Hi,

In the last seven days I've had no less than 12 emails from the IET, of which two were actually of interest and relevant to me.

In "MyIET" I'm pared down to just one community (Comms Networks & Services) and one LN (Bristol), plus I assume that I'm on the IET100/250 type stuff be virtue of being an LN Chair.

However, I've had emails on such disparate subjects as the Manchester Histories Festival, professional development in Birmingham, IET Media Coverage, civilian UAVs, road transport, security systems and the Sir Henry Royce Memorial Lecture.

What on earth am I doing wrong?! Does anyone have any top tips?

Russ.

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Eur Ing Dr. Russell J. Haines BEng(Hons) CEng FIET SMIEEE SMACM AMRI
IET Bristol Chair, College/Schools Liaison; Publicity; Acting Hon. Sec.
http://www.theiet.org/bristol, Twitter: @IETbristol

Hi Russ,

Thank you for your message. I will have a look into this for you and see if I can shed any light and provide any advice about MyIET preferences.

I also wanted to let you know that you are not alone in this concern and I am attending a meeting tomorrow with colleagues from around the IET to discuss this very issue.

Regards,
Fiona

Fiona Dew
Community Communications Manager

email: fdew@theiet.org
tel: 01438 767645

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Fiona Dew
Community Communications Manager
The IET

Hi Fiona,

Thank you for you reply: it's comforting to know that this is not just me doing something stupid (hopefully...)!

I look forward to hearing more,

Cheers,

Russ.

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Eur Ing Dr. Russell J. Haines BEng(Hons) CEng FIET SMIEEE SMACM AMRI
IET Bristol Chair, College/Schools Liaison; Publicity; Acting Hon. Sec.
http://www.theiet.org/bristol, Twitter: @IETbristol

12 emails in 7 days! I normally receive over 50 emails each day (not counting 30 spam) and those from the IET get lost in the noise. It only takes a second to delete.

Some years ago there was a policy from the IET of limiting the number of emails, that made it very difficult for my group to arrange lectures at short notice, and also made it difficult to file items of interest since each email covered many items.

So my opposite view is that the present situation is fine.

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regards, Rod Dalitz (CEng MIEE FInstP)
rod.dalitz@blueyonder.co.uk

Hi Rod,

It's great that you're happy with the amount of email arriving in your inbox and that you've got time to scan through them and delete them, thanks.

My question, however, was about how to tailor that to individual needs and wishes (specifically, in this case, mine!). There's a raft of preferences that we can tweak in "MyIET" which purport to allow us to configure how much email we receive. However, these don't seem particularly effective as I'm receiving emails outside of what I've "ticked".

Compare with (say) LinkedIn, where I can configure the frequency of any emails, for example, setting topic digest emails as daily/weekly/never, and whether I get emails when messaged or a connection request is made.

Regards,

Russ.
PS: There's a certain amount of irony in that I've just received an email from Fiona Dew (see above), the first weekly communities update email, in which Fiona says "I know that you receive a lot of communications from the IET and I am working to develop and streamline communications channels, but in the meantime please do take a moment to read this email each week." :-)

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Eur Ing Dr. Russell J. Haines BEng(Hons) CEng FIET SMIEEE SMACM AMRI
IET Bristol Chair, College/Schools Liaison; Publicity; Acting Hon. Sec.
http://www.theiet.org/bristol, Twitter: @IETbristol

Example - email just arrived about cyber-security. Two options at the bottom:
If you wish to unsubscribe, please click the link here: http://email.theietevents.org/f/etc.etc. - which is a complete unsubscribe from everything
Alternatively, if you have a MyIET online account, to amend your communication preferences please visit: http://www.theiet.org/my - which I've tried, I've checked, and nothing says "cyber-security".

<shrug!>

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Eur Ing Dr. Russell J. Haines BEng(Hons) CEng FIET SMIEEE SMACM AMRI
IET Bristol Chair, College/Schools Liaison; Publicity; Acting Hon. Sec.
http://www.theiet.org/bristol, Twitter: @IETbristol

If you can, just check those emails and delete them in bulk if you are not interested in opening them one by one.

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Link removed

Thanks, storres27 - that would never have occurred to me. Do you offer IT support?!

I'm trying to help the IET to tailor their email messages so that members receive ones they're interested in, rather than getting a scatter-gun barrage of emails which has the end result of, as you suggest, deleting them en masse. That makes the IET email system somewhat self-defeating.

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Eur Ing Dr. Russell J. Haines BEng(Hons) CEng FIET SMIEEE SMACM AMRI
IET Bristol Chair, College/Schools Liaison; Publicity; Acting Hon. Sec.
http://www.theiet.org/bristol, Twitter: @IETbristol

Russ, the watchword is "be careful". Last year I asked if I could be spared the frequent advertisements from the IET for events that are a few hundred km from me and in a field in which I have declared no interest. "No problem, it's done," was the reply. It took me a year to realise that I wasn't receiving anything at all. To fine tune the system shouldn't be that difficult but it seems to be impossible for the IET.

I have since met others in the same situation and who hadn't realised that they weren't receiving any mail from the IET.

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Mike Wrigley
Past Chairman, French Network

It does seem to be a very blunt instrument - opting out comprises a single tick box for "Events"!

Surely it can't be that hard to only send me events in (say) a 20 mile radius and/or that are in my technology interest areas, seeing as both of these pieces of information have been entered numerous times in various incarnations of the IET websites?

Could've sworn we were a technology institution. Indeed, along with the BCS, probably one that you'd expect to be able to use this new fangled computer thingies... :-D

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Eur Ing Dr. Russell J. Haines BEng(Hons) CEng FIET SMIEEE SMACM AMRI
IET Bristol Chair, College/Schools Liaison; Publicity; Acting Hon. Sec.
http://www.theiet.org/bristol, Twitter: @IETbristol

You can certainly specify precisely those things in an events search.

However, staff and volunteers will attempt to select the most relevant members when sending out information about events, and the issue is taken seriously, since it is in no-one's interests to send out irrelevant mailings. One of the challenges is that, I would suggest, the distance that delegates will travel to an event is rather dependent on its length - very different for a three-day conference and an evening meeting, for example. Feedback is always welcome on the relevance of mailings - it's easier to assess if you give specific details of the actual mailing(s) concerned.

I do not have direct knowledge of Mike's case, but, if his request was as stated, it may have been misinterpreted as a request to stop sending all events information. Obviously, our apologies for this.

Regards

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David Rossall
Manager, Internet Services Group
The Institution of Engineering and Technology