[SBE] The Future, wrap up

[Barry Thomas]

At the sign-up page for the Roundtable, the purpose is specified:

"The SBE Roundtable is an e-mail discussion group created to facilitate discussions about the Society and exchange information and ideas about broadcast and media engineering. Suitable topics include questions about the SBE, its programs and services; requests for broadcast technical assistance; equipment for sale or wanted from individuals or stations (not dealers); job openings and positions sought. In other words, the topics discuss the SBE or help you or other engineers do their jobs better."

This is a moderated list.  Much like an effective SBE meeting, it is not a room with everyone talking at once.  Cries of censorship on this list ring like Godwin's Law when invoked here.  If a conversation becomes abusive or unproductive, it will be ported off the list.  

----

When I posted the links and asked the "Future of Broadcasting" questions, it was to make everyone aware of a potential threat and to begin a dialog about the actions we should take to respond.  A certain amount of commiserating and complaining is to be expected as well as some partisan bickering but I had hoped that we all would understand that those actions, while cathartic, do not help us formulate plans and take action.  I chair the Government Relations Committee.  Your comments color the committee's discussions, which steer the recommendations we make to the SBE Board of Directors on our legislative and government actions.  We need your productive input.

The Society is not a powerful lobby or big, centralized organization.  Our reasonable dues and membership do not lend the organization to that role.  Nor are we an organization positioned to represent employees against their employers.  That is the role of a union.  We exist as over 100 active local chapters and thousands of broadcast engineering professionals working together who are, for the most part, employed or contracted to media companies or broadcast stations.  Much of our member's day-to-day priorities follow those of our benefactors, employers, or clients.  Our organization's role in representing the broadcast engineer is to build a better understanding and an increased respect for broadcast engineers overall and to facilitate better communication.  To help find ways to ensure that the industry leaders have the right information from the right professionals to make the right decisions for a better industry.  And most importantly, to simply help
 our members do their jobs better.

We are the only organization that is specifically dedicated to promoting, educating and certifying broadcast engineers.  Where our power lies is in taking the unique perspective of our membership, honing and targeting that perspective such that the right messages reach the right ears.  It also lies in helping 5,500 SBE members speak with one voice.....But as you see on this list, it's difficult to find those things where we CAN speak as one.  

So here's the challenge:  On what items in this debate do we agree? 

Please let's not talk about what cannot be done or what will not work or who is to blame.  There are talkshows, blogs, unmoderated lists that beat those subjects to death. We must be about solutions. We're broadcast engineers....we have to make it work.  Let's talk about what we CAN do...  What we MUST do.


Finally the salient questions:  


>>> What should we (SBE National) tell our members about this using SBe-News, The Signal, etc.?




>>>  What shall we our members to do?




Barry Thomas, CPBE CBNT
Immediate Past President

Chair, Government Relations Committee
barryt at sbe.org