New Zealand Engineering 1998 June

Time & Money

For over two thousand members this magazine is no longer their principal connection to the Institution. Since its inaugural transmission on 20 February 1998 that role has been steadily supplanted by the IPENZ eZine, an electronic mail magazine dispatched every Friday.

The eZine (which costs IPENZ nothing at all to distribute in New Zealand) contains short news items about matters of interest to members. So far about half a dozen members have requested not to receive it, but well over ten times that number have subsequently asked for it. One company even mounts it on an intranet.

The beauty of the eZine (apart from saving $15,000 to "print and mail" over NZE) is its disposability. One click to toss it in your computer's recycle bin and that information is gone. No treated paper and ink in the landfill. If you want to look it up again simply point your browser at ftp://ftp.ipenz.org.nz and a whole library of back issues is sitting there occupying only a few kilobytes of space on a disk here at National Office.

Another important feature is time. The eZine can handle matters that will be awfully mouldy by the time the next New Zealand Engineering hits the mail. During the Mercury crisis the chief executive, Warwick Bishop, was able to issue special editions of the eZine which made it possible for the Institution to say quite credibly that it was able to tap into the wealth of experience and knowledge of its members. Members could even discuss the issue by registering for the discuss email list.

As another example of timeliness the jobs email list is happily distributing situations vacant notices to interested engineers in time segments a monthly magazine is useless for and is proving very popular with recruiters.

Two thousand eZine recipients is certainly a good number to start with. But one has to ask what has happened to the other six thousand members of the Institution? Do they have email? Do they have computers? Are they aware the twentieth century is nearly over? Here I have to pay tribute to the excellent work Telecom's Xtra service has done in making internet access very affordable, accessible even to the remotest location and relatively easy to operate. This has set an excellent benchmark for competitors in retail internet service provision. We can only assume these trends will continue.

Already the technology is available to turn the text-only eZine into a hypertext document incorporating pictures, sound, video and attached programs. Of course this requires that members can receive such files comfortably. Technical issues aside there is also the ergonomics of trying to read a screen. People will not read long articles on a screen, and enjoy the tactile experience of a magazine.For that reason this magazine will doubtless continue to be coffee table reading well into the next century.

What has yet to become clear, however, is when engineers will start to feel comfortable about using the electronic medium. The answer to that one is in your hands.

If you would like to receive the eZine please email Claire@ipenz.org.nz including your membership number and email address. For more information about other email services send a blank email to eservices@ipenz.org.nz.