James cretsos leadership award: What ASIS&T means to me

Editor's Summary A professor's advice to “find your community” started Naresh Agarwal as a doctoral student on a path to discovering and connecting to others with similar interests and goals. After visiting other conferences, Agarwal felt welcome at ASIS&T's Annual Meeting in 2008 and made the most of the connections he made. He got involved in several SIGs and with other roles and increased his level of participation over the years. His advice to new members includes continually expanding your circle of connections, finding ways to contribute, focusing on one thing at a time and even trying frugal strategies to attend ASIS&T events. Regular communications help reinforce contacts and are essential for SIG and chapter sharing and continuity. Communications and collaboration are key criteria for the SIG/Chapter-of-the-Year Award, which Agarwal helped SIG/ED to win in 2012. Agarwal hopes to see ASIS&T become more open, agile and responsive to members, supporting collaboration and interaction through social media on the association's website.