Southampton PA, USA – Some of you know me personally and know that I have been reasonably active in the ISA (the International Society of Automation nee the Instrument Society of America) for many years. So many years, in fact that I managed to qualify as a Life Member a few years ago (That means I get a fancy pin and don’t have to pay annual dues).
What most of you don’t know is that I have helped the local ISA Section to which I now belong, The ISA Philadelphia Section (affectionately known locally as ISA Philly) develop a website.
A year or so ago, I was asked to work on it after I opened my big mouth to say I thought it could be better at enabling more Member communications using some modern software. So, I did, after all I had been using some here and on most of my other websites.
I think that the most recent version of ISA-Philly.org looks a lot better than my first attempt. It now uses the Open Source software, WordPress, to be like a Content management System or CMS with their new TwentyTen theme. (That’s a very different theme than the one used here – but this one, the Thesis Theme, looks similar on the outside, but very different on the admin or inside.
ISA-Philly.org is not a blog, per se, but has many of the powerful Web features that were developed by bloggers and the people like Matt Mullenweg, wordPress’ founder and self-proclaimed Chief BBQ Taste Tester of Automattic, their “official” Website that underlies the WordPress phenomena.
This long-winded introduction is to talk about what the Local ISA Executive Board recently decided to do with our modern website. That is to make better known their efforts to bring the Web to all our existing and prospective members and help deliver many of the educational capabilities that our Section has been doing since its beginnings in 1942.
Now we can use the power of the Web, our website, Social media and other resources to let people involved in measurement, control, instrumentation, automation, analysis, management and education work together to build a better Society.
The original start of the ISA was in 1945 and the prime focus was member service through education and training. The Web provides more powerful tools to promote awareness and deliver educational resources to all, very efficiently and quickly.
To support this end, this website will begin featuring the rss news headlines from ISA-Philly.org in our sidebar. It’s the least we can do, especially since the National Society has yet to make up thier minds about creating one themselves.
If you or your organization has a website with rss headline display capability, I request you do do the same and help spread the word.
The html code, or web address for the ISA-Philly.org rss news feed is: http://isa-philly.org/feed.
The Section Executives also recently asked me to started a Group on Linkedin entitled Friends of the ISA Philadelphia Section to spread the word. There is also an ISA Group on Linkedin with more than 3400 members. You are welcome to join and offer ideas and feedback.
Meanwhile we post the headlines from our news stories and announcements from ISA-Philly.org on twitter. Follow us there, too, if you’d like, we are ISA_Philly.
Thanks for reading,
Ray
