> It’s hard for me to believe that the IEEE’s membership isn’t going off a demographic cliff these days as their membership ages It isn't, because anybody who

> It’s hard for me to believe that the IEEE’s membership isn’t going off a demographic cliff these days as their membership ages It isn't, because anybody who wants to publish in an IEEE conferences has to pay a fee X as a member or Y as a non-member, where X + IEEE membership fee < Y. So young graduate students just join because our advisers tell us we must to save money. Of course, we get mail advertiesments from people (like insurers) who IEEE sells our membership information to. I think everybody in my demographic (young grad students) views this organization as basically operating a racket. I bet they actually do lots of really great stuff. But they've never told me anything about that. It's not like there was an information session when I "joined" (paid up). So it's sad. IEEE has a real image problem.