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Home > News and Events > News > News Detail
9/5/2017
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In my last memo, I mentioned the work of the ACI Outlook 2030 Task Group, which was chaired by ACI Senior Vice President David Lange and led to developing the Institute's vision for 2030. I was fortunate to attend and participate in several of the group's visioning sessions. Questions about the "threat" of disruptive technology and the relevance of ACI, decades from now and in a rapidly changing world, as well as other thought-provoking ideas, were fleshed out. Had it not been for David's ability to channel the tendency we all had to dream big and structure the discussions to produce a clear roadmap, the task group might still be "imagining" the future. ACI Outlook 2030 analyzed the megatrends in our industry, identified some constants, and provided nine recommendations about how ACI should embrace the future. From the work of ACI Outlook 2030 and my observations of several ACI Board Committees, I can cite three main drivers that will impact ACI's future: The first one is our success in engaging students and young professionals. By engagement, I mean our ability to attract them to ACI as active members and involved contributors. At this junction of ACI's history, never has the role of the Student and Young Professional Activities Committee (SYPAC) been more pivotal to ACI. Currently, the committee advises the ACI Board on issues and strategies for the recruitment and retention of students and young members. The role of SYPAC, and specifically Subcommittee S806, Young Professional Activities, will continue to be critical to ACI's future. It may possibly evolve into a broader responsibility of initiating the changes required within ACI to make the Institute even more attractive to young professionals. Frankly, if ACI were already attractive to young members, we would not be so occupied with this issue. The real question is how the Institute can become a platform for young professionals to thrive in their careers, and not how young engineers and professionals should join ACI as it currently is. The average age of ACI members keeps going up, and it is time it started going down. We should also start tracking the average age of our committee members. If the trend is the same in our committees, we should reverse it there as well. The second driver will be the empowerment of the ACI staff. This is very much under way and I hope you are all starting to feel its impact. Empowerment is not just giving staff the latitude to act but also to equip them with all the tools they must have to drive the Institute forward. When we began our last strategic planning session in 2013, we needed some external strategic guidance and facilitation. Today, as I sit in strategy meetings, I can clearly notice the strategic insights our senior ACI staff have gained and how far they have come in interpreting strategy into clear and measurable objectives. Today, the ACI staff works under a comprehensive operational plan that translates strategic goals into targets with set deadlines. It is the first time in ACI history where staff have such a detailed and strategically driven operational plan. Lastly, the third driver is the transformation from a push strategy to a pull strategy. ACI has always succeeded in proposing to our industry the guides and documents it needs. But despite our volunteers' backgrounds and contributions, we rarely have succeeded in listening and reacting swiftly to what the market wanted. That is, while we excel at pushing the best available information to create bodies of knowledge, we may not be effectively "pulling" what concrete professionals around the world also want in their day-to-day business. We need to listen, and we need to respond accordingly. There is a serious effort by the ACI Technical Activities Committee to better collect industry and market insights and ensure that ACI can address these effectively with its technical documents. From ACI's online and social media presence, staff is gathering powerful analytics about our customers. The ACI Marketing Department is also developing a strategy with several pull points that should allow ACI to better position its products and services. It is how ACI should be equipped—and not just what it should be doing—that will allow it to navigate through the coming decades. And I can assure you that our Institute is very well equipped to handle the future, with all its challenges and opportunities. Khaled W. Awad
In my last memo, I mentioned the work of the ACI Outlook 2030 Task Group, which was chaired by ACI Senior Vice President David Lange and led to developing the Institute's vision for 2030. I was fortunate to attend and participate in several of the group's visioning sessions. Questions about the "threat" of disruptive technology and the relevance of ACI, decades from now and in a rapidly changing world, as well as other thought-provoking ideas, were fleshed out. Had it not been for David's ability to channel the tendency we all had to dream big and structure the discussions to produce a clear roadmap, the task group might still be "imagining" the future.
ACI Outlook 2030 analyzed the megatrends in our industry, identified some constants, and provided nine recommendations about how ACI should embrace the future. From the work of ACI Outlook 2030 and my observations of several ACI Board Committees, I can cite three main drivers that will impact ACI's future:
The first one is our success in engaging students and young professionals. By engagement, I mean our ability to attract them to ACI as active members and involved contributors. At this junction of ACI's history, never has the role of the Student and Young Professional Activities Committee (SYPAC) been more pivotal to ACI. Currently, the committee advises the ACI Board on issues and strategies for the recruitment and retention of students and young members.
The role of SYPAC, and specifically Subcommittee S806, Young Professional Activities, will continue to be critical to ACI's future. It may possibly evolve into a broader responsibility of initiating the changes required within ACI to make the Institute even more attractive to young professionals.
Frankly, if ACI were already attractive to young members, we would not be so occupied with this issue. The real question is how the Institute can become a platform for young professionals to thrive in their careers, and not how young engineers and professionals should join ACI as it currently is.
The average age of ACI members keeps going up, and it is time it started going down. We should also start tracking the average age of our committee members. If the trend is the same in our committees, we should reverse it there as well.
The second driver will be the empowerment of the ACI staff. This is very much under way and I hope you are all starting to feel its impact. Empowerment is not just giving staff the latitude to act but also to equip them with all the tools they must have to drive the Institute forward.
When we began our last strategic planning session in 2013, we needed some external strategic guidance and facilitation. Today, as I sit in strategy meetings, I can clearly notice the strategic insights our senior ACI staff have gained and how far they have come in interpreting strategy into clear and measurable objectives. Today, the ACI staff works under a comprehensive operational plan that translates strategic goals into targets with set deadlines. It is the first time in ACI history where staff have such a detailed and strategically driven operational plan.
Lastly, the third driver is the transformation from a push strategy to a pull strategy. ACI has always succeeded in proposing to our industry the guides and documents it needs. But despite our volunteers' backgrounds and contributions, we rarely have succeeded in listening and reacting swiftly to what the market wanted. That is, while we excel at pushing the best available information to create bodies of knowledge, we may not be effectively "pulling" what concrete professionals around the world also want in their day-to-day business. We need to listen, and we need to respond accordingly.
There is a serious effort by the ACI Technical Activities Committee to better collect industry and market insights and ensure that ACI can address these effectively with its technical documents. From ACI's online and social media presence, staff is gathering powerful analytics about our customers. The ACI Marketing Department is also developing a strategy with several pull points that should allow ACI to better position its products and services.
It is how ACI should be equipped—and not just what it should be doing—that will allow it to navigate through the coming decades. And I can assure you that our Institute is very well equipped to handle the future, with all its challenges and opportunities.
Khaled W. Awad
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