Page 16 - Summer 2006

• Better prediction of meeting room size and partic- ipants
• Address more specialty topics/workshops
• Promote more high quality applied and clinical
areas of research
• Encourage more Technical Committee interac-
tions
Suggestions for improvement of Technical Committee meetings are:
• Set time limits for start and finish of meeting
• Be more selective with special sessions
• Give sense that participation is welcome for every-
one
• Allow a technical panel structure when appropriate
The Vision 2010 committee does not necessarily recom- mend the implementation of these suggestions but pres- ents them for informational purposes only.
Issue: Expansion of Society meetings to international members as well as other meeting and non-meeting attendees.
There is much information that is exchanged at Society’s meetings that can be applied globally and/or is interest- ing enough so that it should be available to be seen and heard again. These events should not be restricted to one time and one place. They should be made available to members who wish to view them again, or, for those who were unable to be present at meetings. Typical imple- mentation might be to record and archive on the Society’s server parts of the Society meetings for later webcasting on demand. As a start these could include selected interdisciplinary presentations, such as Distinguished Lectures, Hot Topics, and possibly Tutorials. The Society should take advantage of technol- ogy to expand the participation within committee meet- ings by using teleconferencing for members who are unable to attend.
Issue: Number and format of Society meetings per year. There was extensive discussion on this issue. Ninety-three percent of the retreat attendees were in favor of two meet- ings per year as being optimal. There seemed to be strong feelings that there should be flexibility in the format of the meetings. Suggestions were made for workshops, satel- lite/topical meetings, theme meetings, joint meetings, international meetings and meetings with industry.
• Exhibits
Issue: Increase in vendors at exhibits at meetings.
The Society does not seem to do well to attract a large number of exhibits that accompany meetings. It is important that the Society understands why this is the case if it wishes to increase the number of exhibitors. It appears that members of the Society are buying less and therefore are less attractive to the vendors. There is also competition from exhibits at meetings of other organiza- tions where vendors may feel that they can reach their
target audience better. Possible reasons are:
• The absence of “promoting its practical applica- tions” (accompanied by the purchase and use of industrial products) and the emphasis on “increasing and diffusing the knowledge of acoustics” (accompanied by the use of computer
modeling).
• Defense research funding has shifted towards mis-
sion-oriented products and therefore into engi-
neering development rather than basic research.
• Defense research funding when it does exist is
being sent to industry rather than to universities. • The government has shifted its support away from physics and acoustics and into biological, health, information technology, and other areas of greater
interest to the public.
Perhaps the advertising that is being included in the new publication, Acoustics Today, will spark interest by ven- dors to become and/or return to being meeting exhibitors. In addition, it is not clear why there seldom are exhibitors from the government laboratories and industry whose main purpose is to recruit Society members, especially students. Because it is important for members and ven- dors to interact so that vendors learn about members’ needs and members learn about the latest technologies, there may be ways to attract vendors to Society meetings. Perhaps the vendor’s first meeting exhibit could be free. Perhaps every two paid meeting exhibits entitle a vendor to a third free exhibit.
• Standards
The work of the Committee on Standards and the Standards Secretariat, although well supported by some members of the Society, seems to be more important to the acoustics community at large than it is to the major- ity of ASA members. This should not be the case since it provides a solid basis for “promoting its (acoustical) practical applications.” Without the work of the Committee and the Secretariat, acoustical products, and the standards (if any) by which they would be con- structed, would be based on the needs of the manufac- turers of the products rather than on the needs of soci- ety.
Two important issues need to be addressed to turn around the perception by some members that work in Standards is of little importance to the Society or acoustics in general, The first involves a lack of member- ship knowledge about the Committee on Standards and the Standards Working Groups—how they are organ- ized, their interrelationship, their relationship with the American National Standards Institute (ANSI), and their functionality. It appears to some members that have attended Standards Committee meetings that from the inside of the meeting, there is much bickering that goes on and from the outside it is an exclusive club and diffi- cult to join. The second issue is that it is costly to the
14 Acoustics Today, July 2006