Ask YC: Professional Societies Members?

1 point·manvsmachine··4 comments

Just got home from an on-campus gathering with the reps for a few societies, which got me wondering: who here is a member of ACM, IEEE, etc? Has your membership been particularly beneficial, i.e, would you recommend it to others?

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I joined the ACM in 1998, mainly to receive their journals, etc. I maintain my membership in the ACM primarily for the "acm.org" email address that I have used since 1998.

That is not to say, though, that I do not think their journals are worth reading. I simply don't have/make the time to read them. I personally think that the ACM digital library is a great thing to have access to, if your work and or leisure allows you time to read such things.

I keep thinking that someday I will have time to read all of these ACM publications I have accumulated. By then, the topics covered will surely no longer be state-of-the-art, and I will feel like I'm reading a 1983 issue of Byte Magazine with advertisements for $3000 5MB hard drives and what-not. But hey.

I joined IEEE for the insurance benefits alone. Tragically, they stopped offering group health insurance just after I joined, before I was eligible (you have to be a member for something like a year before you can get insurance policies). But they still have dental, and disability, and some other things.

It's very hard to get group insurance when you're a sole practitioner or a small businessperson.

IETF would be a good organization. many of its working groups set standards of various protocols

I was very involved in ACM/IEEE in college, but now I'm a member of the SMPTE. It's been very useful as far as standards are concerned.

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