President's Column
Fred Oswald
Are you reading this while fueled from the SIOP 2017 conference in Orlando? What an event—one with record-breaking attendance! The opening plenary of the conference began with an inspiring welcome by Mort McPhail, who reviewed many key accomplishments by SIOP that happened during his presidential term. He then recognized our esteemed SIOP award winners and fellows, and gave a memorable send off to Dave Nershi, whose retirement after 12 years as executive director of SIOP is marked by his exceptional professionalism and dedication to the field. Being a certified wine specialist, Dave received a large package on stage, containing a bottle of wine from every SIOP past president who served during his tenure. What a great start to a well-earned retirement! SIOP will miss Dave just as much as we appreciate Jeff Hughes taking the reins as our new executive director. Jeff and the SIOP Administrative Office were deeply immersed in all the action of the SIOP conference from beginning to end, keeping the wheels turning in ways that seemed effortless to those who attended.
The SIOP conference theme track was the Future of I-O. Chaired by Tracy Kantrowicz, the Theme Track Committee put together sessions covering the rich history of the field of I-O psychology (chaired by Richard Landers and Ted Kinney); how I-O psychologists contribute to and collaborate with other disciplines (chaired by Valentina Bruk-Lee and Samantha Taylor); and the nature and future of work, given the powerful forces of automation and globalization that have taken hold (chaired by Lynda Zugec and Richard Landers). We concluded the conference with a blast-off closing speaker, astronaut Stan Love, who provided the audience with several incidents that are truly critical to avoid when planning a successful trip to Mars. As Stan dryly reminded us: Make a mistake in space, and “you’ll spend the rest of your life trying to fix it.”
Sincere thanks to our colleagues who made this conference so memorable from start to finish: Daisy Chang (Conference Chair), Zack Horn (Program Chair) and all the SIOP conference committee members who worked tirelessly on our behalf. They also worked creatively, introducing exciting innovations into the conference, including (a) a mobile app (Whova) to navigate the conference agenda with ease; (b) a Shaken and Stirred format (15 thought leaders, each speaking for 2 minutes), chaired by Jennifer Weiss and Arti Shyasmunder and attended by over 700 people(!); and (c) a Reproducible Research track to support robust and reliable research in I-O psychology. Regarding this latter point, consider taking steps that make your research and practice more accessible and useful to others by posting your writing, materials, and program scripts online (see www.siop.org/rr and the 2016 TIP article by Nicklin, Gibson, & Grand, http://0-www-siop-org.library.alliant.edu/tip/july16/nicklin.aspx). This not only serves to promote the good work that we do as I-O psychologists, it makes you a visible “thought leader” in our field! Related to this point, Steven Rogelberg has recently chaired a blue-ribbon Robust and Reliable Research task force, where his committee of researchers and practitioners are generating recommendations on what I-O psychologists can do to improve their research practices. Stay tuned for a forthcoming IOP journal article on this front.
If you were unable to attend this year’s conference, SIOP will host an even better one just for you! The 33rd Annual Conference is April 19-21 in Chicago, IL. It’s not too early to block these dates off in your calendar now and begin dreaming about I-O psychology in the Windy City.
Immediately following the Orlando conference, the SIOP Executive Board (EB) meeting covered many important activities and developments that are moving SIOP forward. Here is a select sample of them:
First, in line with my “Team SIOP” presidential theme (see below), we are increasing the frequency of our communications: additional calls that supplement the in-person EB meetings, additional communication channels between SIOP committees, and weekly touch-base meetings between myself and the Administrative Office. These enhancements are intended to build upon our shared understanding and coordination of our collaborative activities.
Second, thanks to the efforts of Sandra Davis (chair) and the LEC Committee, the 13th Annual Leading Edge Consortium, “Innovations in Executive Coaching: Deepening Your Expertise in a Dynamic World,” is shaping up to be a fantastic event, including new preconsortium workshops and innovative TED-style talks. It will be held October 20-21 at the Hilton Minneapolis, and for more information, you can go to http://0-www-siop-org.library.alliant.edu/lec/2017/.
Third, in the realm of SIOP publications, it is worth noting that the number of downloads from our IOP journal have skyrocketed, from 17,809 downloads in 2015, up to 42,813 today, due to your excellent contributions and the stalwart efforts of John Scott (Editor) and Mark Poteet (Practitioners Forum Editor) who are leading the charge. Clearly, our work is worth reading! Also, Deborah Rupp (Publications Officer) has arranged a contract with Oxford University Press for a translational science series, with Steve Kozlowski as the inaugural editor.
Fourth, the Strategic Planning and Research Committee (SPARC), chaired by Lois Tetrick, will be investigating the nature of today’s I-O master’s programs. Their increased presence surely diversifies the marketplace of ideas and values that SIOP members hold; it will likely expand the nature of services SIOP offers to meet the practice and research needs of our members; and it promises to influence the content and sensitivities reflected in SIOP’s future education and training guidelines. I therefore view this SPARC initiative as extremely important to advancing SIOP and I-O psychology in an informed and strategic manner, and SPARC’s efforts will be shared with you in future SIOP communications.
Fifth, the Professional Practice Committee has offered a new webinar on HR analytics by Jeremy Kasle. Check out this and other useful practice-based webinars, organized by Ben Porr, at http://0-www-siop-org.library.alliant.edu/webinar.aspx. They are also on YouTube, so they are more widely accessible (e.g., share them with a friend).
As you can see, so many incredible people dedicate their time and talents on behalf of SIOP. If you are not one of these people yet, please volunteer! Surf on over to
http://my.siop.org/Membership/Committees/Volunteer-for-Committee. We would be excited to have you contribute to Team SIOP. Team SIOP is my presidential theme, because essentially and perennially, SIOP has dealt with critical issues surrounding the identity of I-O psychologists (i.e., who are we?) and their impact on work and society at large (i.e., what are we doing?). Team SIOP is a theme that combines both issues, as teams provide collective identity and are set out to accomplish big things. To that end, I will engage Team SIOP to (a) identify, develop, and make good use our existing talent (e.g., through our registries), (b) promote our existing partnerships that have produced excellent work to advance the science and practice of work (many of which we likely do not know of, yet would benefit from learning from), and (c) develop new partnerships with new researchers, practitioners, and disciplines from outside of I-O psychology who have yet to benefit from our expertise. Together, Team SIOP is growing itself by making efforts on all three of these fronts, which I will report on in future issues of TIP.