IEEE Spectrum January, 2014 - 10

01.14

hiring a few publishing professionals, including Ronald K. Jurgen,
Samuel Walters, and Gordon D. Friedlander, who had backgrounds
or degrees in engineering but had made their careers in journalism. They also hired a professional art director and resolved
to print the covers in color-again, hot stuff in those days for an
association magazine.

At the top of the masthead, though, Spectrum kept with tradition
by listing a volunteer official-Ryder-as "editor." (Ryder's actual title, though, was chairman of the IEEE Editorial Board.) He wisely
left the day-to-day operations of the magazine in the hands of Gannett, who is listed on the masthead of that first issue as "managing
editor." Gannett had a bachelor's degree in electrical engineering,
but he had spent nearly all of his career
as a publications staffer at the IRE. By all
accounts, Gannett, the only experienced
editorial holdover from the IRE, navigated
the inevitable teething pains of those early
years with good humor and patience.
That first issue of Spectrum is a sprawling and eclectic mix. (The issue is available
for download at http://spectrum.ieee.org/
Advance your career and impact your company's
firstspectrum0164.) There are a few hardcore features-"High-power solid state desuccess in 2014 by making a strategic investment
vices,"
"EHV ac and dc transmission," and
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"New coherent light diffraction techniques."
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The articles are an odd hybrid: full of equaacquire new skills, and bring innovative ideas back to
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edited for-gasp-readability.
There's a high-minded feature by Goldsmith, who had been the volunteer editor of the IRE's Proceedings for 42 years,
starting in 1913. The piece is titled "IEEE
Topics include:
› Information & Communication
Spectrum-Retrospect and Prospect," but
Technologies
Biotechnology / Pharmaceutical
about halfway through it veers away from
›
Innovation
Crisis Management
Spectrum to reflect on the IEEE's purpose
› Leadership / Negotiation
and mission. The writing seems a tad florid
Data Modeling & Analysis
›
Radar
today,
but the article is ultimately touchDesign, Analysis,
ing: The IEEE "is no more and no less than
& Manufacturing
› Robotics
a reflection of our hopes, our ideals, our
Energy / Sustainability /
› Systems Engineering
professional dedication, and our sense of
Transportation
› Tribology
our value to each other and to the world,"
Enterprise Transformation
Goldsmith wrote. "It is ours to mold, to
Imaging
change, to guide, and to re-create in an
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increasingly
worthy form."
when you register and pay fees by April 15.
From the beginning Spectrum staked
out a broad view of what would constiTo learn more about the courses offered this summer, or to inquire about
tute suitable subject matter. The first ishaving a course customized and delivered at your company location, visit:
sue's lead feature ranges far afield from
electrical engineering: It's a mathematical musing on how the universe would appear to voyagers on a starship traveling at
a relativistic velocity. The author, Bernard
Oliver, was then vice president of R&D
at Hewlett-Packard and a member of the
IEEE Editorial Policy Committee, which
had approved Ryder's plan for Spectrum.

Massachusetts Institute of Technology

LEARN FROM EXPERTS AT MIT

Short Programs - Summer 2014

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http://shortprograms.mit.edu/ieee2014

JAN 2014

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Table of Contents for the Digital Edition of IEEE Spectrum January, 2014