I’ve been an IEEE member for some time so yesterday I received in the mail the organization’s 2010 Annual Elections ballot and a little—well, it was 88 pages so perhaps it’s not so little—booklet listing the candidates, their biographies and brief position statements.
Two esteemed EEs are running for IEEE president-elect 2011: Gordon W. Day and Joseph V. Lille. Both gentlemen are retired—Day from the National Institute of Standards and Lille from AT&T—and both have resumes boasting impressive technical achievements and various IEEE awards and accolades.
Reading through their prepared statements I found nice, if antiseptic, language about leadership, global opportunities and the need to develop programs that better meet the needs of IEEE members (sorry, no specifics in either case).
I n the past critics of the IEEE have charged that while the organization does terrific work in standards, provides important conferences and a wonderful publishing haven for academics and those involved in R and D, it offers too little applications-oriented material of immediate value to design engineers.
What do you think? If you are a member (or, for our friends in the UK a member of the somewhat similar IET) what do you consider the principal member benefit? If you are not a member, are there programs/services that the IEEE (or IET) could offer that would be attractive to you?
