Over the last 10 months, UTC’s and , including Board of Advisors Chair Dr. Andreas Breuer, have talked often as we have implemented a strategy to realign the group with the global focus of UTC on optimizing membership value and continuing to provide trusted, technical and strategic feedback to on utilities’ ICT networks. has done a great job of being active in front of the European Commission in a strategic way and of instituting some governance changes to engage more of its membership in these activities as well as in the content and planning of their annual conference. The conference’s host utility is E.On, and I look forward to hearing about what they’re doing on the ground in Sweden to facilitate innovative customer relationships underpinned by their ICT networks.
The bottom line is, is going through a change this year that will result in a better, more focused, more valuable group in the future. With a new association management team, Kellen, we have made strides on membership value and engagement even in the face of the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) privacy regulations that limit our ability to communicate about . Over the next few months, we’ll be hiring a Director of who will serve as a liaison with the industry and subject matter expert who can both backfill and move forward when the volunteer leadership is busy with their own jobs back at their utilities. This is a crucial piece as a reinvigorated engages with UTC and UTC America Latina in worldwide forums such as the International Telecommunication Union to spotlight the need for utilities to be eligible for a global spectrum allocation, among other important initiatives.
I’ll sign off now as the plane is starting to lull me to sleep, but before I succumb, I need to figure out how to say hello and goodbye in Swedish…is it just “” for the greeting – seems like maybe, but I really do not know! Must do a quick Google search as soon as we land. Or I could just let it go. Until we meet again…