Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1199133
32 DESIGN007 MAGAZINE I JANUARY 2020 fold around it so it can be better supported by IPC. And to answer how the IPC DC infrastructure will change, it won't really. We're go- ing to call them Design Chapters to better align with the nomenclature of IPC, but they are still going to have the same executive structure within those smaller groups, such as president, vice president, etc. We're also going to have region- al advisors, who will be responsi- ble for more than one Design Chap- ter. They will be the liaison between the chap- ters and IPC, and your group of industry ex- perts will help IPC drive this design program. This group will be called the Design Commu- nity Leadership Team and be comprised of sev- en individuals from the industry. We are mod- eling them after IPC's TAEC (Technical Activi- ties Executive Committee) Global in that they will have two individuals from the Asia-Pacif- ic region, two from the Americas region, two from the European region, and then one chair that can be from any region. The designers and the chapters will be supported by the regional advisors, who are then supported by IPC and the Design Community Leadership Team; all of them work together. We're looking to these existing chapters that have successful meetings, such as "lunch and learn" events that drew 50–100 attendees, as examples because they're doing something right. However, the issue was that success was not universal, and we want to learn from them. But if you are a president of a chapter right now, I'm not going to walk in and de- mand your papers. You're going to stay, and we're going to work with you to transition into a new model as a team. Rowe: One of the other things we've adjust- ed is that our chapters have been pretty much on their own. They have been responsible for finding content for those meetings, and one of the things we want to do is look at content that we can push to all of our chapters as ma- terial that they can provide during their meet- ings. This is one of the reasons we're looking at the Design Community Lead- ership Team to help us to choose those topics to launch commu- nity discussion. We're also look- ing at ways to get them actively engaged and feeding back into IPC. It's a two-way street, and we don't want the chapters feeling like they're on their own. Shaughnessy: It did seem like a handful of chapters had regular, well-attended meetings, while others were largely dormant. Crawford: Exactly, and we're looking at that as an opportunity to bring all of these existing chapters to that level or benchmark of engage- ment. Shaughnessy: Some designers were thinking that the local DC chapters were going to be giving up the ability to bring in certain speak- ers or share their own content. Will the chap- ters still have autonomy, or will they have to clear the content with IPC? Rowe: They'll still be able to do that. We want to be able to provide them with some sub- jects and information and give them a way to draw in others. Maybe there's an important topic that everyone should be discussing, and the Design Community Leadership Team says, "We'd like to have input from these groups." Then, that's something we will ask them to do to get that two-way street going. But those chapters will still be able to continue on hav- ing local speakers as they choose. Shaughnessy: The designers, as you know, are very passionate about their local DC chapters. A lot of them are worried about this change, but there was clearly room for improvement with the way the DC worked with the rest of IPC, and I think the designers all see that. Rowe: As I said, it has been 15 years or more since we've taken a real long look at this. And as Patrick indicated, we use the success we've Patrick Crawford