I'm delighted to announce the plenary talks for the upcoming CNI Member
Meeting, to be held in Washington DC December 12-13.

Due to the special presentation that will be part of the closing
plenary, the length of our meeting has been extended slightly, and our
closing time on Tuesday will be about 3:45 PM rather that the usual
3:30 PM. Please note this in your travel planning; I hope it will not
inconvenience attendees too greatly.

Our closing plenary speaker on Tuesday afternoon will the renowned
computer and information scientist Ben Shneiderman, a Distinguished
University Professor at the University of Maryland. Ben has published
many important books over the years; a particular favorite of mine is
the 2002 book "Leonardo's Laptop: Human Needs and the New Computing
Technologies". Most recently, Ben has been focusing on the changing
nature of the research process itself, and what will be needed to meet
the challenges of the present century. Last year he produced an
absolutely wonderful book titled "The New ABCs of Research: Achieving
Breakthrough Collaborations" which I'll simply say should be required
reading for anyone engaged in any aspect of the research enterprise. He
will speak to these issues in his presentation.

Ben has also generously agreed to autograph copies of his book if you
bring them with you.

In addition to our closing plenary, we will have a special shorter
briefing from Dr. Robert Kahn, the long-time president of the
Corporation for National Research Initiatives (CNRI). For most of the
CNI community, Bob needs no introduction; he is known throughout the
world for his central role in the creation of the Internet and as
co-creator, with Vint Cerf, of the TCP/IP protocol. But he has made a
vast number of other high-impact and often prescient contributions; one
that has proved quite vital to the CNI community is his work in
creating the Digital Object Identifier System (DOI). In fact, the DOI
is only one part of a much broader Digital Object Architecture that Bob
has been developing over the past several decades. In his presentation,
which will precede Ben's plenary, he will review these developments and
bring us up to date on this important work. Bob has been a friend of
CNI since it's founding, and I look forward to welcoming him back to
our meeting.

More extensive biographies and abstracts will be available shortly on
the CNI website.

Also, as traditional, I will use the opening plenary in Washington to
survey developments and emerging issues, and to highlight elements of
our work for the 2016-2017 program year. Please bring your questions!

I look forward to seeing you in Washington, DC. We are just now working
through the schedule of breakout sessions, but closer to the meeting
I'll of course share the usual meeting roadmap with the list.

Clifford Lynch
Director, CNI