Being an IEEE Member Has Its Advantages -- IEEE's Financial Advantage program provides investment opportunities, discounts on insurances, and all manner of business and travel related products.
More Speed -- Technology to watch for, providing even faster connection speeds: satellite links, cable modems, and ADSL.
Preparing Outstanding Presentations, Part 2 -- The universal structure for effective presentations.
IEEE-USA Update -- Useful Article Protection: Testimony for new intellectual propert rights; Call for Corporate Citizenship; Endorsing IRA-Expansion Proposals; Urging Flight Demonstration of Laser Satcom Technology; Internet Commerce and Encryption Legislation.
Section Activities -- Anniversaries, Brainbuster
July 17 Consultants Networking Meeting
Being an IEEE Member has its Advantages
Group Insurance. Over 90,000 IEEE members participate in the group insurance program, using it as either their primary protection or as a cost-effective supplement to their existing coverage.
Discount Prescription Program. Available at no cost for members and their families, this plan can save you 20% or more on the price of prescription drugs. Discounts honored at 144 participating pharmacy chains.
Dental Plan. Dental services provided by a nationwide network of independent dentists. Benefits include: $5/month single coverage; $13/month entire family; no deductible; no claim forms; and no annual maximum.
Professional Liability Insurance. Designed for self-employed and smaller engineering firms, this plan protects you against claims of professional negligence.
Credit Cards. Gold MasterCardÒ and Visa GoldÒ issued by Travelers Bank feature: no annual fee; free additional cards for family members; introductory interest rate of 5.9%; variable 15.15% APR; discounts on IEEE products; and 25 day interest-free grace period on all new purchases. A special student MasterCard has no annual fee, low interest rates, and low $5000 income requirement.
Mutual Funds. The Vistasm Family of Mutual Funds offers a range of investment choices from higher risk/return funds to more conservative tax-free funds. Members can open an account for as little as $2500 (students $1000) and without an up-front sales charge.
Annuities. The Travelers Vintage Variable Annuity offers an array of investment options and benefits, including: professionally managed portfolios; Smith Barney financial consultants; no front-end sales charge; unlimited tax-free transfers between funds; initial purchase payment of $5000; and maintenance fee waived for first year.
Retirement Planning Software. Members can save over 40% on Retirement Planning Software for WindowsÒ ($39.95). This program will help you determine your future income needs and explore income sources and investment strategies to help meet your goals.
Education Financing. Offering an array of low-interest flexible loan options. Student members can qualify for non-income dependent loans. No co-sign or collateral required and no pre-payment penalties.
Automobile Financing. Members can receive up to 100% financing on selected models with flexible loan terms and competitive rates. All applications are taken over the telephone.
Home Mortgage. Chase offers a complete line of competitive mortgage products and services, including fixed and adjustable rate loans, balloon loans, prime based loans and zero point loans. Members can also receive a discount of up to $300 off closing costs.
Realty Program. Weichert Relocation Co., Inc. offers home selling and purchasing assistance, broker selection assistance and an opportunity to receive up to $2000 cash back when buying and/or selling your home.
Moving Service. Quality services for interstate moves with depreciated value protection and 50% discount on replacement insurance.
Travel Services. Benefits include: lowest airfare guarantee; trip cancellation insurance; discounts on car rentals, hotels, and cruises; leisure packages; and dedicated 800 number.
Hotel and Entertainment. 1) Quest program, $29.95 (regularly $99.95) for discounts of 50% on hotels and 25% on dining in US. 2) Countdown Card, $9.95, up to 50% off dining, shopping, and entertainment worldwide.
IEEE offers a variety of business and personal services programs and discounts.
For additional information on the IEEE Financial Advantage program, call 1-800-678-IEEE or check out the Financial Advantage Website at http://www.ieee.org/finance.
Jeff Carrell, Electronic Communications Chairman
You finally convinced the person who controls the expenses (home or work) that you *really* needed a 28.8Kbps modem. You may have even had a separate phone line installed, so as not to disrupt the normal voice calls. But now that you've had a taste of what 'surfing' is all about it still isn't fast enough. (This is the Tim Taylor syndrome - need more power.) So, what do you do now...
As always, there is new technology available, literally the day after you've spent money. I always tell folks, don't look back - look forward (redeploy where ever possible) and be thankful that you still have "more speed" than your neighbor :-)
Today, the basic technology available for dial communications is analog phone lines. You use a modem that can support speeds up to 33.6Kbps, but you are still using analog technology or POTS (plain old telephone system) and line noise plays a part in your less than stellar performance. The next level of dial technology uses digital signals and lines for clearer and more stable connections.
Recently, ISDN (integrated services digital network) has been available in the DFW area. Although the monthly bill is high, at speeds of 64-128Kbps you wait less, transfer files very quickly, and most importantly have solid connections. But, is 128Kbps fast enough...
There are a couple of options, mainly for business use, that provide very fast connection speeds. Satellite links can provide data rates up to 400Kbps (outbound only) but a dial link is still needed for downloads. Another option would be leased-lines. You can get speeds up 1.5Mbps bi-directionally, but the monthly bill can be *very* expensive.
Enter a new talked about technology - cable modems. Cable modems and cable TV systems are being trial tested in a few select areas in the eastern US. Most systems can only support communications one way - inbound. Cable TV companies will have to do major system re-designs in order to support bi-directional communications. Also, until standards are developed for this technology, different implementations will co-exist. However, the trade offs might be worth it. Connections speeds range from 500Kbps-30Mbps inbound and 100Kbps-10Mbps outbound!
Lastly, ADSL (asymmetric digital subscriber line) is the newest 'buzz' technology in the phone company arena. ADSL can use existing copper cabling and provide faster speeds than ISDN. With 16-500Kbps outbound, 1.5-9Mbps inbound and hopes of prices comparable to ISDN, you can see why everyone is excited about this new technology. ADSL is being used by some telephone companies to distribute digital lines, but it is more of an infrastructure implementation. Currently there are serious distance limitations (half that of ISDN). Until these issues are resolved, don't look for ADSL to your office/house soon.
Cheryl Reimold, IEEE Professional Communications Society, reprinted from PCS Newsletter
Last time, I showed you that answering three questions will give you the right main message and key points for a strong presentation:
Once you have the message and key points, you need to fit them into a structure that will produce the response you want.
There is one structure that works uniformly well for all presentations - technical or non-technical, informative or persuasive. It consists of three parts, which I will discuss more fully in upcoming columns. Here I want to show you what the structure is and why it will always work for you.
Stick to this simple formula and you will reach your audience - any audience. This is because the structure grows out of the severe limitations that beset every audience.
Your audience will be easily confused by any structural complexity. This is mainly because the people listening to you can't go back over what you said, as they can when reading a memo. They have to understand everything the first time they hear it. So, your points must be laid out simply and clearly - as they are in the universal structure: preview of a few key points, followed by discussion in the same order.
Unfortunately, the tendency is always to underestimate the complexity of your presentation - or the simple reason that you know exactly what you want to say. Usually, you go over your material several times as you develop and rehearse it. After a while, everything seems perfectly clear and obvious - because by now you are perfectly familiar with it!
Remember that your presentation began with a fabric of information in your mind, out of which you drew some important threads for your audience. The tapestry, the whole picture, is complete in your mind - but the audience has only the threads. For the audience to follow you, those threads must themselves make a clear, even if schematic, picture of your message and its key substantiating points. The universal structure will do that for you.
Your audience is prone to miss or mis-hear parts of what you say because of the intrinsic noise of the situation. The air conditioning may be loud; someone's view may be blocked; a noisy event may be taking place in the next room. Some people may be distracted by other audience members or by their own thoughts.
Therefore, a fundamental rule of presentations is the "Rule of Three": present your important points three times, because the audience will take in only one-third of what you say.
The universal structure enables you to deal with this audience limitation. In the Introduction, you state your main message and preview your key points. In the Body, you state and buttress your key points, relating them clearly to the main message. And in the Summary, you briefly restate the message and points, tying them together for the audience by underlining their significance to the group.
The awful fact is that your listeners tend to alternate between napping and daydreaming. Their natural attention curve is like an upside-down bell. They start out quite awake, wondering why you are there and whether you are going to do anything interesting. Then their bodies take over and drag them swiftly down to the bottom of the upturned bell. (Don't be fooled by appearances: Many of them have learned to nap with their eyes open.) Finally, they struggle back into wakefulness as you say the magic words, "in summary," because they think you might fill them in on what they missed during their nap.
Now, what does this sad fact mean for the structure of a presentation? First, let's take the easy parts: the beginning and the end of your talk, or the Introduction and the Summary. These are the tips of the bell curve, where you have your listeners' attention without much effort. Don't waste these natural high points of attention on trivialities. Instead, use the beginning and the end to state firmly the most important parts of your talk.
Now comes the hard part. The Body of your talk, the very part in which you get into the substance of your message, is nap time. Here is the moment the audience nosedives to the bottom of the bell. Your biggest challenge in the Body of the talk is to keep your listeners conscious, and your most powerful weapon against sleepiness is variety.
As the universal structure shows, you must substantiate your key points with varied examples, illustrations, and evidence. You must also put variety into your voice, your stance, your gestures, and your visual aids. Variety startles and interests people; sameness puts them to sleep.
Next time we'll consider the universal presentation structure in more detail, starting with the Introduction.
Congress should enact a new type of intellectual-property right that would protect the innovators of fast moving technologies, according to testimony by IEEE-USA Vice Chair David M. Ostfeld on June 6 before the House Subcommittee on Technology. "IEEE-USA would like to propose new intellectual property registration protection that would prevent others from copying the useful aspects of original articles."
The current patent system cannot respond quickly enough to adequately protect innovators of many new and rapidly changing technologies. As a result, research and development investments - often by small companies - are open to exploitation. Useful-article registration would give inventors a base market in theUS for three years during which they could recoup their initial development costs. This protection would prevent others from copying the useful aspects of original articles that are not copyrightable but may be patentable.
Noting that IEEE-USA has prepared model legislation on useful-article protection, Ostfeld told the subcommittee, "we look forward to working with you to provide innovators the type of timely intellectual-property protection they seriously need." Subcommittee Chair Rep. Connie Morella (R-MD) promised, "We will explore it in the subcommittee."
For additional information, contact Christopher Currie, 202-785-0017, or IEEE-USA's Web site at http://www.ieee.org/usab/.
In a full-page ad appearing in May 17 edition of The Washington Times, IEEE-USA joined President Clinton's call for responsible "corporate citizenship" by the nation's employers. The ad, entitled "An Essential Partnership: American Engineering and Corporate Citizenship," followed Clinton's meeting with nearly 100 US business leaders on the theme of corporate responsibility.
"Continued economic vitality demands that we nurture employer-employee relationships that retain and motivate experienced engineers and attract new engineering talent," stated IEEE-USA in the ad. Although U.S. companies are increasingly pressured into actions that harm workers' welfare by global competition, deregulation and investor demands, IEEE-USA warned that "short-term gain is not the long-range solution for maintaining the nation's economic strength."
IEEE-USA endorsed pending proposals that would enable more Americans to make tax-favored contributions to Individual Retirement Accounts (IRAs). "Expanded IRAs will help many middle-income Americans, including engineers and scientists, save more for retirement and, at the same time, increase the supply of capital needed for productive investment in the nation's economy," said IEEE-USA Career Policy Chair George F. McClure at a news conference. "We strongly recommend that members of the House and Senate - on both sides of the aisle - get together with President Clinton and enact expanded IRA legislation before Congress adjourns for the year. It's the right thing to do, for individual Americans and the nation's economy."
Laser satellite-communications systems offer valuable performance capabilities and are ready for implementation, according to a new IEEE-USA report, which urges that the U.S. government conduct flight demonstrations to establish the viability of laser satcom. U.S. government and industry have invested heavily in the development of laser satcom technology during the past three decades, to the point where it now offers valuable performance and economic advantages over current microwave systems. The report warns that foreign competitors are pushing ahead with flight testing - which is too expensive for U.S. industry to undertake on its own. For additional information, contact Marjorie Springer, 202-785-0017, m.springer@ieee.org.
On April 2nd, Senator Conrad Burns (R-MT) introduced the Promotion of Commerce On-Line in the Digital Era Act of 1996 (S.1976), new legislation designed to promote electronic commerce by facilitating the development and use of strong encryption technologies and by relaxing related export controls. As chairman of the Senate Commerce Subcommittee on Science, Technology, and Space, Burns announced he will schedule hearings to give the bill high profile, although relatively few working days remain for any legislation to wend its way through the crowded legislative calendars of the Senate and House.
Recognizing our Section members for their long-time committment to the profession on the anniversary of their joing IEEE.
40 yrs
H. G. Ellis, Life Member
Donald Johnson, Life Member
35 yrs
Lynn E. Bennett, Member
25 yrs
Channan S. Jaswal, Member
Edward F. Renner, Member
John C. Rollins, Member
20 yrs
Gerald D. Chessmore, Member
Bruce D. Ferguson, Senior Member
Joel W. Jinkerson, Member
Gary G. Marugg, Senior Member
C. D. Shilling, Member
George E. Wirtz, Member
Electrical engineers should be able to fill in the four blanks:
10, 11, 12, 13, 15, 16, 18, 20, 22, 24, 27, 30, 33, 36, 39, 43, 47, 51, 56, 62, --, --, --, --, 100
Answer to last month's Brainbuster:
A lightweight boat is floating in calm water. When a man walks from one end of the boat to the other, the center of gravity of the man-and-boat system remains fixed because no external force acts on it. So when the man moves one way, the boat moves the other. When the man stops, the boat stops.
JULY Networking Meeting Consultants' Network
17
Wed, 6:30 pm Networking is one of the key elements in making a consulting practice
successful. This month, the Consultants' Network is taking the
opportunity to have randomly selected audience members present their
consulting specialties. Please come prepared to present a five-minute
summary of the services and/or products you sell, your top two
marketing strategies, and how the Consultants' Network has helped or
can help your consulting practice.
Ben E. Keith Hospitality Room, Beers Distribution Plant, 7001 Will
Rogers Blvd. Exit I-35W South at Alta Mesa.