INCOSE eNote: News and Notes from the INCOSE Network
Volume 3 Issue 7, 18 October 2006
Vote in the 2006 elections and help shape INCOSE's future. Official ballots with the 2006 slate of candidates were mailed from the Central Office on 2 October. Candidate biographies and vision statements can be found on the INCOSE website. All ballots must received by the Central Office in Seattle, Washington, USA no later than 27 November. Thank you for taking the time to cast your vote.
In addition to the positions on the 2006 ballot, INCOSE is seeking candidates to fill two vacancies on the Board of Directors: Director for International Growth and Director for Marketing.
Due to other commitments, the Director for International Growth was unable to serve the full term of office. INCOSE is seeking interested candidates to fill the remaining year of this term. The Director for International Growth is a voting member of the Board focused on developing, implementing, and maintaining a strategy and plan for reaching out to untapped areas of high-potential membership, and growing membership at the individual and corporate level on a global scale. The position requires the ability to communicate effectively across international and cultural boundaries as well as an understanding of international business conventions.
The Director for Marketing is a non-voting, appointed position created to bring additional marketing experience and focus to INCOSE. The Director for Marketing will develop, maintain and implement marketing plans to increase the global awareness of INCOSE, its products and services, fostering growth in accordance with BOD objectives. The position requires experience developing and implementing marketing strategies as well as strong oral and written communication skills.
If you are interested in serving in one of these roles or would like to nominate someone who you believe to be a strong candidate, please contact Ken Ptack, Chair of the Nominations and Elections Committee.
Have you wanted to get more from your involvement in INCOSE? Have you been searching for the right technical group? Has it been difficult to find the right connection? INCOSE has created a website to help you register your skills and interests. INCOSE will then put you in touch with groups working in these areas or help create new communities of interest for areas not currently addressed by our technical infrastructure. Go online today with your Connect login and share your interests to connect with INCOSE’s global community.
INCOSE wants your help to identify and recognize key contributors to our profession and our organization. Submit nominations for INCOSE Fellow as well as the prestigious Founders and Pioneer awards.
Nomination packages for INCOSE Fellows will be accepted until 1 December 2006. INCOSE Fellows are individuals with significant verifiable contributions to the art and practice of systems engineering. This award recognizes practitioners from government and industry applying knowledge and contributing to the practice of systems engineering in designing and acquiring systems, researchers developing new knowledge and advancing theory, and teachers disseminating knowledge and developing the next generation of successful systems engineers. Complete instructions for nomination packages can be found on the INCOSE website.
Nomination packages for the Founders and Pioneer Awards will be accepted until 28 February 2007. The Founders Award is presented annually to one distinguished member of INCOSE who has made a major contribution to INCOSE. The award recognizes outstanding individual contribution to INCOSE, either a single event or ongoing efforts. These significant contributions have positively affected the advancement of INCOSE or an INCOSE Chapter. The Pioneer Award is presented annually to one distinguished individual or team (whether from within INCOSE or from the community at large) who, by their achievements in the engineering of systems, has contributed uniquely to major products or outcomes enhancing society or meeting its needs. The criteria may apply to a single outstanding outcome or a lifetime of significant achievements in effecting successful systems. Please refer to INCOSE policies REC-105 (Founders Award) and REC-106 (Pioneer Award) for additional details.
In early October, each INCOSE member received a personalized email invitation to participate in this year's member survey. Your feedback is critical as INCOSE refines its strategic plan and determines where to focus its efforts to further improve our organization and our profession. We appreciate your participation in this short, comprehensive, web-based member survey. The composite results of the survey will be shared at the 2007 INCOSE International Workshop and in a published report to membership. If you did not receive the email and would like to participate, please contact Bruce Shelton, Member Board Co-Chair.
Each year, systems engineers gather at the INCOSE International Workshop to work together and advance the state of the practice. The 2007 workshop will be held 27-31 January at the Embassy Suites in Albuquerque, New Mexico, USA. Attendees will spend four days immersed in a vibrant community of systems engineers who are there to make a difference. The IW is open to all INCOSE members with systems engineers at all levels and backgrounds encouraged to engage in working sessions and contribute their knowledge and experience to take our discipline forward. Additional information on the 2007 International Workshop will be posted in late October / early November. Information on the 2006 International Workshop can be found on the INCOSE website.
The planning committee is hard at work preparing for the 2007 INCOSE International Symposium scheduled for 24-28 June in San Diego, California, USA. They would like your help to create the best symposium yet. And you can do it in a few minutes without leaving your chair by completing a quick online survey. Read the brief intro and connect the dots by using the pull down menus to express your first choice, second choice and third choice. Be sure to provide your input during October to help 'tune' the IS'07 program to meet member preferences.
For more information on IS'07, please visit the symposium website.
The 2007 International Workshop and International Symposium aren’t the only events scheduled for the coming year. Don’t forget about these other fine events of interest to the systems community:
- 11th Annual INCOSE Region II Fall Mini-Conference, 18 November, San Diego, California, USA. The theme of this year’s conference “The Science of Systems Integration” focuses on how DoD, government, aerospace and commercial organizations plan, organize, and execute systems integration activities and advance the state of the practice. This theme embraces both technology integration and product integration. The additional focus on “science” in the theme is intended to stimulate thinking about how a systems integration process can be conducted successfully and be repeatable using analytical and quantitative methods such as process control. www.sdincose.org/Miniconference.html
- 2007 Conference on Systems Engineering Research (CSER), 14-16 March, Hoboken, New Jersey, USA. Stevens Institute of Technology and the Embedded Systems Institute in collaboration with University of Southern California present the 5th Annual Conference on Systems Engineering Research. The primary conference objective is to provide practitioners and researchers in academia, industry, and government a common platform to present, discuss and influence SE research with the intent to enhance SE practice and education. CSER invites original research papers addressing the conception, design and architecture, development, modeling and simulation, production, operation and support of these systems; definition of metrics of performance, and improvement methods; assessment and mitigation of risks; definition of critical success factors, and best practices. www.stevens.edu/cser/
- International Conference on Systems Engineering and Modeling (ICSEM'07), 20-23 March, Herzeliya and Haifa, Israel. Co-located with the INCOSE_IL Fourth National Conference on Systems Engineering, the International Conference on Systems Engineering and Modeling is a premier forum for the elicitation and exchange of ideas on issues and problems regarding systems engineering and its relation to the development, evolution, adoption, evaluation, and dissemination of approaches for conceptual models of complex systems. The objective of the conference is to improve practices of SE modeling by endowing this evolving discipline with missing theoretical and methodological underpinnings and improving the communication of complex systems' function, structure, and performance among stakeholders. dori2.technion.ac.il/ICSEM07
- Asia-Pacific Systems Engineering Conference 2007, 23-24 March, Singapore. The theme of the Singapore Systems Engineering Conference 2007, “Systems Engineering - East meets West”, focuses on different approaches to systems engineering and new product design and development in different organisational and national cultures. Systems engineering adds value to practitioners to cope with increasingly complex and dynamic environments and particularly the integration of diverse technologies and disciplines to create breakthrough products and dependable systems. How this is done in the Eastern and the Western societies and its effectiveness shall be discussed at this conference. www.seecforum.unisa.edu.au/SSES2007/
- The 13th International Working Conference on Requirements Engineering: Foundation for Software Quality (RefsQ), 11-12 June, Trondheim, Norway. RefsQ'07 seeks reports of innovative work in requirements engineering that enhances the quality of software and systems, particularly where challenged by new development paradigms or technologies. Researchers and practitioners from the requirements engineering, software engineering, information systems, and embedded systems fields are encouraged to present original work. Contributions from cognate areas such as formal methods, systems engineering, economics and management and social sciences are very welcome for the insights they provide in requirements engineering. www.refsq.org
The discipline of system resilience is focused on creating systems that are resilient to the infrequent but catastrophic failures that continue to plague us. System resilience goes beyond traditional specialties, such as reliability and system safety, to include all aspects of an infrastructure system that may contribute to these failures – customers, suppliers, developers, maintainers, operators and any other organizational node. Cultural, psychological, social aspects and other soft disciplines are also included.
INCOSE has established the Resilient Systems Working Group (RSWG) to address system resilience from a systems point of view, a key aspect of addressing the emerging discipline of system resilience. The RSWG will to collaborate with others, such as the Symposium on Resilience Engineering, to look for ways to make systems resilient. The RSWG will operate within the Public Interest Sector of the INCOSE technical structure. Interested in learning more? Contact Scott Jackson to join this new working group.
A new area of INCOSE Connect has been established for book reviews and e-Interviews. This site gives INCOSE the ability to post more frequently, post a larger number of reviews, collocate reviews, and offer authors an opportunity to comment on their books through accompanying e-Interviews. To recommend a book for review or to volunteer as a reviewer, send an email with appropriate details to the Interviews and Reviews editor.
 We open this site with a review of System Analysis, Design, and Development: Concepts, Principles, and Practices by Charles S. Wasson. Published in late 2005, this book is generating strong interest in the community. The International Academy of Astronautics (IAA) recently selected the text for their most prestigious Engineering Sciences Book of the Year Award, an award traditionally given to space flight-centric publications. Visit the new Interviews and Reviews site on INCOSE Connect to learn more.
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