Issue link: https://iconnect007.uberflip.com/i/1256432
JUNE 2020 I DESIGN007 MAGAZINE 65 and awareness will certainly be strengthened. Tanya summarized the meeting well: "SMTA has out- standing representation at the chapter level that will pair well with PCEA's chapters to drive the mutual mission of technical edu- cation, dissemination of knowl- edge, and industry connection, which will build upon the grass- roots efforts that both associa- tions were founded upon." PCEA Website Launch Good web authors are hard to find. Our PCEA executive staff has been working with teams from a commercial web author- ing business to provide the print- ed circuit engineering communi- ties with top-rate, rich content of which we can all be proud. Un- fortunately, the commercial au- thoring service we contracted with was not cutting the mustard. Our meetings to move forward with them on our content started looking like a bad PCB design review: What are all those ex- tra holes for, how will my differential pairs cou- ple when spaced an inch apart, and what are all those splits doing in the reference planes? Design reviews can be like that for any type of design. The good news is that the input data our team provided was complete and clearly defined. The bad news is that there appeared to be a lack of comprehension and education on the part of the web designer with regard to the input details, resulting in poor layout. What can we learn from this? Other design communities—web design and others—are not immune to a lack of collaboration, edu- cation, or inspiration in their roles. Ironical- ly, while the PCEA is specifying a website to foster these attributes within the electrome- chanical industries by creating and leveraging a prime website, the web authoring industry is failing to "meet spec" due to lack of the same attributes. It is a vicious circle, which I exag- gerate slightly here for emphasis. Visit our new website at pce-a.org, which launched on June 1 (Figure 1). We want our website to help our members in the best way possible. Message From the Chairman by Stephen Chavez, MIT, CID+ We're in a world of quar- antine, isolation, and social distancing. Many are finding it mentally and emotionally challenging to deal with this new normal these days. This COVID-19 pandemic has defi- nitely changed our "normal" working day and environ- ment. This is taking its toll on all of us one way or another. Days have drifted into weeks, and weeks have drifted into months as we continue to maintain our isolation or social distancing. In this "new normal," with most finding our- selves working remotely from home, the sepa- Stephen Chavez Figure 1: The PCEA's new website is up and running.