Lee,
As a heavy user of MyCommunity I share your concern. I observe two types of MyCommunity users: (1) those who have it on all day and post frequently, like myself (although mostly these people are IET staff) and (2) people who set up a blank profile, register for a few groups and are never heard from again, and for the most part do not even respond to contact requests, from my experience.

LinkedIn has its place. Earlier this year I benchmarked the IET Tribology Network against the LinkedIn UK Tribology group. This was quite an informative processs and I recommend it. It is worth remembering, however, that the vast majority of LinkedIn users are passive. The LinkedIn groups that I am involved with are posted to by only a few of the several hundred members. Low engagement is nothing specific to MyCommunity and should not be seen as a unique problem.

From my perspective, the IET has its work cut out to compete with the likes of LinkedIn, Facebook, TED, YouTube and any number of "pretenders" such as InnovateUK.

I think the IET, as a professional institution stroke learned society, should have an online presence in social media, and that presence should command respect and credibility among serious engineering professionals. There should be nothing "me too" about that and (with respect) I think it is a subtly different aim to the one you mentioned.

Furthermore the IET's online effort needs to be sustained and self-motivating rather than relying on one-off initiatives or gimmicks. MyCommunity also needs to evolve over time in strategic aims, purpose, structure and engagement. We don't need MyCommunity to become the next Friends Reunited. A clear warning sign is the lack of a "mobile enabled" version of the site.

It is a competitive situation - competing for "face time" from busy professional people. It is a strategic imperative to do so, or we will passively contribute to a generational shift in which our kind of activity and institution becomes irrelevant to more recent entrants to our profession. From experience, it is not only in the online arena where the IET misses out on the younger end of the professional demographic.

I am very interested to find out what the IET is doing about it. As it reached into the fundamentals of the learned society / professional institution and what these terms mean in the 21st Century, I assume there is a commensurate top-down view within the IET.

Regards,
Geoff Kermode And no, the loss of line breaks in this message, caused by a less than competently designed social media system, is not the professional image I wish to project!

Lee,
As a heavy user of MyCommunity I share your concern. I observe two types of MyCommunity users: (1) those who have it on all day and post frequently, like myself (although mostly these people are IET staff) and (2) people who set up a blank profile, register for a few groups and are never heard from again, and for the most part do not even respond to contact requests, from my experience.

LinkedIn has its place. Earlier this year I benchmarked the IET Tribology Network against the LinkedIn UK Tribology group. This was quite an informative processs and I recommend it. It is worth remembering, however, that the vast majority of LinkedIn users are passive. The LinkedIn groups that I am involved with are posted to by only a few of the several hundred members. Low engagement is nothing specific to MyCommunity and should not be seen as a unique problem.

From my perspective, the IET has its work cut out to compete with the likes of LinkedIn, Facebook, TED, YouTube and any number of "pretenders" such as InnovateUK.

I think the IET, as a professional institution stroke learned society, should have an online presence in social media, and that presence should command respect and credibility among serious engineering professionals. There should be nothing "me too" about that and (with respect) I think it is a subtly different aim to the one you mentioned.

Furthermore the IET's online effort needs to be sustained and self-motivating rather than relying on one-off initiatives or gimmicks. MyCommunity also needs to evolve over time in strategic aims, purpose, structure and engagement. We don't need MyCommunity to become the next Friends Reunited. A clear warning sign is the lack of a "mobile enabled" version of the site.

It is a competitive situation - competing for "face time" from busy professional people. It is a strategic imperative to do so, or we will passively contribute to a generational shift in which our kind of activity and institution becomes irrelevant to more recent entrants to our profession. From experience, it is not only in the online arena where the IET misses out on the younger end of the professional demographic.

I am very interested to find out what the IET is doing about it. As it reached into the fundamentals of the learned society / professional institution and what these terms mean in the 21st Century, I assume there is a commensurate top-down view within the IET.

Regards,
Geoff Kermode And no, the loss of line breaks in this message, caused by a less than competently designed social media system, is not the professional image I wish to project!