Dear Colleague: (Please do not reply to [EMAIL PROTECTED] See email address below.)
I am writing to tell you why, if you are not currently an ACM member, you should join the Association for Computing Machinery. If you already are a member, I hope you will forward this information to colleagues you think should join. ACM has led the computing field for over 60 years and is the discipline's oldest association. Its 90,000 members comprise the elite of computing, including a unique mix of educators, researchers, CIOs, CTOs, senior developers, and other technology professionals. Whether you are an academic, researcher, or practitioner, you are probably benefiting from many ACM activities even if you are not an ACM member. Your institution, organization, or company may subscribe to ACM's Digital Library. Undoubtedly, you have read articles published in ACM's 40-plus journals and magazines, or in proceedings of its over-150 annual conferences. And each spring you probably eagerly anticipate the announcement of the ACM A.M. Turing Award, the highest recognition of technical excellence in the field of computing. The list goes on and on. (Please visit http://www.acm.org/memberoffer4 to learn more about the benefits of ACM Membership.) Over the last few years, many have expressed their dissatisfaction with Communications of ACM (CACM), saying ACM's flagship publication does not reflect the breadth of interests of its members. Some even cite it as a major reason for not maintaining an ACM membership. The good news is that we have heeded these complaints and taken major steps to address them. In January 2005, ACM's former president Dave Patterson launched a project to revitalize CACM. That project has culminated in the "new CACM," unveiled last week, see http://cacm.acm.org. The revamped CACM is modeled after Science, the prestigious publication of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, which combines a science magazine with a scientific journal. Like Science, the new CACM offers a breadth of exciting material, including news, viewpoints, practices, peer-reviewed articles, and research highlights. I took the position of CACM Editor-in-Chief in 2007 because I believe the best is yet to come in computing. Such a dynamic and exciting field deserves an equally dynamic and exciting leading publication. CACM is not just the flagship publication of ACM; it is, in effect, the flagship publication of the whole discipline. As I recruited CACM's new editorial board of world-class computing experts, I was heartened by their positive responses. My colleagues uniformly thought the board's mission would be hard, but incredibly important work. And they readily accepted my offers to join in. Likewise, thousands of dedicated volunteers, supported by a relatively small professional staff at headquarters, drive ACM's activities. So why else should you join ACM? Because it is the right thing to do! If you care about our field, then you want a strong association to lead it. Moreover, a broad membership makes for a stronger association. Simply put, you need ACM and ACM needs you. We live in a consumer society, so there is a tendency to value everything from the buyer's perspective, which is, "Will I get my money's worth?" ACM is not a product, but an organization of individuals like you and me. Our dues are not the price for a set of benefits, but our contribution to promoting computing as a field. Please join your colleagues at ACM in this worthwhile endeavor. Sincerely, Moshe Y. Vardi Rice University CACM Editor-in-Chief [EMAIL PROTECTED] P.S. Learn more, and take advantage of ACM's special offer to join and receive a discount and a complimentary gift at: http://www.acm.org/memberoffer4 (you will need to select "Priority Code: DP2ACM"). ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Check out the new SourceForge.net Marketplace. It's the best place to buy or sell services for just about anything Open Source. http://sourceforge.net/services/buy/index.php _______________________________________________ hol-info mailing list [email protected] https://lists.sourceforge.net/lists/listinfo/hol-info
