BLUF—that’s “Bottom Line Up Front” for those that don’t speak acronym-ese—the 2013 IEEE International Symposium on EMC was another smashing success! Denver is a great town for a convention, the facilities were excellent and as always, the Symposium committee pulled it all together and put on an outstanding show. If there were any hitches or glitches, it sure didn’t show. I’ve been involved in putting on a lot of smaller events and meetings, and I can’t imagine trying to put on a symposium of several thousand, with all the sessions, papers, committee meetings, social outings, meals (the food was terrific!), etc. But, once again, they pulled it off and it was fantastic.
I’ve written in the past about the need for participation in technical societies like the IEEE (in general) and the EMC Society (in particular), and I took what I consider to be a couple of large steps toward putting up or shutting up (as the saying goes). I’ve been participating in Technical Committee 1 (EMC Management…seems fitting somehow, seeing who I work for) but I can’t claim to have contributed much. This time, I volunteered to be the committee secretary for the next two years. May not seem like much, and its not the Chairmanship, but it will force me to really participate rather than just being another guy in the room or listening on the phone conference. We’ll see where this goes, but I really do hope that it’s a stepping stone to more participation in the society committees to actually help the society as a whole move forward.
The other step was to join TC6, Spectrum Engineering (previously Spectrum Management), which is a relatively new technical committee, but one that is working in an area that is of greater and greater interest to the community as a whole. EMI Control and management of spectral use go—hand—in—glove these days when literally everything we do depends on wireless communications in some form or another. So it’s a natural extension of EMC to consider spectrum engineering and management considerations (and vice versa for that matter). While I didn’t take any committee positions (they weren’t looking to fill any), I did participate heavily and took several actions. May not seem like much, but it’s a start and I have high hopes of making significant contributions to this group.
The only thing missing from the conference was government participation from the EMC and/or spectrum communities that exist in so many agencies, and the DoD (with which I’m most familiar) in particular. Seems sequestration and tight travel budgets, not to mention that “conference” is now a dirty word to the DoD, have reduced government participation to nearly zero in all technical conferences and symposia. And that’s a shame, because government requirements drive a great deal of what the EMC community does, so their technical experts should be there to contribute. I look forward to their return to their rightful place(s) in the IEEE EMC Symposia in the future.
So, the word for this day is: participate. If I can do it, so can you. The next might be to participate in your local EMC Society chapter. Maybe if YOU will, so will I!
-Brian Farmer
