Greeting, Society of Sensory Professionals Members!
In April of this year, you, the Society of Sensory Professionals membership, approved new by-laws for the society that, in part, allowed for the biennial meeting of the elected members of the Executive Committee at our headquarters in Saint Paul. The purpose of this meeting is to set goals for the society, to strategize how those goals will be reached, and to have a clear action plan for each member of the committee to go forward and achieve these goals. I am pleased to inform you that the first of these biennial meetings took place on May 19, 2015. I want to take a few moments to update you on where we netted out, what we are planning to do for YOU, our members, and perhaps most importantly, how you can get involved in what we anticipate will be two years of internal growth and external influence for the Society of Sensory Professionals.
First, it is important to note that all nine of your elected officers were present at the meeting. In addition, all three society counselors were present at the meeting and traveled there at their own expense to lend their expertise to the session. Please refer here for a list of your elected and appointed officers.
Our overarching vision for the society following this meeting can be summarized as “Belonging to SSP is Your Professional Unlock!” This society should be about you, for you, and worth recommending to a friend because it unleashes your growth as a sensory professional. With you, the member, at the core of the society, we want to bring layers of value that include the society itself, value to your business, value to the profession, and value to industry and academia. We identified three specific areas of action to bring this vision to reality: 1) focusing on the multiple dimensions of growth—self, society, profession, business, and industry–academics; 2) making SSP the primary interface for all things sensory; and 3) broadening the society’s influence on industry, academia, and government.
To be clear, we developed more ideas in each of those buckets than we could possibly attempt in two years’ time, so we will be taking this a step at a time. For example, in focusing on the multiple dimensions of growth, some of the ideas that will be pursued include the introduction of a new "Year of" framework where all society activities in that year (regional meetings, conference, etc.) will have a specific focus, the publication of “best practice” white papers, the relaunch of our Linked-In and Wiki content, an “Ask the Expert” or FAQ service, the development of our“Connectors Program, and so forth. I, personally, will be forming an outreach committee to offer our professional expertise to organizations that might not know we exist but could often use our help—the FDA, Health Canada, USDA, the FBI (yes, I’ve done sensory work with the FBI), IFT, AChemS, and ECRO as just a few examples. I will also be working with ASTM leadership to further strengthen our ties with ASTM. Granted, not all of these ideas will see full development, but the important point is that there are many ideas on the table—and we, your leadership, are committed to pursuing them!
However, as your leadership, we cannot see these ideas through to fruition alone. We need YOU! In the next several months, you will likely see requests from members of the Executive Committee to get involved. I encourage you to do just that!! The activities of SSP are not the primary role of any of its members, so the more hands involved in growing the society, the lighter the work is for all—and the faster we grow and deliver value to our membership!
If you aren’t quite sure how to get plugged in to the exciting journey that we are on, please do not hesitate to contact me directly at newlon.jw@pg.com or give me a call at +1-513-622-3222.
As the society has passed from the “newborn” years to the “toddler” years, I am excited and humbled to be a part of such an amazing group of individuals. I am truly looking forward to what the next couple of years hold for us!
With best regards,
Jason W. Newlon
Chair, The Society of Sensory Professionals
