Special Technical Communities (STCs) are new organisational entities within the IEEE Computer Society (CS) aiming to provide focused knowledge on a given subject in order to foster technological innovation and excellence for the benefit of humanity. STCs offer a new engagement model for IEEE Computer Society members and much broader computer practitioner world to collaborate for their individual and mutual benefit, specifically to advance technical topics to the benefit of the profession.

The main objectives of STCs are:

• Extend the Computer Society beyond traditional membership and activities
• Give new outlets for the membership to create and distribute more IP
• Enrich professional activities (e.g. newsletters, sharing of best practices); and Strengthen governance through new dynamic organisational structure.

In June 2011 Dejan Milojicic and Phil Laplante introduced STC as the future of the IEEE-CS [1]. The STC benefits to the community can be summarised as follows: More flexible, dynamic, technologically current collaboration under CS (e.g., easier conference management, IP access, agile technical communities); Vertically integrated CS, i.e., communities, products and services; Offer easy, lightweight startup, services- rich CS offering, vertical in nature (topic- specific publications, standards, classes, webinars, books, etc.); and Custom-designed IP bundles, discount/free: magazines, conferences, standards, essentialsets/readynotes, professional certification, webinars, etc.

In December 2011, Sorel Reisman (2011 president) emphasised the role of STCs [2] as an extension of Instant Communities (instantiated by Jim Isaak, 2010 president) which has been continued throughout 2012 by John W. Walz (2012 president) [3]. Additionally, in [4] Dejan S. Milojicic et al. are explaining Computing Now and STCs who are working closely together towards their ambitious goals. A 'first publication' in this context is the Computing Now December 2012 monthly theme on Social Multimedia Communication [5].References
[1] Dejan S. Milojicic, Phil Laplante, "Special Technical Communities," IEEE Computer, vol. 44, no. 6, pp. 84-88, June, 2011.
[2] Sorel Reisman, "Looking Back, Looking Forward," IEEE Computer, vol. 44, no. 12, pp. 8- 10, December, 2011.
[3] John W. Walz, "Creating Our Future," IEEE Computer, vol. 45, no. 1, pp. 6-7, January, 2012. [4] Dejan S. Milojicic, Martin Arlitt, Doree Duncan Seligmann, George K. Thiruvathukal, Christian Timmerer, "Innovation Mashups: Academic Rigor Meets Social Networking Buzz," IEEE Computer, vol. 45, no. 9, pp. 101-105, September, 2012.
[5] Christian Timmerer, "Social Multimedia Communication," IEEE Computing Now,December, 2012.