Rules for the Digital Age
Edward P. Salek, CAE, Executive Director | TLT Headquarters Report November 2011
Technology makes it easier to leverage your STLE membership for career advancement.
Make STLE membership part of your personal brand for doing business.
THIS COLUMN OFTEN EMPHASIZES NEWS ABOUT DIGITAL PRODUCTS and services available to members—and with good reason.
For example, did you know that Taylor & Francis, STLE’s publishing partner on the
Tribology Transactions peer-reviewed journal, has upgraded its system to allow STLE-member authors to receive e-mail alerts when one of their papers has been cited in any journal? You also can receive an e-mail alert with the latest issue’s contents page as soon as it is available online.
To help spread the word about this service and others, STLE now has a live Twitter feed. We also recently welcomed the 1,400th member of STLE’s LinkedIn group.
Without taking anything away from these valuable new services, I want to resist the tendency to accentuate the digital world and offer instead a few thoughts that focus more on personal character than the 140 characters found in each tweet on the new STLE Twitter feed.
The message concerns the fact that individual professionals and the organizations for which they work often look to the association community for guidance and leadership when it comes to professional conduct. This is certainly true in STLE’s case.
Historical documents in the STLE archives include references from the 1920s about the desire among technical and business leaders from that era to establish a code of practice for lubrication engineers and suppliers. This was formalized upon the establishment in 1944 of our predecessor organization, the American Society of Lubrication Engineers. The incorporation papers stressed that members needed to possess the appropriate educational and technical credentials and that they also be “persons of good character.”
STLE’s current governance documents, adopted in 2010, outline a much more modern and precise code of conduct. It includes nine provisions designed to set expectations and help the society achieve its purposes. Among them are requirements that members:
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Conduct themselves and their activities in a professional manner marked by integrity and a spirit of fair play.
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Refrain from engaging in any activity which would violate confidentiality commitments and/or proprietary rights of their employers, the society or any other person or organization.
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Answer truthfully all questions and inquiries from the society or any member; excepting that a member may decline to answer such inquiries for legitimate competitive concerns.
For a link to the complete Code of Conduct, as well as other STLE membership information and policies, go to
www.stle.org/join.
A related STLE policy provides guidance on the acceptable ways to show that you are a member of an organization that sets such high standards for professionalism and ethical behavior. It details the proper usage of the STLE name and logo on business cards, professional biographies and even e-mail tags. For a copy of the complete policy and a digital logo file, please contact our digital marketing manager Bruce Murgueitio at
bmurgueitio@stle.org.
Making STLE membership part of your personal brand for doing business, and letting others know the commitment to integrity and ethical conduct that goes along with that membership, is yet another way to get the most from the annual investment in STLE membership dues. As you head into the end of 2011 and get ready for 2012, learn to leverage your STLE membership credential as a way to increase your success on the job.
You can reach Certified Association Executive Ed Salek at esalek@stle.org.