January_AMP_Digital

HIGHL IGHTS A D V A N C E D M A T E R I A L S & P R O C E S S E S | J A N U A R Y 2 0 2 0 3 9 Mahoney International Metallographic Society (IMS) is seek- ing nominations to fill two board member positions. Any IMS members in good standing are encouraged to nominate themselves or another member for any of these positions. Current board members whose terms are expiring may be eligible for nomination and possible reelection on an equal basis with any other candidate. For more information on eli- gibility and how to submit a nomination, visit the IMS web- site at asminternational.org/web/ims. International Organization on Shape Memory and Superelastic Technologies (SMST) is seeking nominations to fill one vice president/finance officer and three board member positions. Any member of SMST in good standing is encouraged to nominate themselves or another member for one of these positions. For more information on eligibility and how to submit a nomination, visit the SMST website at asminternational.org/web/smst. Thermal Spray Society (TSS) is seeking nominations to fill one vice president, one secretary/treasurer, and two board member positions, specifically from the govern- ment and international thermal spray community. Nomi- nees must be a member of the ASM Thermal Spray Society and must be endorsed by five TSS members. Board mem- bers whose terms are expiring may be eligible for nomi- nation and possible reelection on an equal basis with any other nominee. For more information on eligibility and for a copy of the nomination form, visit the TSS website at asminternational.org/web/tss. CEO CORNER CEO CORNER ASM Connect Upgrade Rolling Out As I write this column in December 2019, the ASM Renewal is concluding successfully, and we are preparing for our next three- year improvement cycle, titled “The ASM Realization.” When we first described the Renewal back in late 2016, we identified a progres- sion of improvements via concen- tric rings, first starting within the Dome with our Digital Transformation, and then extending outward from the Dome, reaching our affiliates, chapters, committees, and other stakeholder groups over the three- year timeframe. We asked for patience from stakeholders in the outer rings, and are grateful that patience was extended to the Operations Team. In order to demonstrate future improvements, we exe- cuted some out-of-phase, outer-ring experiments to see if we could help chapters, committees, and communities in limited ways prior to the final year of the Renewal. Deploy- ments such as STEM Premier—now “Tallo” after acquisition, short for “talent locator”—in 2017, and our seven initial digi- tal courseware offerings in late 2018, were intended as early offerings used primarily by chapters to drive student mar- ket development and generate revenue. We also deployed a functionally limited community module of our MemberNa- tion software, which we called ASM Connect. STEM Premier is still under license and available to all chapters, as are our digital courses, which we will expand in number into the Realization. However, we are now live with a significant upgrade to ASM Connect, which is based upon the Higher Logic extended enterprise software, as opposed to MemberNation. Higher Logic is a private, professional social network- ing tool, which was designed specifically to enable work- space development and member-driven operations for professional associations. Our implementation, titled ASM Connect V2, will provide significantly improved functional- ity for communities, chapters, committees, governance, and other common interest groups within ASM’s membership. Two examples of improved functions: The new and improved version of ASM Connect will support a general file hierarchy, ranging tops-down from communities to libraries to folders to subfolders, all of which are searchable within the site. Additionally, member profiles from MemberNa- tion will automatically populate the profile section of ASM Connect V2, so that when members access it, they do not have to re-input profile information already contained in MemberNation. The new ASM Connect platform was deployed out of test in November 2019, went live for committees on December 31, and will be live for the general membership January 15, 2020. I look forward to your utilization and feed- back on ASM Connect V2. William T. Mahoney, CEO, ASM International bill.mahoney@asminternational.org