To: Region 3 ExCom 
Fr: David Green, Region 3 ECC 
Sb: Electronic Communications Coordinator Report 
Dt: 5 April 2005

I have agreed to continue to work with Communications Chair Bill
Ratcliff, Vice Chair Bill Clayton,  Webmaster Chip Dawson, Newsletter
Editor Quang Tang and many others this year to help facilitate
communications for IEEE service to the member.  I am serving as the
Electronic Communications Coordinator (ECC).

As ECC, I serve on the RAB Section/Chapter Support Committee's subcommittee
for Electronic Communication (trying saying that three times!).  I am pleased to note that our Communications Committee Chair has been selected to chair this committee in 2005.  So as ECC, I get to report to Bill Ratcliff in two dimensions!

The electronic services used by IEEE volunteers includes E-mail, mailing
lists, Newsgroups, Web services, TWiki Site, IRC, eNotice, aliases and as well as experimental capabilities like richer conferencing environments and
collaboration services.

As a Region (perhaps as a society), we continue to rely on e-mail even in this day of other collaborative tools.  I would note that these systems require attention so that problems don't occur.  In the past week, I have noted:

  * Two ExCom members who mail boxes overflowed
  * A problem where AOL has decided that mail from IEEE was spam thus
    blocking all mail through the IEEE servers to AOL users.
  * A problem with the IEEE alias servers resulting in a >3 day delay in   
    mail processing.
    
The problem, of course, is the large of volume of mail (much of which is unwanted) that strains our systems and our time.  I think we must be willing to try new systems if we want to escape these problems and remain effective.  The Communications Committee continues to look at alternatives including the IEEE Virtual Community for carrying out our work.