Dec 2015

More Progress On The LESI Value Proposition

By James Sobieraj, President, LES International

The LESI Board continues to focus its efforts on the most important LESI deliverables that provide the LESI value proposition.

Publications are one of LESI’s most important deliverables because it includes les Nouvelles and LES Global News, which touch every one of the 9000-plus LES members around the world.

The chair of the Publications Committee, Sun Kim, has drafted the following mission statement, which has been approved by the LESI Board of Directors:

The mission of the Publications Committee is to (i) manage, review, and improve the quality of LESI publications to provide value to the membership as a whole; (ii) oversee general editorial policy, engage in strategic planning and development of the LESI current and future publications, and recommend and work with partner entities and external organizations when appropriate to generate value to members or sections of members; and, (iii) periodically identify and initiate opportunities for publishing work derived from the LESI Committee and Member society activities so that maximum value is extracted and delivered to as large a section of the membership as is appropriate.

The goals of the Publications Committee for 2015-2016 are to review the publications of LESI from the point of view of delivering value to the membership by:

• Identifying and making recommendations to the Board related to the needs and adequacy of the publications of LESI, including the need for the initiation of new efforts and for curtailment of ongoing efforts no longer serving their purpose
• Monitoring the compliance with contracts for electronic distribution of les Nouvelles
• Reviewing plans for all LESI publications, including financial implications and modes of publication such as by electronic means
• Maintaining and developing the publication and dissemination of les Nouvelles working closely with the Editorial Review Board of les Nouvelles
• Developing and implementing a program for identifying “hot topics” and initiating and organizing periodic publications involving LESI Committees and Member Societies and their members
• Recommending publications to be produced, their form and their periodicity
• Investigating and making recommendations on how to reduce printing and mailing costs
• Studying different ways of advertising and marketing publications
• Advising the Board on how to improve the standard of publications
• Studying and building the archives of LES publications online and offline
• Working to clarify the role of the Publications Committee in the organization and to serve as a conduit of information between LES leadership and LES members and LES Societies.

Society Visits

Since my last column, I have had the privilege to attend the Young Members Congress held in Chicago and the LES Pan Asia Conference in Kuala Lumpur. In addition to great content and networking, what made these meetings stand out was the large number of young, enthusiastic LES members from all around world actively participating in these meetings.

Also, kudos to LES (USA & Canada) for hosting a very successful annual meeting in New York. Approximately 1000 persons attended the meeting.

My best wishes to all LES members for the rest of 2015.