Ppresident Message
Dear Colleagues,
2009 will soon become history in just a few days. My two years term as the President of the SMC Society (SMCS) will also be completed.
It has been a tough but rewarding two years for me. I want to thank every member of the SMCS for giving me a wonderful opportunity to learn and to contribute.
Some of you may have recalled the story of the old gardener that I shared with you during the SMC 2009 Conference banquet. Indeed, we (and I really mean WE, not I) together, have managed to move a few pieces of stone on our way in building a society that better serves our members.
In the beginning of my term, I asked my self, “How can we make SMC a highly valued society to our members, both old and new ones?” I set up a modest set of goals for the SMCS (and myself): Keep the membership number above 4000; Increase the impact factors of the three Transactions to at least one; Keep the society finance in the black and improve the quality of our sponsored conferences.
Our society membership now stands at 4600, a healthy growth of more than 14% than a year ago which is the highest among all IEEE societies. We broke new ground in establishing chapters in regions such as South and North Africa, Austria and Spain. We continued to see steady growth in India, China and Taiwan. We are exciting that some inactive chapters have been revitalized. Today we have a total of 44 SMC chapters (14 in Americas, 12 in Europe/Africa, and 18 in Asia). We managed to attract more student members, and to keep a larger percentage of membership renewal. T.T. Lee and Patrick Chan must be congratulated for their long and hard labor.
Our three Transactions editors, Witold Pedrycz, Eugene Santos and Vlad Marik, under the able leadership of Michael Berthold (our VP (Publications)), have done an outstanding job in reducing the backlog, shortening the average Time-from-Submission-to-Decision, and streamlining the review operation while facing the tough situation of a large number of submission and a low acceptance rate. All three of the SMC Transactions are now achieving an impact factor above one. That is quite a remarkable success.
Conference activities are becoming more significant not only in terms of revenue, but in providing a vital service to our members for technical exchange and professional development. As a result, new members were recruited in many SMC sponsored conferences. The number of SMC sponsored conferences has increased significantly over the last two years, covering a wide range of topics. But it also brings with a variety of quality problems. Recently the IEEE highlights the quality of its sponsored conferences as one of its top issues. I can’t imagine how much time and effort that the SMC Conferences and Meetings Committee, led by Eddie Tunstel and Loi-Lei Lai, had put in to address this problem. Some requests for SMC conference sponsorship had been turned down and mechanisms are now in place to help organizers better manage their conferences.
No one can argue that the success of an IEEE society could be achieved without a strong participation by its technical committees (TCs). The total number of TCs now reaches 36 (11 Cybernetics, 7 Human-Machine Systems, and 18 Systems). The three VPs of Technical Activities, Philip Chen, Hideyuki Takagi and Ellen Bass had built up a strong and active technical base. They tackled the most difficult task of consolidating existing TCs as well as exploring new, emerging ones (a recent example is the Brain-Machine Interface Systems). These TCs strongly support our conference and workshop and become an integral part of the technical activities of the Society.
Ljiljana Trajkovic and Irv Engelson continue to lead us in an effort to make our society operations more efficient, effective and transparent. Recently they led a task force to address a number of critical issues facing the Society, including the name change of the Society and the three Transactions. I must say that their great contribution will be appreciated for years to come.
The whole world, not just the IEEE/SMC, has gone through a terrible financial crisis in 2008 and 2009. Surprisingly, both the IEEE and the SMCS came out financially sound. We had a healthy surplus in 2008 and we expect to have another good year in 2009. Thanks to Robert Woon and all the officers who have done a very prudent job in financial management. Thanks to Philip Chen who has so successfully organized the SMC 2009 which, I understand, will bring in better than expected surplus.
As I have always maintained both privately and publicly, that none of these could happen without the wise counsel and unreserved support of our Board of Governors. It is equally true that this is a result of the excellent foundation works laid by my predecessors, Mike Smith, Bill Gruver and Larry Hall.
Most of all, it is the anonymous SMC volunteers out there that I salute. We owe it all to YOU.
As I have said, we have managed to move a few pieces of stone. I am sure there will be more pieces of stone in our road ahead. But I have full confidence and faith that under the capable and dynamic leadership of Michael Berthold and his team of vice presidents, SMC will be favored by many as the most value-added society in the IEEE.
Thank you all and may you and your loved ones have a very Blessed New Year.
With Warm Regard,
Daniel Yeung
President, IEEE SMC Society 2008-2009