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Business Report President’s Update The OBM Network's conference was again hosted by the Florida Association for Behavior Analysis in January, 2007 in Sarasota, Florida. This year's program coordinator, Dr. Kathy Culig, invited a number of prominent research and practitioner speakers for the two-day event. Included among these were Howard Lees & Bruce Faulker from the UK, Alyce Dickinson, Wendy Jaehnig, Heather McGee, and Doug Johnson from Western Michigan University, Jon Bailey and Marco Tomasi (Florida State University), Dave Wilder (Florida Institute of Technology), Jennifer Howard of CLG, Terry McSween of Quality Safety Edge, Ryan Olson of OHSU, Lori Miller of Ardent Learning, Joe Sasson of MedAxiom, and Allan Quiat of the Chevron Corporation among many others. Judith Komaki provided the keynote address on OBM and Leadership. The student poster session featured 15 research reports from universities around the country. Then next OBM Network conference is scheduled for January 2009 in Melbourne Beach, Florida. Internship Committee Update After a lengthy discussion with academic members of the OBMN, development
of a formal OBM internship program by the OBMN has been delayed. Because
there are so few available internships at our consulting firms each
year, the group decided that it would be better for individual OBM
academic programs to focus on developing internships in local organizations. We
may revisit this issue in the future if additional consulting firm
internships become available. The OBM Network website has consistently attracted large number
of visits during the past year. The site has averaged over
6,300 visits per month over the past year and recently surpassed
the 200,000 mark for the total number of visits since the site launched. Membership Update The following graphs display the 2007 OBM Network Membership. Figure 1 displays membership distribution for the years of 2005, 2006 and 2007 YTD. We are excited to report that we already have 139 members.
Figure 2 displays new versus repeat (2006-2007) members. Currently, 45% of our members are new members. We have contacted previous members and have asked them to continue supporting the Network.
Figure 3 illustrates 2007 membership growth by month in comparison to 2006.
Figures 4 & 5 illustrate 2007 Member Affiliation to date. All members were asked to provide their current affiliation when they submitted their membership forms. If you do not see your current affiliation listed, please email the Membership Coordinator – Julie Slowiak (julie.slowiak@wmich.edu) so that your affiliation can be added.
Thank you to all of our members for their continuing support of the OBM Network! OBM Network News Update This year, three online editions of the newsletter were published as scheduled, thanks to the help of OBM Network staff members and Brian Crowley-Koch. Data-based and discussion articles were published in the newsletter by students, practitioners, and academics. In addition, we have been working to streamline the publication process. On average, the newsletter was distributed 49 days after the deadline for article submissions this year and we hope to see a reduction in that time for next year. Lastly, thanks to our web designer, Doug Johnson, the online newsletter will soon have a new and improved look with easier navigation between articles. We are also planning to track and hopefully increase readership in the coming year. State of the OBM Network’s Chris Anderson Research
Award Fund Student research support long has been a cornerstone of the OBMN mission to develop, enhance, and support the growth and vitality of Organizational Behavior Management through research, practice, and collaboration. The Network is committed to making sure this tradition continues well into the future. The OBMN has had a research fund for some time as part of its ongoing mission to advocate for and facilitate the occurrence of OBM research, especially among students. The Network’s fund was renamed in 2003 in honor of the 2004 OBMN Lifetime Achievement Award winner, the late Prof. D. Chris Anderson, and was seeded with an initial gift from his former students, colleagues, and friends. Since then, six awards have been distributed from the fund including this year’s (2007) winners. In aggregate, the total of these six awards has amounted to $3,800. Each of the past OBMN research grants has helped to support an outstanding student project. This year’s award winners promise two more in this line. The 2007 OBMN Chris Anderson Research Award winners this year are:
The Network will be able to award $500 to each of these student researchers in support of their outstanding projects. The award checks will be distributed at the OBM Network Business Meeting at the upcoming ABA conference in May. It is critical to the Network’s mission that we offer this type of research support for students. So, we need to work toward insuring the long-run viability of our research fund. Research Fund Facts To take a quick look at how the fund has done since 2003, Figure 1 depicts the cumulative annual donations made over this time period. These contributions specifically are designated for support of the Chris Anderson Research Award Fund.
Fig. 1: Cumulative annual donations to the Chris Anderson Research Fund since 2003 As this figure shows, including the two 2007 contributions, the cumulative number of annual donations since 2003 has totaled 22. Figure 2 shows the dollar amounts associated with these numbers.
Fig. 2: Cumulative annual dollar income to the Chris Anderson Research Fund As Fig. 2 indicates, the 22 donations since 2003 have resulted in a cumulative total of $7600 income for the research fund. Thus, our research fund income since 2003 has exactly doubled what has been distributed to our award winners over that same time. Of course, this is great news for the research fund, and we need to work hard to make sure things stay this way. In sum, just considering the last three full years, we have averaged 6 donations per year with the average donation amount being $217. This is certainly incredible generosity on the part of our fund benefactors, especially considering the limited ways in which we have solicited up until now. Future Plans It seems prudent at this point for a variety of reasons to work toward expanding our base of donors. This will not only make the fund’s future more secure, but it will also give us the flexibility to consider additional forms of student research and professional development support in the future. Expanding our donor base will require a more systematic fund-raising effort on the part of the Network than heretofore has been employed. To date, we have relied mainly on announcements at conferences, notices on our web site, and an annual email sent to former students and friends of Chris Anderson. To expand our donor pool, we need to step up our promotional efforts within our own membership ranks, and even think of creative ways to go beyond our own members. Two specific steps we think will help these efforts are to insure a tax benefit for all donations and to start a matching gift program for donors who are employed by companies that support such a program. OBMN Awards Committee Report As new Awards Chair, I’m happy to announce the 2007 OBM Network Awards Committee has been hard at work reviewing the nominations submitted by Network Members for the available awards in the categories of Outstanding Contribution and Lifetime Achievement. We received numerous nominations for the Outstanding Contribution Award and for the prestigious Lifetime Achievement Award. To summarize the review process, OBMN Members were invited to a “Call for Nominations” announced both at the January FABA-OBM conference and via the Network’s Google Discussion Forum website. Nominations were sent directly to the chair and forwarded to Committee Members. Before review, the Committee (consisting of a representative sample of the Network membership who agreed to volunteer their time, including past recipients of the awards) agreed on a number of factors, such as methods of review and scoring, prevailing votes, confidentiality, and a number of other important matters to make the process effective and objective. The Committee was asked to carefully review nominations and established criteria for each award, noting there was no obligation to determine a recipient in either category. It is important to note we believe the awards are not to be considered a simple fixed-time entity that lacks meaning or value, nor are they to be granted based on noncontingent performance. Scorecards were used to match the “best fit” for each award category criteria and the respective nominees’ documented evidence of achievements. Scorecards were returned to the chair and evaluated for completeness and documented explanation for scores. Based on these collective scores, potential Recipients are determined. Should the selected Recipients accept, they will be honored with a formal award at ABA 2007 in San Diego and will be invited as presenters at ABA 2008. In addition to deliberating the difficult task of award nomination review and selection, the Committee is also charged with making other decisions pertaining to awards and recognition of exemplar performance within the Network. Currently, we are discussing the possibility of clarifying some defining parameters of the current awards, the process of reviewing of nominations, and expansion of awards categories and subsequent criteria. We may be asking for more suggestions from Network Members to ensure we have 1) demonstrated need and 2) variety of ideas for any substantiated amendments to the current awards system. Financial Report The following graphs display the 2007 OBM Network Finances. Figure 1 displays the income and expenses for the years of 2002 through 2007YTD and includes the total amount of donations received and amount spent in grants awarded since 2002.
Figure 2 displays the total funds available for the years 2003 through 2007YTD. Total funds available is the cumulative total of all four OBM Network accounts, which include, the business account, the general donation fund account, the Chris Anderson research fund account, and the SABA account.
The OBM Network would also like to thank Lisa Siroky, Ph.D., Darnell Lattal, Ph.D., Charles Crowell, Ph.D., Joseph Sergio, Ph.D., and Jon Bailey, Ph.D. for their generous financial gifts that will help the Network to develop, enhance, and support the growth and vitality of Organizational Behavior Management through research, education, practice, and collaboration.
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