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Hello all you female IEEE MTT-S readers out there...

It's time to lean in. If you don't know what I'm referring to, read on.

Lean In: Women, Work, and the Will to Lead is a book written by Sheryl Sandberg, CEO of Facebook, and Nell Scovell, TV and magazine writer. Sandberg is ranked on Fortune’s list of the 50 Most Powerful Women in Business and as one of Time’s 100 Most Influential People in the World. Lean In examines why women’s progress in achieving leadership roles has stalled, explains the root causes, and offers solutions that can empower women to achieve their full potential.

I am excited by all of the activity in the microwave industry this year, with many new developments in areas such as mmWaves, 5G communications, Internet of Things/wearable technologies, vehicle-to-vehicle communications, UAVs and modular test, to name a few. There is a continuing trend of industry consolidation that was strong last year and has continued this year with mergers such as the acquisition of Mesuro and Auriga by Focus Microwaves, Miteq by L-3 Narda, TE Connectivity businesses by CommScope, Exelis by Harris, Freescale by NXP, Vitesse Semiconductor by Microsemi and more — all before the end of the first quarter of 2015.

A couple of weeks ago, two former colleagues and dear friends, who I had not seen in several years, blew through San Diego for a short conference visit: Dr. Kenji Itoh, formerly of Mitsubishi and now of Kanazawa Institute of Technology, and Dr. Larry Larson, formerly of IBM and now inaugural Dean of the new School of Engineering at my alma mater, Brown University. They were both so busy, I managed to only have a quick bite with them separately and on the fly. We three pledged to get together again at IMS in Phoenix where we would finally have a chance to catch up over the course of the conference. I have not been to IMS for a couple of years. Time, money, circumstance… life has a way of intervening in the best laid plans of mice and men. But the occasion of seeing my two dear colleagues again resurrected all the reasons I need to get myself together to attend the conference once again. There are soooo many good reasons to do this and so few reasons not to, that even the irony of Jimmy Fallon’s Pros and Cons cannot dissuade me from doing so this year.

Finally I can have warm toes.

Have you heard of wearable Wednesday? If you have not yet, you’ll hear about it now. This year at IMS (on Wednesday funnily enough), we are promoting the use of wearable electronics for anything and everything from Fitbits for counting steps on the show floor to iPhone apps for ‘Sleep Cycle’ tracking and reminding us of all of the sleep we are not getting.

But let me share with you what has me excited about wearables—finally that I can have warm toes all year long! On a flight back from Texas recently, I grabbed a copy of United Hemisphere Magazine to read on the descent into LAX. One article (and its image) caught my attention…“Bluetooth is the new Black.”

Being at one of the early 2015 IMS committee meetings I heard about some event called “having a beer with Steve Cripps”. I must have missed the meeting prior where the concept was discussed. I did not take it seriously and thought it was just another IMS idea that had beer in it. Seems like we have a lot of those!

I know of Dr. Steve Cripps – by name - from his book and work in the use of load line contours for matching PA’s. In fact, the philosophical subject comes up periodically at work. To load-pull or not to load-pull and use the “Cripps Method”…now that is the question.  

I also know Steve is a regular attendee at IMS and personally I like the idea of grabbing a beer with him to get to know him.  Meeting new people and seeing old friends in the industry is one of the facets of IMS I really enjoy.