New IEEE Membership Directory to Roll Out

Region 3 Leaders,

You may recall that some Region 3 long-time members were very upset

with the demise of the paper IEEE Member Directory (2 volumes) for

cost reasons, around 2003. As a result, in 2005 (after activist

support from Bob Duggan, Jim Beall and others) then-Director Bill

Harrison put an item on the RAB agenda to look into revival of the

directory in some form. It was referred to Membership Development,

and a plan for an on-line membership directory evolved.

That directory, called MemberNet, will be available this

spring. John Day has promised that a IEEE staff member will be

present at Huntsville to brief the Region 3 meeting about this development.

Briefly, owing to privacy concerns, the directory will initially

contain only name and present member grade, but the member can

"opt-in" to include other information as well.. The paper directory

included member grade history and dates as well as work affiliation,

contact information and, for Fellows, a brief biography with their

citation and other awards. This latter information made it

invaluable for Fellow nominators and references.

The new directory will be available through the "My IEEE" portal, and

can contain a variety of information - that the member wants to share.

The directory will have advantages for peer-to-peer networking

(identifying/locating other society members in your area), and for

member recruitment and retention (e.g., aiding in senior member

elevations). It will include a search capability. It will include

higher-grade members (including associate members) but not affiliates.

It can also fill a "Rolodex" function for members, and John Day has

solicited ideas for how this can be implemented and used.

The "My IEEE" portal is functional now, and can be populated with as

much information as you want to put into it. Again, it will be

opt-in management (by you) with the security of your web account for access.

Regards,

George

George F McClure

g.mcclure@ieee.org

1730 Shiloh Ln

Winter Park, FL 32789

407 647-5092

Fax 407 644-4076

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