When ZweigWhite’s Vice President of Media and Group Publisher Bob Higgins charged our editorial staff with organizing a series of roundtable discussions, I admit, I was a bit daunted. He challenged us with opening up the dialogue with Structural Engineer’s subscribers on "big picture" topics. In order to stay focused on serving their needs, he suggested, we need to go speak with them and understand what challenges and motivates, frustrates and inspires our readers.

As editor, I work daily to communicate with Structural Engineer subscribers. I strive to provide articles, news, and information that is helpful to you in your job everyday. Yet even though I exchange ideas each day, most of my correspondence is via e-mail or over the telephone. Organizing public debate was not on my resume.

After discussing the idea with others more experienced than myself, we agreed on a format for the Structural Engineer Roundtable Series. Each roundtable discussion consists of a panel of six to eight invited industry experts.We discuss one topic for an hour and record the entire event with a photographer and a stenographer.

After the dialogue, I write an article that incorporates much of the discussion as direct quotes. I have done this twice, the first article, "Structural Engineer’s Roundtable, Building Information Modeling:Tools and Impacts," appeared in the September 2005 issue, and the second article, "Structural Engineer’s Roundtable, Firm of the future: Challenges and ideals," appeared in the February 2006 issue.

The third roundtable article was approached a bit differently. I wanted to host a roundtable at the Structural Engineer’s Buildings Conference and Expo, held last December in Chicago, but I did not want to invite just a few engineers and I did not want to choose one topic. So, I hosted an open session with an open topic, and more than 50 engineers attended. Given that the format was different, the resulting article is different also.We extracted the topics and questions from the roundtable, and then looked to industry specialists for the answers.

The topics we included in the article, "Structural Engineer’s Roundtable: Three issues facing the structural engineering industry," which begins on page 16, are building code changes, risk management, and structural licensing and certification.

I have two more roundtable articles planned for this year—project management in June, and AEC technology in August. By the time I finish up with those last two, I will be planning my 2007 editorial calendar, including future roundtable articles. Please tell me what you think about this roundtable series, especially the change in format in this month’s article.What topics would you like to see covered? And, what are your ideas for "opening up the dialogue"? Speaking of wanting to hear from you, the Best Structural Engineering Firms To Work For Contest is accepting entries for another few weeks. This contest shines the spotlight on all of those firms that strive and succeed in creating stellar work environments for their employees. The April 21 deadline for this year’s contest is approaching quickly, and we definitely want to hear from your firm.

Visit www.gostructural.com/bestfirm.html for more information and to download the contest forms. Enter today!