Special Interest Group
A special interest group (SIG) is a community within a larger organization with a shared interest in advancing a specific area of knowledge, learning or technology where members cooperate to effect or to produce solutions within their particular field, and may communicate, meet, and organize conferences. The term was used in 1961 by the Association for Computing Machinery (ACM), an academic and professional computer society. SIG was later popularized on CompuServe, an early online service provider, where SIGs were a section of the service devoted to particular interests. Technical SIGs The ACM includes many SIGs, some starting as smaller "Special Interest Committees" and formed the first group in 1961. ACM supports further subdivision within SIGs for more impromptu informal discussion groups at conferences which are called Birds of a Feather (BoF). ACM's Special Interest Groups (SIGs) represent major areas of computing, addressing the interests of technical communities that dri ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Business Conference
A convention (or event), in the sense of a meeting, is a gathering of individuals who meet at an arranged place and time in order to discuss or engage in some common interest. The most common conventions are based upon industry, profession, and fandom. Trade conventions typically focus on a particular industry or industry segment, and feature keynote speakers, vendor displays, and other information and activities of interest to the event organizers and attendees. Professional conventions focus on issues of concern along with advancements related to the profession. Such conventions are generally organized by societies or communities dedicated to promotion of the topic of interest. Fan conventions usually feature displays, shows, and sales based on pop culture and guest celebrities. Science fiction conventions traditionally partake of the nature of both professional conventions and fan conventions, with the balance varying from one to another. Conventions also exist for vari ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Japan Association For Language Teaching
The Japan Association for Language Teaching (JALT), or 特定非営利活動法人全国語学教育学会 (“Specified Nonprofit Corporation – Zenkoku Gogaku Kyoiku Gakkai”) in Japanese, is a non-profit professional organization for foreign language teachers in Japan. Japan's "largest convocation of language educators", JALT has 2,800 members, many of whom are non-Japanese who have settled in Japan. Each member may belong to a local chapter, and has the option of also belonging to Special Interest Groups (SIGs). JALT holds an annual conference, and has done so since 1975. JALT produces a bimonthly magazine, a semiannual journal, and an annual conference proceedings. History The first beginnings of the association began with a casual get-together (based on an interest in the Silent Way teaching method) organised in 1975 by Sharon Bode, then Chief Instructor at the Kyoto YMCA. A subsequent meeting was held at the National L.L. School in Osaka in spring 1976, where it was ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Issue Advocacy Ads
Issue advocacy ads (also known as interest advocacy ads or issue only ads) are communications intended to bring awareness to a certain problem. Groups that sponsor this form of communication are known by several names including: interest advocacy group, issue advocacy group, issue only group, or special interest group. The problems these groups raise awareness of can be either a social or political issue. Interest versus express advocacy The bright-line test doesn't cover forms of communication that are indirect or debatable. Consider this message to voters: *''If you like candidate X, you need to know he did Y.'' In a communication like this, there is no mention about voting, however, the plain intention is to cast doubt on voters that supported candidate X. Campaigning like this is typically called negative campaigning, making attack ads, or making thinly veiled promotional ads on the behalf of the candidate. Interest advocacy Interest advocacy is the act of making genera ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Advocacy Group
Advocacy groups, also known as lobby groups, interest groups, special interest groups, pressure groups, or public associations, use various forms of advocacy or lobbying to influence public opinion and ultimately public policy. They play an important role in the development of political and social systems. Motives for action may be based on Politics, political, Economy, economic, religious, morality, moral, commerce, commercial or common good-based positions. Groups Methods used by advocacy groups, use varied methods to try to achieve their aims, including lobbying, media campaigns, consciousness raising, awareness raising publicity stunts, Opinion poll, polls, research, and policy briefings. Some groups are supported or backed by powerful business or political interests and exert considerable influence on the political process, while others have few or no such resources. Some have developed into important social, and political institutions or social movements. Some powerful advo ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Sierra Club
The Sierra Club is an American environmental organization with chapters in all 50 U.S. states, Washington, D.C., Washington D.C., and Puerto Rico. The club was founded in 1892, in San Francisco, by preservationist John Muir. A product of the Progressivism in the United States, progressive movement, it was one of the first large-scale environmental preservation organizations in the world. It has lobbied for policies to promote sustainable energy and mitigating global warming, as well as Beyond Coal, opposing the use of coal, hydropower, and nuclear power. Its political endorsements generally favor Modern liberalism in the United States, liberal and progressive candidates in elections. In addition to political advocacy, the Sierra Club organizes outdoor recreation activities, and has historically been a notable organization for mountaineering and rock climbing in the United States. Members of the Sierra Club pioneered the Yosemite Decimal System of climbing, and were responsible fo ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Lobbying
Lobbying is a form of advocacy, which lawfully attempts to directly influence legislators or government officials, such as regulatory agency, regulatory agencies or judiciary. Lobbying involves direct, face-to-face contact and is carried out by various entities, including individuals acting as Voting, voters, constituents, or private citizens, corporations pursuing their business interests, nonprofits and Non-governmental organization, NGOs through advocacy groups to achieve their missions, and legislators or government officials influencing each other in legislative affairs. Lobbying or certain practices that share commonalities with lobbying are sometimes referred to as government relations, or government affairs and sometimes legislative relations, or legislative affairs. It is also an Industry (economics), industry known by many of the aforementioned names, and has a near-complete overlap with the public affairs industry. Lobbyists may fall into different categories: amateur lo ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Mensa International
Mensa International is the largest and oldest high-IQ society in the world. It is a non-profit organization open to people who score at the 98th percentile or higher on a standardised, supervised IQ or other approved intelligence test. Mensa formally comprises national groups and the umbrella organisation Mensa International, with a registered office in Caythorpe, Lincolnshire, England, which is separate from the British Mensa office in Wolverhampton. Etymology The word ''mensa'' (, ) is Latin for ' table', as is symbolised in the organisation's logo, and was chosen to demonstrate the round-table nature of the organisation: the coming together of equals. History Australian Roland Berrill and Lancelot Ware, a British scientist and lawyer, founded Mensa at Lincoln College, in Oxford, England in 1946, with the intention of forming a society for the most intelligent, with the only qualification being a high IQ. The society was ostensibly to be non-political in its aims and ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Identity Politics
Identity politics is politics based on a particular identity, such as ethnicity, Race (human categorization), race, nationality, religion, Religious denomination, denomination, gender, sexual orientation, Socioeconomic status, social background, political affiliation, caste, Ageing, age, education, disability, opinion, intelligence, and social class. The term encompasses various often-populist political phenomena and rhetoric, such as governmental migration policies that regulate mobility and opportunity based on identities, left-wing agendas involving intersectional politics or class reductionism, and right-wing nationalist agendas of exclusion of national or ethnic "others." The term ''identity politics'' dates to the late twentieth century, although it had precursors in the writings of individuals such as Mary Wollstonecraft and Frantz Fanon. Many contemporary advocates of identity politics take an Intersectionality theory, intersectional perspective, which they argue accoun ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Association For Computing Machinery
The Association for Computing Machinery (ACM) is a US-based international learned society for computing. It was founded in 1947 and is the world's largest scientific and educational computing society. The ACM is a non-profit professional membership group, reporting nearly 110,000 student and professional members . Its headquarters are in New York City. The ACM is an umbrella organization for academic and scholarly interests in computer science (informatics). Its motto is "Advancing Computing as a Science & Profession". History In 1947, a notice was sent to various people: On January 10, 1947, at the Symposium on Large-Scale Digital Calculating Machinery at the Harvard computation Laboratory, Professor Samuel H. Caldwell of Massachusetts Institute of Technology spoke of the need for an association of those interested in computing machinery, and of the need for communication between them. ..After making some inquiries during May and June, we believe there is ample interest to ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Trade Unions
A trade union (British English) or labor union (American English), often simply referred to as a union, is an organization of workers whose purpose is to maintain or improve the conditions of their employment, such as attaining better wages and Employee benefits, benefits, improving Work (human activity), working conditions, improving safety standards, establishing complaint procedures, developing rules governing status of employees (rules governing promotions, just-cause conditions for termination) and protecting and increasing the bargaining power of workers. Trade unions typically fund their head office and legal team functions through regularly imposed fees called ''union dues''. The union representatives in the workforce are usually made up of workplace volunteers who are often appointed by members through internal democratic elections. The trade union, through an elected leadership and bargaining committee, bargains with the employer on behalf of its members, known as t ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |
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Quaker
Quakers are people who belong to the Religious Society of Friends, a historically Protestant Christian set of denominations. Members refer to each other as Friends after in the Bible, and originally, others referred to them as Quakers because the founder of the movement, George Fox, told a judge to "quake before the authority of God". The Friends are generally united by a belief in each human's ability to be guided by the inward light to "make the witness of God" known to everyone. Quakers have traditionally professed a priesthood of all believers inspired by the First Epistle of Peter. They include those with evangelical, holiness, liberal, and traditional Quaker understandings of Christianity, as well as Nontheist Quakers. To differing extents, the Friends avoid creeds and hierarchical structures. In 2017, there were an estimated 377,557 adult Quakers, 49% of them in Africa followed by 22% in North America. Some 89% of Quakers worldwide belong to ''evangelical'' a ... [...More Info...]       [...Related Items...]     OR:     [Wikipedia]   [Google]   [Baidu]   |