I’m writing this, my first column as editor, from the conference hotel after a whirlwind annual conference. During the week, I learned just how important TIP is to SIOP members. Two stories in particular stand out to me. 1. In a preconference event, I heard a story from Walter Reichman about how he first met his longtime collaborator Stuart Carr. Walter was working as a consultant and thinking about his professional direction. He had become very interested in international development but hadn’t considered how this interest might overlap with I-O. Walter picked up the newest issue of TIP, and came across an article by Stu, entitled “I-O Psychology and Poverty Reduction—Past, Present, and Future.” Walter cold called Stu to discuss, and that meeting became the impetus for Humanitarian Work Psychology. They credit the birth of this organization and research area to meeting each other through the pages of TIP. 2. Later that same afternoon, I heard a talk from Sean Cruse. He described the process by which he obtained his current position at the United Nations Global Compact. Turns out, he first learned about the organization from an article in TIP, and he called the article’s author to find out more. That call turned into an internship, which turned into a job, which turned into a 10-year career.

As I write this column, I can’t help but remember our remarkable conference in Anaheim.  Perhaps we just absorbed the energy coming in waves from the cheerleader competition, but wherever it came from it was amazing.  A walk through the hotel lobby or down the corridors of the Conference Center never failed to find people by the dozens engaged in spirited conversation and sometimes deep discussions.  Maybe it’s like that every year, and I was just more attuned to it, but it seemed to reflect the vigor of our growing profession.  I want to offer my sincerest thanks to the Administrative Office staff for once again bringing us a flawless conference, including pristine weather ordered up especially for us – great work, Dave Nershi!  Special thanks go to Eden King (Conference Chair), Scott Tonidandel (Program Chair), and Emily Solberg (Workshop Chair) whose diligence and hard work paid off handsomely.  I also want to express my appreciation to the many (more than 1,000!) of you who served as reviewers for program submissions.  SIOP is truly a member-driven organization and our conference would suffer without your contributions and efforts.

The explosive growth of new workplace technology is fundamentally changing I-O psychology in both practice and academia.  Yet love of technology is not why most of us pursued a career in I-O psychology.  Modern I-O academicians and practitioners are both heavy users of technology, and we usually consider technology to be nothing more than a toolkit for (or perhaps an obstacle to) accomplishing our goals.  This means that changes in technology are, in many ways, things that happen to us.  Such changes challenge us by forcing us to take stock of our current skills and predict what new skills we’ll need in the future; sure, there are faster, better ways to accomplish things we’ve been doing for years, but will it be worth it to spend the time to switch?  They challenge us by opening up new possibilities, replacing old ways of thinking and working, adding truly unique capabilities we didn’t have before.  They challenge us by driving both our clients and our journal reviewers to their bright shiny colors, yet a technology’s newness doesn’t automatically mean it is better or even different from what we had before.  So what should we do?  How do we navigate this minefield of wasted time and effort mixed with true potential for improvement?  Welcome to A Crash Course in I-O Technology, my attempt to arm you with the knowledge of which technologies are worth learning while providing you with all the tools you need to go learn them.

Somehow, seemingly overnight, my third year as a professor came to an end this May. By standards for tenure at most universities, this means that I am at the official halfway point of my tenure clock. Really, I’m over the halfway point when you consider the fact that your tenure dossier gets submitted at the beginning of your sixth year, but let’s not lose sight of the main point. The point is—where did the time go?! It’s been 3 years, and a lot has changed, but there is still a lot left to figure out. In light of the benefits of some reflection and evaluation, I figured this would be a good column to take a breather, and take stock, on what I kind of know and where I still need to go en route to associate professor status—at least, here’s hoping!

The purpose of the “Bridge” column is to provide an additional conduit, building upon SIOP’s current efforts, for connecting science and practice. The column strives to accomplish this by publishing various types of article content on the subject of science and practice integration; for example, case studies of effective practice; discussions between scientists and practitioners on a relevant topic, reviews of the key scientific and practical implications of a topic area; summaries of latest research findings and their implications for practice; summaries of key practice issues and their implications for needed research; and/or, calls for research to help practitioners overcome challenges associated with effective practice (please see Poteet, Zugec, & Wallace, 2016, for more background information on the column).