The Chairman's Message

Taxes and Technology!

Welcome again to the FRSUG website. As always, we’re glad you’re here.

Ah, April. A beautiful month here on the Texas coast - highs in the 80’s, lows in the 60’s, and moderate (for us) humidity. The wildflowers are blooming like crazy, the sun sets later in the day, the flounder have returned to the bays and nobody wants to work inside. Except for that Form 1040 interruption, it’s a pretty good month.

It was a pretty good month for technology, too. Yesterday, I logged into a Webcast sponsored by Fisher-Rosemount. Featured was one of your Users Group Board members, Dave Montgomery of Solutia, Inc. Dave was presenting information about Solutia’s use of the DeltaV system’s advanced control capabilities - how Solutia uses them, and what benefits they’re getting. And an important aspect of this is their business benefits.

There were two windows operating in the presentation - one a live video image, the other for presentation materials (Powerpoint, etc.).

After the formal presentation segment, logged-on participants were able to submit questions to Dave and the hosts, to which they would respond. This was surprisingly interactive. As a venue for dissemination of information, I can see value here. Within my company, we’re evaluating these types of technologies, and I can foresee their future use in Users Group activities.

Possibilities could be:
Interaction with the Users Group by the Board during a Board meeting
Broadcast of certain segments of the annual meeting.

I would be interested in feedback from members having additional ideas or experience with this type of communication.

Also, since you’re here at the website, check out the info on the September meeting. We’ve got the preliminary agenda posted, and I think you’ll be impressed by the breadth and depth of this year’s meeting.

Related to this, the Board will have the final meeting, prior to September, on May 1. This is where the agenda gets finalized, along with most of the meeting ancillary activities. I’ll report on all of this in the May Chairman’s message. We’ll also get back to meeting individual Board members (some of these guys have been a little slow at providing digital photographs).

By the way, if you have a burning desire to be a presenter or participant in panels in September, contact stacey.cloud@emersonprocess.com.   We’ll make every attempt to work you into the program.

Remember, this is your Users Group. Your input is important. You should feel perfectly free to contact any of the Board members or FRS support people as shown in the “Board of Directors” page of the website.

I look forward to your participation in September at the annual meeting. Continue to check here on the website for the latest meeting info (agenda, registration, etc.).   As always, you can contact me at ksimpson@continentalcarbon.com.


Keith Simpson
Chairman

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