As some of you may have noticed, a number of changes have occurred in the SDR Forum over the past few months. I am writing today to explain what these changes are, why they are occurring, and what the SDR Forum's members and partners can expect in the near future.
When I was retained by the SDR Forum last fall I was given a clear mandate by the Forum's Board of Directors: Maximize the value the SDR Forum brings to its members. To do this, it was important for us to first clearly understand the members' needs, so in September of 2007 we began interviewing representatives from member organizations, one on one. To date, we have conducted almost 50 of these interviews, to learn the value of the SDR Forum to each organization and to learn how the SDR Forum should evolve to best support their organizational objectives. We have also performed two studies to establish a baseline for moving forward: a market analysis of where the SDR Forum fits within the broader wireless community, and an organizational evaluation of the Forum's structure and processes.
Based on what we learned from these investigations, I worked with the SDR Forum's officers and directors to develop a new strategic plan for the Forum. The new plan was approved by the Board of Directors in January of this year. Through this strategy, the SDR Forum provides a unique venue for its member organizations to share best practices, evaluate trends and technologies, address common regulatory issues and promote the success of reconfigurable radio across wireless sectors. You can read the strategic plan at:
Since January, I and the rest of the SDR Forum staff have been working in cooperation with the SDR Forum's officers, directors, and members to begin executing the new strategy. You may have noticed some of the changes that have resulted:
We have expanded the Member Opportunities section of our biweekly members-only "SDR in the News" eNewsletter. The new section provides timely information on requests for information and requests for proposal that may be important to member organizations, as well as information on speaking and networking opportunities.
We have negotiated discounts for our members on a number of relevant market studies, conferences, and publications.
We have joined the IEEE Standards Association as a corporate member, and have signed liaison agreements with other organizations including the Institute for Electronics Engineers of Korea and the JTRS Science and Technology Forum. These relationships enhance the ability of our members to interact with the broader wireless community.
We have improved our event planning process so that announcements, agendas, and other information are published further in advance of the events. This improves attendance and enables our members and guests to better plan their travel.
We have established a Project Approval Committee which has been meeting regularly and has already made decisions on 8 project proposals. The PAC provides a formal mechanism to coordinate activities across the committees, and to ensure the Forum's resources are used as effectively as possible in support of our member's needs.
Over the past several months, we have been updating the content, quality, and ease of use of our website to improve its value to the SDR Forum's members and to the community as a whole. We plan to roll out the next round of site upgrades by the June SDR Forum meeting in Portland (http://www.sdrforum.org/Portland08meeting/). The site will continue to evolve throughout 2008.
What other changes can you expect? In the short term, we will be deploying professional grade tools for online collaboration and document development. These tools, provided under contract by Socious (http://www.socious.com/), fully satisfy the requirements identified by SDR Forum members in a plenary discussion at the April 2008 meeting in Rome. We expect that these new collaboration tools, when combined with the web conferencing and telecommunications services offered by the Forum, will significantly improve the efficiency of our work projects. We will be providing training on the new tools during the June meeting in Portland, along with training on SDR Forum work product development and balloting processes. We also intend, by early August, to provide tools that allow our members to more easily track the status of documents and other work products under development, and to quickly ascertain their eligibility to vote.
Other changes will be announced in the coming months. Through these changes the SDR Forum is working to become the premier venue for the reconfigurable radio community worldwide, allowing our members to collaborate to promote their organizational objectives, influence the market, and explore new opportunities.
I hope you recognize the value of the changes we are making in the SDR Forum, and welcome your comments or suggestions as to how we can improve even more in serving our members needs.
Sincerely,
Lee Pucker
Chief Executive Officer
The SDR Forum, Inc
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