Welcome to the 2nd edition of the IEEE Consultants' Newsletter. This is the first webletter edition. As usual, we hope it will provide information to you as a consultant in the New England region that no other publication does. Not only does it lists all our upcoming activities for the next year, but it also shares ideas and thoughts that many of you have in the consulting field. Please read it and provide any thoughts or ideas that you would like to see in it. After all, this is your newsletter.
This newsletter and the accompanying webletter welcomes articles
and letters contributed by all of you. Here is a good opportunity to
get your words into print or bits. To contribute to the newsletter,
communicate with me at (617) 444-2226 or by e-mail at
rongood@world.std.com.
Opinions expressed in the Consultants' Network Newsletter or the Webletter are those of the authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the editor.
Welcome to the Winter 1995, 1996 season of the Boston Section of the IEEE Consultants Network (Let's just call it C-Net).
As you may be aware, the Consultants Network now has a presence on
the World
Wide Web. Phil Martel took a few suggestions and Voila
http://world.std.com/~pom/cnet.html was born. The page
has links to the
Boston section (http://www.ece.neu.edu/ieeecnec), and the
main IEEE page
(http://www.ieee.org). In addition, a mouse click
delivers a calendar of
C-Net meetings, meeting agendas and announcements, officers and committees,
e-mail and other C-Net contacts and a link to Bill Chambers' page
(http://www.channel1.com/users/analog/index.html).
What's the potential for our web page. The simple answer is to provide
communication between members and the organization, the organization and
members, members and members and the outside world and all of the above.
Within the next few months, members should be able to register with the
database, search for skills, link their own home pages to the skills
registry and participate in bull sessions and surveys. If you have other
ideas and/or suggestions for implementation and/or wish to participate
please e-mail me at
cn_president@qualware.com.
One of the biggest difficulties, that the officers face, is the lack of feedback from the membership. In general, lack of feedback leads to two possible outcomes; pegging to the positive or negative supply rails. Even with small signal models where the open loop gain is small, the presence of any significant DC offset voltages leads to pegging. Please let us know if we are or aren't meeting your expectations. Better yet, volunteer to help the Consultants Network work for all of us.
In particular, Carl Frost needs your help. He needs a constant stream of volunteers to take a few hours over a two week period to: answer the referral voice mail, contact companies, fill out the referral forms, contact appropriate members or e-mail a general purpose referral. This is an ideal opportunity for someone to learn what type of work is in demand by what companies and to contact potential customers. Lets keep the referrals functioning by providing the necessary few hours of time as a matter of C-Net pride (as in Celtics Pride without the banners).
Volunteers are also needed in data base development, HTML and CGI scripts and it would be great to have a server or its use donated to the cause.
The other great C-Net need is sponsors to increase what we can afford to do without having to increase the annual dues for membership. If you know any company that would be willing to offer either money or in-kind contributions in exchange for visibility on the Web, in the newsletter and mention at meetings, please contact me at cn_president@qualware.com.
C-Net needs your help to make this ambitious list of projects successful. Volunteers make the C-Net what it is, and more volunteers can make the C-Net more of what you and I want it to be. Come to our volunteers/planning meetings (new this year C-Net will subsidize $5 of your meal at Bel Canto in Lexington). Bring your ideas and enthusiasm, help to publicize the organization, recruit new members, work the referral service, provide leads for speakers, volunteer to speak, recruit sponsors for our events (we have one general sponsor PC's for Every one of Cambridge) and we had 2 additional sponsors for the Electro booth in June (Wilson Interactive Media, and Digital Graphics, Inc.) and we need more. Our sister organization the Entrepreneurs Network has more than 20 sponsors.
In future issues of this newsletter, I will continue to address some the
challenges and opportunities facing the C-Net. I'm always available for
your ideas and/or suggestions (Ted Kochanski
sssbres1@tiac.net,
cn_president@qualware.com
or (617) 674-9231).
In summary, come to the meetings, listen, participate, volunteer and get your money's worth.
So you want to start doing some volunteer work at the IEEE Consultant's network, but you aren't sure where to start. You want to start off easy with something taking up very little of your busy consulting time as well as be flexible too. Maybe a volunteer position that can be done at home.
Well one particular volunteer position that is easy, flexible, can be done at home and requires a commitment of only two weeks at a time is manning the referral service line. All one does is check the CNET's voice mail account once or twice a day from their own home. If there is a message, then you make a call to that company for further information, and email the referral to CNET members. That's it. And if there are no messages in the voice mail line that day, then nothing needs to be done.
There are usually about 2 to 3 requests a week. So half the days a simple phone call is made and nothing more. The other half of the days require some simple followup. Then after two weeks, someone else takes over.
The benefits and feeling of making a contribution can be very nice, and you will get a chance to be more involved in the IEEE c-Net and see best where you can contribute next. On the other hand, if you do enjoy running the referral service, you can always ask for another 2 week shift. If long distance phone calls are made, IEEE C_NET will reimburse up to $5.00 per week.
If you are interested, give Carl Frost a call at (508) 653-5673 or e-mail
him at
c.frost@ieee.org.
He will provide you with all the help and
instructions you need to get started.
| Month | Day | Topic | Status |
|---|---|---|---|
| September | 27 | Multimedia in Business | 3 |
| October | 25 | Software Tools for Consultants | 3 |
| November | 15 | Data Acquisition and DSP Tools | 3 |
| December | 5 | Legal Aspects of Business (Joint with Entrepreneurs) | 3 |
| January | 24 | Tax Tips for Consultants | 3 |
| February | 28 | SBIR's and Working with the Government | 3 |
| March | 27 | PC's and Workstations What's Hot in Hardware | |
| April | 24 | Doing Business on the Internet | |
| May | 22 | Expert Tips for Consultants | |
| June | 26 | Software Tools for Consultants II |
| Chairman | Ted Kochanski | (617) 861-6167 |
| Vice Chairman | Brian Clifton | (508) 443-7898 |
| Secretary | Pat Everett | (508) 369-1589 |
| Treasurer | John Meyn | (508) 369-1095 |
| Past Chairman | Jeff Goldberg | (617) 229-1530 |
| Referral Service | Carl Frost | (508) 653-5673 |
| Database | Bruce Andrews | (603) 888-0915 |
| Public Relations | Dale Worley | (617) 899-7949 |
| Newsletter | Ron Goodstein | (617) 444-2226 |
| Literature/Mailings | Jim Littlefield | (617) 666-4615 |
| Web | Phil Martel | (617) 674-0130 |
Other e-mail addresses
cn_meetings@qualware.com
cn_application@qualware.com
cn_requests@qualware.com
cn_newsletter@qualware.com
cn_chairman@qualware.com
cn_membership@qualware.com