A useful magazine!

As a one-time Vice President Publication Dept of the International Society of Automation (2011-12) I may be forgiven for relishing the comments in a letter which appears in the July August issue of their magazine InTech.

July/Aug 2017 Issue

The writer says, "I would like to compliment you on your work with InTech, which now seems a useful magazine again."

No better compliment may be made to a publication and I would like particularly pay tribute to those in the back ground who in no small measure contribute to this publication. While I don't agree that Intech has not been useful in the past I do think it has improved and kept up with technalogical changes in our discipline down through the years.

Ten years ago when the cataclysmic financial tsunmani hit, the ISA, like many international organisations and indeed countries, had to do a painful root and branch examination of everything it was doing and their relevance to the automation sector. Not least the Publications side of things faced many painful decisions but with the co-operation of the members volunteering time and expertese and the professionalism of the staff notably Susan Colwell, recently retired, and Editor, Bill Lydon. What emerged was a much strengthened resource for the members. The magazine slightly smaller but with a more practical focus can be said to regained its place among automation periodicals. The practical harnessing of an editorial advisory board of working professionals ensures the usefulness of its contents. It has also embraced the electronic and on-line platforms and thus has become much more easily available throughout the world.

The other Society periodical - ISA Transactions has grown from strength to strength, living up to its vocation as a journal of advances and state-of-the-art in the science and engineering of measurement and automation, of value to leading-edge industrial practitioners and applied researchers.

The Society is now slimmer and not only aware of changing requirements of automation professionals but also of the need to harness the ever-changing means of communication. Not least in this forward momentum is the work of publications. Take a look at what is available today!

 #PAuto #ISAuto