Like many automation engineers I get a steady stream of emails from ISA, MESA and other organizations with announcements about conferences, webinars and white papers.  If the volume of email were an indication of viability it would seem that professional societies are alive and healthy.  Yet, for the ones I belong to, many of the ones directly associated with the automation industry, seem to struggle far more than the ones I belong to that are associated with either a professional societies such as ASME, AIChE or IEEE or specific to a particular vendor or product such as a users group.

This just in. ISA has taken a big step toward increasing its scope and significance in the broader world of automation. Read on.

Brad Carlberg, who chaired this year’s Wireless track at Automation Week in Mobile also recorded all the sessions as well so you are now able to get the benefit of both presenter and presentation at the following link http://www.isa.org/~pupid/ISA_AW2011_Sessions.htm

How often does each of us wonder “is there a standard for that?” I know practically every project that I work on is driven by standards – either project specific and most often related to another standard from a standard developing organisation such as ISA or the IEC. I have recently been the recipient of a number of links and other bits of information with comprehensive lists of standards that might be of use to all of you.

Heartiest congratulations to the automation thought leaders who are the recipients of honors or awards from ISA this year, including Control columnist Greg McMillan and John Gerry, George Cheng and Ian Nimmo.

2010 Honors & Awards

Honorary Member
To recognize individuals whose support of, and/or contributions to the advancement of the arts and sciences of instrumentation, systems, and automation are deserving of special recognition

Ever since the web browser was created, way back in 1993-1994, the paper trade directories have been doomed. They are only updated once a year, they are often out of date or incomplete. ISA has tried before to replace its venerable Directory of Instrumentation with online versions, but they have been basically klugy and not very user friendly.

Besides, the Directory of Instrumentation didn't reflect ISA's new name. So it needed to become the ISA Directory of Automation. But with ISA's recent headcount reductions, they didn't have the staff to do it in house.

ISA Marketing and Sales Summit v.5.0

You are invited to submit an abstract for ISA's 5th Annual
Marketing and Sales Summit, In Search of the Holy Grail:
Integrating Marketing and Sales, sponsored by the ISA
Management Division. The Summit will be held 1-3 September
2010 in Atlanta, Georgia.

Don't miss your opportunity to share your expertise,
solutions, and best practices for how to survive and excel
beyond 2010 with other marketing and sales professionals.

CONTENTS
* How to submit an abstract
* Conference Location

ISA is offering the CAP study guide free to people who register to take the CAP exam:

Dear Automation Professional,

Guest blog from Joe Kaulfersch of Pepperl+Fuchs, who is one of the leaders of ISA Cleveland Section. For a little history lesson, Cleveland Section was one of the sections that pre-date ISA.

From Joe:

I innocently wrote a reply to one of the Ask the Expert questions this morning. I said, "One of the last remaining tangible benefits of ISA membership is the ability to view and download standards, including ISA5 and ISA20 (for personal use only)." Another person on our Ask the Experts discussion list corrected me. "Not true any more, since January 1."

Jon DiPietro, ISA leader and known maverick, confirmed, "Yup, You can view but not download."