DOI: 10.1145/1378727.1378728
Wendy Hall
acm’s Place in the Global Picture
ACM’s new president intends to make
international initiatives a top priority,
hoping to share the Association’s riches
with a greater global audience.
It is a tremendous honor to have been
elected ACM President. My history with
this Association goes back many years
and in that time I’ve witnessed great ad-
vances in our profession and continue
to be impressed by ACM’s leadership
role in responding to those changes
with premier publications, conferenc-
es, curricula models, and professional
services that reflect emerging comput-
ing research.
I recall my first ACM invitation
to join its Publications Board, never
imagining my acceptance of that in-
vitation would one day lead to my be-
coming President. Back then I looked
forward to those board meetings not
only for the impact we were making
in bringing great new journals to the
computing field but for the chance to
visit ACM headquarters in New York,
one of my favorite cities. But that was
over 20 years ago, when you still had to
walk to the library to find your favorite
journal and attending conferences or
buying conference proceedings was
the most effective way to keep up with
your area of expertise. In fact, two of
the major attractions for me becoming
an ACM member was the value such
membership gave a computer science
researcher at that time—a more eco-
nomical means for subscribing to top
journals and attending professional
conferences.
Today we live in a post-Web world
where almost everything we want to
read is available online as soon as it is
published. Indeed, the ups and downs
of the major world economies have af-
fected many of us to the point where
traveling to our favorite conferences
is sometimes viewed as a luxury rather
than a basic necessity.
With all its publications available
through the Digital Library and an in-
creasing number of conferences be-
ing held outside the U.S., the location
of ACM’s headquarters is no longer
viewed by its physical address. ACM is
everywhere its members are; and that
location continues to expand globally.
ACM membership numbers are in fact
steadily increasing. It is my ambition
while I am President to ensure this
trend continues and to set in motion
initiatives to accelerate it and to in-
crease the diversity of membership in
the widest sense.
There is work to be done. It remains
a frustration that many people from
outside the U.S. think the ‘A’ in ACM
stands for American. Our goal must be
to find ways to spread the word about
ACM and to illustrate how our vast ar-
ray of valued resources and profes-
sional services have relevance to every
computing professional, regardless of
location.
Certainly the recent revitalization of
Communications is a crucial element in
the process of increasing our interna-
tional presence and expanding the ser-
vice we provide to all of our communi-
ties. We are also continuing to develop
our services to the practitioner com-
munity by making ACM Queue available
online as part of a new Queue Web site,
which will include many features and
content channels specifically targeted
to practitioners. You will also find in
Communications a new “Practice” sec-
tion that covers the issues and technol-
ogy trends facing today’s practitioners.
We plan to develop further our ini-
tiatives in India and China, explore our
relationship with Europe, and examine
how to position our services and pub-
lications to be more relevant in South
America and other parts of the world.
We also intend to give a higher profile
to ACM-W in order to make the Asso-
ciation more pertinent to the women
in our community and to encourage
more women to consider careers in
computing.
I look forward to a very exciting and
fruitful two years as President and hope
to meet as many of you as possible at
various ACM events and conferences
during that time. Every ACM President
wants to make a difference, and as its
first non-North American President I
hope when I look back on my term in
office I will be able to see demonstrable
evidence that the ACM has increased its
relevance and attractiveness as a mem-
bership organization to the worldwide
computing community.
Wendy hall ( wh@ecs.soton.ac.uk) is president of the ACM
and a professor of computer science at the University of
Southampton, U. K.
