Why Be a Member?

Why be a member of any association?  For years I thought I knew the answer: networking.  Yes, we have the ability to connect online via networks such as LinkedIn and other platforms, but people in general have always said that networking was the primary reason. While a pre-internet world relied on association membership to get access to a member directory, our modern world does not. Yet, many people use membership in organizations like SMPTE as a common ground to share when getting to know someone in industry.

But all things continue to evolve. I particularly think about this as I look at my own sons who are young professionals, who are not members of their respective professional associations. What young professionals are looking for is something that every society is seeking the answer to.  Surely it was networking… Or not.  Turns out, the majority of younger people are looking at associations and asking, “What problems are you able to help me solve?”

That’s a great question to ask and something that we need to be able to answer.  In some respects, this means reframing our work.  Standards, for instance, solve many day-to-day problems. So much so that we don’t think of them as problems.  Hardware connects to hardware because of standards.  Hardware can talk to hardware because of standards. I don’t know that we promote standards as such, but this data tells us that perhaps we should.

But there are other problems that we are looking to solve. As we embrace gaming systems in virtual production, the fact that we don’t share a common lexicon is a problem that needs to be solved and is being documented by our Rapid Industry Solutions – RIS working groups. We are not yet up to the standardization level with Virtual Production, but that doesn’t mean we shouldn’t be addressing it in some form. Thus RIS is there.

So what are the problems that we need to tackle? What problems do you have in a daily work environment that need some kind of resolution? Perhaps that is a problem others are having and would love to work on in an RIS working group.

SMPTE exists to bring solutions for its membership from its membership. Working together we can bring solutions from documentation, white papers, recommended practices and Standards to our industry. There are so many levels of solution that we can do, but it all starts with one member making a suggestion.

In the United States, I grew up with a cartoon series called School House Rock.  One of the cartoon shorts taught us the process required for a law to be made in the US and it starts with citizens wanting to make a change. The same goes for things with SMPTE.  It starts with ideas from you.  Please take a moment to share your thoughts.  You can send them to membership@smpte.org. 

Each of our members can make a difference in the industry by stating a challenge that needs to be discussed. If there are enough people interested, then solutions can be crafted.  Take a moment and share your challenges. Together we might be able to create solutions that make everyone’s lives a little simpler.