Over at the Read-Out Instrumentation Signpost blog, Eoin Ó Riain shares the news of a new social hub for automation professionals—the International Society of Automation (ISA)’s ISA Interchange.
I had the opportunity to share my views and ideas with the team that conceived and beautifully executed the ISA Interchange site. The goal of this site is to be:
…your online source of automation news and technical content brought to you by the International Society of Automation.
And its objective:
…is to post content that starts conversations between automation professionals.
The conversations will happen on the site, in Twitter, in Facebook, in LinkedIn, via photos and images in Flicker, via live and recorded events in Livestream, and via video in YouTube. You can also see what your peers are doing and saying via the ISA Interchange’s RSS feed.
The value of the site comes from the contributions of knowledge and expertise from the global ISA membership. Each page asks:
Do you have a presentation, article, video or other content that would be valuable to industrial automation professionals?
I gave it a go by offering one of my posts that highlighted a process safety article, Control Valves in Process Safety Applications, by Emerson’s Riyaz Ali, which appeared in the ISA Kuwait section newsletter.
This is one example of something shared among a group of ISA members that now has much wider visibility. Given all the happenings among the members in sections, standards bodies, education and training, publications, etc. this site will help to surface and make visible these knowledge-sharing activities.
I think this focus on connecting ISA members together through the online social channels is a tremendous advance and one in which you should jump in with both feet in order to advance your skills and to share them with others.