New Editor-in-Chief of IEEE Communications Magazine Sean Moore shares his experience, insights and vision with the ComSoc community

New Editor-in-Chief of IEEE Communications Magazine Sean Moore shares his experience, insights and vision with the ComSoc community.
IEEE Communications Magazine, IEEE ComSoc's flagship monthly publication, is one of the acclaimed top periodicals in the world's telecommunications literature. Since January 2010, Sean has been the Associate EiC of the magazine.

Q: What surprises occurred in your term as Associate EiC?
[SM]: The biggest surprise to me was the amount of energy and effort put forth by the Magazine’s Technical Editors.  I found their willingness to donate their incredibly valuable expertise and time to the Magazine -- and by extension to the ComSoc members – to be extraordinary.  Upon beginning my AEiC term, I expected to spend much of my time chasing after technical editors to have submissions peer-reviewed in a timely fashion.  The reality was that I had to work hard to keep up with the Technical Editors in driving the review process forward.  Many Technical Editors also contribute to the Magazine’s Feature Topics and Series.  Along with the many contributing authors and the publication staff, the Technical Editors are the lifeblood of the Magazine.

Q: As a new Editor-in-Chief, do you have plans for any changes in 2013?  New features, columns, topics, or areas of coverage?
[SM]: I do not have plans for any large disruptive changes – they are not necessary, the Magazine is quite healthy -- but I do plan to make some incremental evolutionary changes.  Instead of detailing them, I will describe the general direction that I want the changes to steer the Magazine towards:  The methods and types of telecommunications that humans use have changed rapidly over the past 5-10 years.  Traditional voice calls and e-mails have been largely displaced by texts, videos, social networks, tweets, mobile apps, web communications, collaborative applications, opportunistic communications, etc.  But I think the Magazine’s content has not yet caught up with these changes.  Hence, I will encourage changes that will help the Magazine catch up.  These changes should make the Magazine even more valuable to modern telecommunications technologists.

Q: What is the most valuable lesson you learned from the current editor-in-chief Steve Gorshe?
[SM]: Steve taught me that the primary role of the EiC is to make good, quick (but well-informed) decisions on all aspects of the Magazine.  Otherwise, Magazine operations – and therefore the value delivered to ComSoc members – will come to a halt.  And, the most important factor in decision making is maximizing the value of the Magazine to the ComSoc members.  Finally, sometimes nice guys finish first!  If you don’t like Steve Gorshe, then you don’t like people.  He has done an outstanding job as EiC, and ComSoc is fortunate to have him stay on as Director of Magazines.

Q: ComMag is the #1 benefit for ComSoc membership.  In what areas would you like to see more coverage to attract new readers, communications professionals who may not be current members of ComSoc?
[SM]:  My observation from working in industry is that there are many communications technologists – potential new ComSoc members – who build next-generation products, applications, and services (which I noted above) that are not well-covered by the Magazine.  The “math” is simple:  If we want these technologists to become members, the Magazine has to provide direct value to them; hence, we need to have better coverage of next-generation technologies.

Q: ComMag is produced as a print/PDF-oriented publication, published once a month. Do you see a time when content becomes more interactive, more timely?
[SM]:  More Interactive? Yes, I see a time, very soon, when content becomes more interactive.  We have plans to implement some interactivity during 2013.  Stay tuned.  More Timely? No, I do not see a time when content becomes more timely.  This is because of the peer-review process, which is absolutely necessary for Magazine articles to retain their high quality and academic rigor.  But, I welcome ideas from ComSoc members to improve the Magazine’s timeliness and interactivity.  Please e-mail me (smoore-phd [at] ieee [dot] org) with your ideas.

Q: What do you anticipate will be the greatest challenge for ComMag in 2013 and beyond?
[SM]: From the perspective of the ComSoc members, the Magazine’s greatest challenge will be to keep the content current with the rapid changes in communications technologies and methods.  From the perspective of ComMag internal operations, the greatest challenges are increasing social interactivity, and increasing advertising revenues when the traditional print advertising market is shrinking in favor of new media advertising.  The latter challenge is not visible to most ComSoc members, but it is highly visible to operations and critical for business success.

Q: Have you always wanted to be an EiC?
[SM]: Honestly, I never thought about it until I was offered the AEiC position three years ago.  Until then, my professional career was focused on helping my current employer achieve its business goals and being the best technologist that my skills would allow me to be.  After being offered the opportunity, I realized that being the EiC of the Magazine is the best possible way that I could serve my professional community and give back to it.  This is important to me because a decision I made (over 30 years ago!) to re-direct my self into the science and engineering communities has greatly enhanced the quality of my life.  Many, many people have helped me along the way.  Now, I want to be the EiC so that in some small way I can help the next generation of scientists and engineers achieve their life goals.