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From Diana Bouchard (one of the first women to serve on the Executive Committee of ISA ever):
Hello one and all:
Jim’s proposed plan might yield a new organization which would carry
forward ISA’s name and reputation and be of service to the automation
community. But this organization would barely resemble the ISA we
know. Assuming ISA continues its current activities, the “new ISA” would
essentially be another technical publisher, training company, standards
development consortium and exhibit organizer.
Now, this might be the way that ISA could best serve the automation
community. But such a drastic change would really need to be approved by
the current ISA leadership, specifically by the Executive Board who legally
hold the ultimate decision-making power in ISA. Whatever you may think of
their “analysis paralysis and instant indecision” (which I too observe),
they are the people who are in place now and must decide what actions
should be taken. If anything is going to happen, you need to convince them.
One of the most serious problems ISA now has, in my opinion, is that the
leadership has collectively become discouraged and demoralized, and many
leaders are either dropping out of active involvement or else warming their
chairs but doing little else. So right at the time when major strategic
decisions need to be made, the leadership has become largely inert. The
challenge is to re-energize these people and involve them in an ongoing
strategic conversation about the very future of their Society.
I think that most ISA leaders have a clear perception of the situation that
ISA is in, and they are more ready for change than some people give them
credit for. We have a lot of 30,000 foot information provided over the
past several years by a series of consultants plus our own internal
studies. Most of it is true, and most of it we know by now. However, in
ISA as elsewhere, the real question is how to get this information down to
ground level and put it to work in the everyday world. People want to know
how this will affect my job, how this will change what I do day to day. A
consultant cannot give you this (sorry Jim, sorry Dick), it has to come
from inside the organization. The only way that I know of to refine the
high-level information into something that is useful for everyday decision
making is via a series of frank, wide-ranging, no-holds-barred
conversations among those involved in ISA’s various
activities. Unfortunately that is not what ISA spends its time doing. ISA
holds endless meetings, generates endless documents, spews out lots of
verbiage about how wonderful ISA is, and fine-tunes the n-th revision of
its operating procedures. But we really spend very little time or energy
in strategic conversations with each other. And it shows.
It is clear to me that the proposed plan, if implemented, would result in
an ISA without volunteers, and most probably without members. Now, this
might end up being the way to go. From the difficulty I observe in
recruiting, keeping and motivating volunteer leaders at all levels of ISA,
I could well believe that the day of the volunteer-led professional
association may be over. But I think if we want to “encourage volunteer
involvement, but limit that to advisory suggestions”, we are kidding
ourselves. Remember we are now talking about a purely business
organization. Do you feel any desire to volunteer for Elsevier or AMA? Of
course not. Moreover, people tend to volunteer where their ideas are
appreciated and used, and where they feel they can make a difference and
are doing something useful for the world. How long do you think that
volunteers will be willing to hang around and offer “advisory suggestions”,
especially once they perceive that these are often ignored?
I need to know more about what the mission and role of this “new ISA” would
be. What kind(s) of service would this organization render to the
automation community? Would it be an industry advisory group? an advocacy
organization? an industry leaders’ round table? an “honest broker” among
other organizations and companies in the field? a vendor of publications
and/or training courses and/or exhibition management services? a standards
development organization? or some combination of the above? These
questions need to be answered before any new people are recruited for
governance, because who you want will depend a lot on the answers.
This is the kind of discussion that needs to happen throughout the ISA
leadership: all cards on the table, no forbidden topics, no “bad” ideas or
“bad” people, just a shared conviction that ISA contains something of great
value that none of us wants to lose.
Diana Bouchard
P.S. Re the headquarters building in RTP: it’s not a “nest egg” until and
unless ISA can cash it in. And there has been a lot of empty office real
estate in the RTP area for a few years now.
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