Survey questions - IEEE IPF 2018

1. IEEE Presidents Survey Forum Questions

2. IEEE Organization
▸As a relative newcomer, I would like to hear Steve Welby’s perspectives on
the “State of the IEEE.” He spent a great deal of time when first joining IEEE
to obtain first-hand knowledge. We would like him to share what he
learned. We are particularly interested in his impressions on the following:
- What are IEEE’s biggest problems?
- Is IEEE’s organizational structure appropriate for the road ahead? If not,
what changes would you suggest?
- Did you identify things we need to stop doing?
- In the next two years, what specific IEEE policies will you implement to
reach the individual IEEE members?
- Did you just speak with staff or did you also speak to members
and volunteers when you were working to understand
the organization?1

3. Members and Volunteers
▸“IEEE has a 135-year history of volunteer support to achieve its
mission. As the top leadership of IEEE, you have a huge role in what
the membership thinks of the entire organization.”
- What do you see as the three top IEEE member issues? How do you plan
to resolve these issues?
- What are the specific directions that you, as an officer and leader of
IEEE, plan to implement to sustain that volunteer spirit?
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4. Members and Volunteers
▸“Attracting volunteers seems to be the main challenge that faces the
sections/chapters/affinity groups.”
- In your opinion, what can we do to make the volunteer roles more
attractive?
- Could we give free IEEE membership to the elected officers of these
groups?
- What could members do to make IEEE MGA more effective?
3

5. Members and Volunteers
▸ “I believe we would improve IEEE for its members by requiring
that all volunteers that take on a position of responsibility
complete an on-line course in “Non-profit organizational
leadership” and “How to effectively work with volunteers.”
- What is the on-boarding or training process today for volunteer
leaders?
- Is online training a viable and valuable suggestion?
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6. Membership Retention
▸Many members commented on member retention suggesting that we
should investigate using outside expertise, utilize more innovative tactics
and even re-inventing IEEE. Universally, the commenters thought that we
focus too much on the numbers and need to focus more on the value IEEE
provides to members.
- Is there a systemic reason why membership is falling?
- Has IEEE thought about applying professional marketing approaches
to this problem?
- Shouldn't we focus on how well the IEEE serves its members and
explore ways to do a better job?
- Do you think IEEE needs re-invention or a new organizational
structure?5

7. Member Communications
▸Members commented on the number of newsletters and bulletins
received each month, the possibility of using video more and the
need to hear from top leadership on a regular basis. The quality of
the material and writing was noted as improved and excellent.
- Would you consider consolidating all the newsletters and bulletins into
one document?
- Is video a viable alternative that could be used more?
- Would a monthly leadership column in the Institute be something you
would consider?
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8. Current focus on social welfare service instead of
professional member development
▸“For some time now, the discussion (at least in Region 2) on membership has
been focused on retention, without much consideration as to WHAT the
organization should do as a value proposition. The organization leads the
world in standards and other engineering-specific necessities, but of late has
focused on humanitarian approaches to the point of even de-emphasizing the
"electrical engineering" part of our title and using only the initials.”
- Is this perception accurate?
- Does the leadership really believe that this approach provides relevance
for members who can support social causes through many other avenues?
- Did people join IEEE for the first 135 years to do social service or to get
ahead in their profession and career?
- How has the change in emphasis been received by members?7

9. Creating Membership Value
▸“Many companies don't support IEEE because they are focused on the
short-term and expect employees to develop themselves. Maybe IEEE
should stop trying to win corporate support and focus on what the
Institute can do to develop individual members with Institute and
member resources.”
- Could IEEE add value by providing members with the development
resources that the more forward-thinking employers used to offer them?
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10. Creating Membership Value
▸Members are curious about how IEEE leadership views the delivery
and measurement of value to its members, especially in the fast-
paced world of today.
- How will you enumerate specific value when a new young practicing
engineer joins IEEE, beyond the publications and standards?
- What can IEEE do to help members cope with a fast-changing
employment environment?
- Are IEEE success metrics aligned with our members’ needs?
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11. Creating Membership Value
▸ “IEEE should consider a committee of members (not from
academia) that would study the issue of providing value to our
members in today’s professional environment. They would have to
be thoughtful, energetic, and practical people that would take
seriously the task of moving our organization forward and creating
value for our members.”
- What inventive strategies has IEEE considered to discover how to
deliver value to today’s professional?
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12. Promoting the Profession
▸“The IEEE was founded in the US and has expanded to become a
global organization. It seems all the promotion is about IEEE as an
organization and not about the engineering profession. Engineering is
a great profession that can be very rewarding, but only if it recognized
and its professionals compensated appropriately.”
- What is IEEE’s position on promoting the profession?
- Can IEEE become the AMA of electrical engineering professionals?
- Can IEEE promote engineering at the grade school and high school levels?
- Is there a different strategy for promoting engineering
domestically and internationally?
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13. Promoting the Profession
▸“The U.S. has evolved into largely a nation of consumers, which
appears to be losing its innovation and applied engineering edge.”
- Does IEEE leadership agree with this assessment, and what is its
strategy to alter this course?
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14. Publications and Standards
▸“One of IEEE's core strengths has been the development of technical
standards for industry, as well as providing academic journals and
publications. The competition from alternative, and sometimes free,
communication platforms is going to make this revenue stream
difficult to maintain.”
- What new sources of revenue do we have, or envision having, to replace
loss of revenue from traditional sources?
- What are leadership's plans to ensure continued stewardship in the
areas of standards and technical publications?
- Why is it that the IEEE publications are not free to members?
13

15. Publications and Standards
▸“Spectrum is an excellent publication and a positive reflection of
IEEE. Given its tagline, ‘for the technology insider’, why not also
distribute it to newsstands? It may be a good source of additional
revenue and would promote IEEE to the world.”
- What are your thoughts on this idea?
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16. The IEEE Organization
▸Many members had comments about their interaction with the IEEE staff
and organization. They perceive that departments could work together to
be more effective, that there is a need for a longer-term strategic plan, a
lack of clarity of who is responsible for what and a possible need for fresh
approaches to generating revenue.
Overall what do you see as the strengths and weaknesses of the IEEE
corporate organization?
 Have you found that the organization has silos and needs better
alignment?
 Would some external help be useful?
 What are your comments about the IEEE strategic
planning process?15

17. The IEEE Organization
▸“There are duplicate efforts to promote and increase the role of
women in engineering in both Member and Geographical Activities
(MGA) & Technical Activities (TA).”
- Why do we have dual efforts?
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18. IEEE in 2030
▸“IEEE Leadership conducted a panel in 2015 entitled ‘IEEE in
2030.’ Karen Bartleson also conducted a series of call-in video
sessions, I believe.”
- What was the outcome of the IEEE in 2030 effort, and what is the
plan going forward?
- How was the initiative intended to help the IEEE members
and organization?
17

19. IEEE Website
▸The IEEE.org website is massive, unorganized, and cluttered.
- What is IEEE leadership’s plan to streamline the site so that it can
be more inviting and intuitive (a higher usage rate) for the average
IEEE member?
- Has IEEE considered using some of the industry standard tools for
website improvement, such as the simple, “Was this page useful
(yes or no)?”, or the pop-up random survey?
18

20. The IEEE Annual Report
▸The recently released annual report summary created many
comments. Some very long and even phone calls. It was noted that
the word engineer or electrical engineer was sparsely used and the
lack of focus on members disappointing.
- Were any members consulted on the annual report?
- What are your thoughts on the annual report format and content?
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21. International
▸“I am interested to know IEEE Leadership's view and strategy for
the Asia Pacific Market, not only India and China, but also Japan. In
regard to membership development in Japan, the number of
members has been stable for years, which suggests that IEEE has a
good reputation in that country.”
- What kind of service will IEEE provide to such countries and how will it
expand business there?
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22. IEEE Collabratec®
▸“The vision for the Collabratec project seems unclear to many.”
- What are the key metrics for keeping such a big project active?
- How much has IEEE spent cumulatively on Collabratec’s development?
- Why didn’t IEEE contract to someone like Slack to customize their
commercial application for IEEE?
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23. Generating Membership Value
▸“My region has monthly member ship development calls to help
officers grow the number of members in their sections and in the
whole institute. It seems to me that we should instead
have member development meetings. If we are known for
developing our members, maybe that will attract more members.”
Do you agree that the problem with declining US member numbers is more
that potential members don't see the value in membership than that they
aren't aware of IEEE's activities, publications, and volunteer opportunities?
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24. International
▸“I would like the forum to address the cost of membership
especially in African countries (Nigeria). The exchange rate is
affecting students and professional people who want to join the
body. Please look into reducing the rate albeit we appreciate the
effort made because the rates are not as high as what is obtainable
in developed countries. Thanks.”
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25. International
▸“At least for my local chapter, there is a large gap in membership for
people in the under 30 age group.
▸Is this represented internationally?
▸What can we do to help recruit the next generation?”
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26. Programs
▸“How does IEEE work on improving the utilization of its unique
offerings/resources, such as Distinguishing Lecturer programme?
▸Does it attempt to unify the programs or at least introduce a search
function for it?
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