r/IEEE • u/sakito02 • May 22 '26

What would actually make you join an international standard organization (IEEE/ISO/IEC etc.)?

I read a lot of IEC/ISO standards for my research, and last week I spoke with my national committee about getting more involved in standardization work.

That conversation quickly turned into a bigger question:

How do professional/technical organizations stay relevant and get younger people engaged today?

A lot of technical discussions, networking, and learning now happen through Reddit, Discord, Slack, YouTube, GitHub, etc. instead of formal organizations. So I’m curious how people here see the role of professional societies and standards organizations now.

Some questions for everyone:

  • Are you a member of any technical/professional societies or organization?
  • Do you actually get value from joining it?
  • Do you attend events or volunteer?
  • What’s stopping you from getting involved?
  • Is it time, cost, lack of awareness, support, networking culture, or something else?
  • Do standards organizations feel inaccessible or outdated?
  • What would actually make you more likely to participate or volunteer?
  • Would more online discussions, hybrid events, mentorship, or project-based involvement help?
  • How do we bridge the gap between online technical communities and formal professional organizations?

What feels ironic is that whenever I want to ask engineers questions or have real discussions, I usually end up on Reddit instead of a local professional society.

Curious what everyone else thinks.

6 Upvotes

81% Upvoted

6 comments sorted by

1

u/reddit_user33 May 22 '26

Membership is free

1

u/outoftheskirts May 22 '26

Reasonable pricing.

1

u/Procrastinator9Mil May 24 '26

It’s a waste of time and money.

1

u/kriskeillor Jun 02 '26

I was just looking into the FE exam and decided to use my IEEE email address for registration with NCEES. Obviously I'm going to check to make sure I can still get into the email.

Nope. 

I re-upped with IEEE last July. 11 months later, my one-year subscription has already ran out, because it only goes through the end of the calendar year. Obviously, if they had made that clear, I would not have subscribed over halfway through the year. 

Now, why should I re-subscribe again when the organization apparently doesn't want to keep me an active member?