group which is false, correct it! Not by a private e-mail to person who made the comment but there, in public, where the original comment was made.
How many comments have been made in public that have not been answered? Participate in the debate.
That is not happening to any large extent now. There are a number of places for this to happen and this site is just one more. We have had some excellent talks and debates about the ISA’s web presence for instance. Suggestions have been made that ISA have Ning-like functionality “baked in” for its departments, committees, sections, etc… There are free open source frameworks that would make it easy to provide this functionality. In other words there is little or no cost element.
Some effort has been made to do this but only by the volunteers and not in an integrated way. Image and Membership Department have used it and the Publication Department are also trying to see how they can use systems like this. But really no input from staff (that I can see) other than criticism “as far-from-perfect resource typical of these free systems” or the not invalid “we are too busy.” And of course they are busy, but what with? (As I write this I learn, but through the grapevine, that some attention is being paid to this at RTP, but it is only a rumour but “through usually reliable sources!” A response to this blog would be a usefulw to confirm this?)
Recently they (Senior Officers/Staff) attended the Council of Engineering and Scientific Society Executives leadership forum in Florida. I never knew there was such a body but then I suppose I don’t need to! Based on data quoted there from Tecker Consultants and conversations with the other attendees we are assured that “…ISA is on the right track!”. One comment I saw on this said caustically “The ‘Council of Engineering and Scientific Society Executives Leadership’ forum was attended by people who are all in the same sinking ship.” I suspect that comments with the same general meaning have been voiced by others though maybe less colourfully!
I have emphasised the “web presence” of ISA. Why? Because that is the most visible way of showing, that ISA, as a body, IS up for, and to, the challenge. It is also the least expensive. But I see nothing happening there. Do a Google search for “Automation.” Where is ISA? Down near the bottom of page three (as Instrumentation, Systems & Automation Society, a year after the name change!) Search “Instrumentation” and it’s on page two. Am I wrong to expect it not only on page one but at the top of page one?
Incidentally it is very useful to see what other entities (not only other societies) are doing. We have good examples in the leading automation companies. For instance National Instruments have a Community and Social Media Manager (actually they say Geek! She is Deirdre Walsh). Why? Emerson have done a survey on the big (and paradoxical) changes occurring in the automation world and are acting accordingly. (See my own blog last month on conquering-complexity!). I came across an interesting book on the extraordinary changes that are occurring in our world today. Seth Godin in his book “Meatball sundae” talks about the tinkering that many entities are doing. They are missing the big picture. When the penny drops the realisation is truly revolutionary, a paradigm shift:
“So, if we embrace this approach, we don’t have to just change our website – we are going to have to change everything about our organisation. our mission, our structure, our decision making…”
ISA is on the right track? Tell the members how? Show the members how membership benefits them more than non-membership!
Leaders, please engage! Please respond where the members are! Come out from the ivory tower! Lead!
Members, participate! Participate where the leaders can lead!
Popularity: 31%