With new blood joining the ComSoc Jordan Chapter executive committee (ExCom), the ExCom adopted the strategy of engaging ComSoc members on every level. ComSoc Members fall into three main categories: students, academics and professionals. Every tier has unique characteristics that should be considered when approaching them.
Although there is no clear single strategy-fits-all to approach those categories, social networking is the means to reach a significant number of people. Thus, the ExCom started by focusing on the official facebook (FB) page. In less than a year we managed to increase FB followers from less than 10 to around 800. This ensured that we had very good exposure for our activities. Students were the first class to be targeted. We decided to reach out to students by setting up ComSoc booths in student-related events. The first event the ComSoc Jordan Chapter attended was IEEE Grand Tech, which is an annual technology fair for the computer society student chapter held this year in the Hashemite University in April. The attendance was decent but as expected. Part of the reason was not having virtually no printed material for publicity. Hence, we designed a couple of brochures highlighting the benefits of ComSoc membership.
Nonetheless, we received positive feedback from the students. In fact, not long afterward, students from the Al-Balqa’ Applied University (BAU) expressed their wish to establish a ComSoc student chapter. The second student event attended was a promotional talk at the BAU about the benefits of ComSoc membership, intended to support the new student chapter, given by the ComSoc Jordan Chapter chair, Dr. Sami Aldalahmeh. Fortunately, the BAU ComSoc student chapter has been very active and participated in organizing the IEEE Jordan Section and Young Professional (JSYP) 2018 event. The ComSoc Jordan Chapter participated in the technical program of the JSYP 2018, in which it provided a technical workshop titled “Software Defined Radio (SDR): Road to 5G,” in addition to a roundtable discussion with the students about the requirements of the 5G-based market.
In addition, a booth was reserved for us and at this time we had the opportunity to present more publicity material, also designed by us. Finally, the ComSoc Jordan Chapter presented a live SDR on IEEE Day at BAU.
Our next event was to target academics, who are a vital part of the community. However, their interests are very different from the students’ interests. In general, academics, being one myself, are more interested in technical topics. As such, the ComSoc Jordan Chapter hosted a professional from National Instruments (NI) who gave an interesting lecture on SDR and its potential in research.
The ComSoc Jordan Chapter obtained an interesting list of recorded training courses on timely topics such as LTE fundamentals, IoT and software defined networks (SDNs). Those courses where offered with a generous discount from ComSoc headquarters. After a FB survey on our page, it seemed that IoT is the most popular topic to our members. Thus, we organized an event centerd around ComSoc’s training course titled “Wireless for IoT” with coffee breaks and commentary.
Our members also contributed to the ComSoc Jordan Chapter by volunteering to give technical talks as well. Dr. Ghazi Al-Sukar, a past chair, gave an energetic and engaging talk about cognitive radios.
Finally, we are considering methods to connect with professionals, the last group of our member base. Unfortunately, it seems to be difficult to reach out to them due to their busy schedules. However, we are working with the IEEE young professionals to find effectives ways to connect with them. In the end, engagement with members with different backgrounds is what enriches IEEE ComSoc.