I just shot (most of) this on a forum discussing the failure of one high profile professional organization to attract new members. Particularly, it's special interest sections are seeing a marked decrease in membership.
One of the staples of the (already long-running) discussion has been that the organization tends not to provide knowledge or connections valuable to one's immediate career objectives.
Another long running theme has been that the fees are quite high and most companies no longer reimburse them. When coming on top of other expenses needed to keep up-to-date with all the new data in one's domain, they may be a burden not everyone can afford.
Combine the two "issues" and the "incentives" to join a prestigious professional organization get blown through all windows.
That puts (someone like) me in a somewhat awkward position.
I never had my membership paid by any company I worked with. And always expected the organization and, especially, the "sections" to allow me a glimpse at the information that was going to be the basis for patents 10-20 years down the road.
That (my feeble mind thought) was something worth paying for - it keeps you thinking, imagining future practical practical things.
Especially if the "job" you currently do discourages any such thinking.
I have tried to keep away from accepting positions that would make me say "this is not why I wanted to be an engineer". And succeeded, most of the time.
A lot of people weren't so lucky - or, at least, that's what they say. Except that was (and is) no luck.
It is not easy to do. There are darker periods, when the amount of compromise you (think you) have to accept makes you deeply uncomfortable with yourself. Yet, that's all right as long as you remember you are compromising and actively struggle to escape it.
Most of our peers, however, forgot - or never learned - how not to make one-sided compromise a way of life.
The overall economic and social climate is not helping, either.
I can see things being "corrected" for "prestigious professional organizations" in the near future the same way the post-secondary education system corrected itself: by responding better to the needs of "Industry".
The most probable net result will be that a lot of engineers - other "professionals" may be in the same boat - will be supplied with recipes on how to solve their latest current problem. Quick, "cost effective" recipes: a discounted five-day course that promises to teach us a specific skill, a "how-to, cookbook" - of solutions for tomorrow's next tasks.
None of those things that would help us understand what we're trying to do.
So, we will have more and more "VHDL/Verilog programmers" instead of circuit designers. More Computer Science graduates being only glorified Java or C# programmers. More PhDs in Computer Science that do not know what "polymorphism" is and cannot code a "bubble sort" in any language. More Computer Engineering PhDs that could not design a functioning processor if their life depended on it.
I, on the other hand, would like to meet more engineers that think for themselves and strive, at least, to understand what happens around them.
Engineers that can imagine things based on "practical fantasy" (Jules Verne). Engineers that participate in technological research and can project it into "the next reality" with all it's human implications (Arthur C. Clarke). And engineers that can keep the (star)ship running, no matter what (Scotty).
Unfortunately, such engineers would have a very hard time passing the first interview, nowadays, even with companies that promote themselves as progressive or innovative...
Companies that, most often, just cling to a moment of inspiration that may have happened, once, in the past.
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