SAB NewsAn Open Letter to Our MembersPosted 2/27/2006 As the new Executive Director of The Science Advisory Board, it is with a great deal of excitement and enthusiasm that I embark on this new journey. It is journey that I hope to make with each of you. I come to The Science Advisory Board with over twenty years experience in organizational membership recruitment and retention. I was formerly Vice President of Member Relations and Meetings at the Healthcare Distribution Management Association (HDMA), a trade association representing healthcare distributors. Prior to HDMA, I served as Director of Member Services for the American Association of Pharmaceutical Scientists, where I was responsible for membership recruitment and member benefit development. My role at The Science Advisory Board presents a new challenge for me. The Board is a membership-based organization that differs significantly from traditional trade groups and professional societies. Instead of charging dues, members are rewarded for their participation. The Science Advisory Board is a dynamic online community that is capable of being much more responsive in providing information and benefits to its members compared to traditional “brick and mortar” groups. I look forward to increasing the number of qualified members, as well to fostering a sense of loyalty among our membership. At this time, I would like to recognize the contributions of Tamara Zemlo, Ph.D. As Executive Director of The Science Advisory Board, Tamara was instrumental in taking the community to a new level. Not only was she successful in promoting membership in the community, she also provided the leadership necessary to provide a higher level of valuable scientific content. Tamara’s efforts are much appreciated. She will continue to work with The Science Advisory Board in her new role as Chair of the Board’s Steering Committee. With your help, I will strive to further the mission of The Science Advisory Board, which is to improve communications between medical and life science professionals and the companies who provide this community with products and services. In a time when scientists rely on almost instantaneous access to critical information in order to do their jobs, The Board stands positioned to be the premier source of cutting edge scientific content, resources and discussion. 2005 – The Year In Review 2005 was a year of achievements and challenges for the Board. Overall, we welcomed a total of 4,731 members, bringing the total number of registered members to 28,447 by the end of the year. Collectively, our members participated in 57 major studies that explored a wide range of topics—everything from the future of scholarly journals to next-generation mass spectrometers. The results of these studies were cited in numerous scientific and business publications, including Science, Nature, The Scientist and Genetic Engineering News. Hundreds of members contributed almost 10,000 posts to the Discussion Forum making it one of the most active scientific communities on the Web. In addition, dozens of intriguing articles, provocative blogs and informative reviews were submitted for the benefit of fellow members. This unique blend of valuable content resulted in our site averaging over 80,000 unique visitors per month. We also celebrated the scientific achievements of our fellow members as they announced new appointments, grant awards and papers accepted for publication. Best of all, we began to exhibit at major scientific conferences for the first time and were thrilled to meet so many members “face to face” at the annual meetings of the Society for Neuroscience and American Society for Cell Biology. We feel that The Science Advisory Board represents a new model for the membership-driven professional society. As I mentioned earlier, instead of charging dues, we reward our members for their participation through a unique system of compensation. Last year, our members accumulated over 1,679,000 ViewPoints and over $90,000 worth of gifts were shipped as a token of our appreciation for sharing your insights and opinions. Members of The Science Advisory Board again showed their generosity in 2005 by converting their ViewPoints to charitable donations. In all, we were able to donate over $12,000, primarily to the American Red Cross for the Tsunami and Hurricane Katrina disasters. Members were also generous in their support of our adopted charity—The Adrienne Wilson Liver Cancer Association. Internally, we experienced some turnover and said good-bye to three popular members of our staff and worked hard to ensure that their departures did not disrupt providing you with top-notch service. Our goal of completely revamping the Web site to improve its navigation and features proved to be more complex than we anticipated and long-promised enhancements had to be pushed back. Some of our international members experienced frustrating delays in receiving gifts from our Rewards Catalog. Despite these bumps in the road, we continued to grow as an organization and positioned ourselves for even greater achievements in 2006. 2006 and Beyond, My Goals and Vision
So, as I have tried to share with you my vision for The Science Advisory Board, I’m sure you noticed a common theme throughout. That theme is that we need your participation and your feedback in order to accomplish these goals. This community would not exist without the support of our membership. And, finally, there is one more thing that you can do to help us as we continue to build The Science Advisory Board into an even more robust organization. Tell your friends and colleagues that you interact with about the Board, and urge them to join. Adding new scientists to the community will result in more quality content and interaction. I look forward to working with you to make The Science Advisory Board even more valuable to you. Please feel free to contact me with any comments or suggestions you may have. In closing, allow me share a quote from Margaret Mead that seems to describe the scientists who are members of The Science Advisory Board: “Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.” Michael L. Kibler Executive Director The Science Advisory Board m.kibler@scienceboard.net |
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