Path: utzoo!utgpu!jarvis.csri.toronto.edu!mailrus!cornell!uw-beaver!mit-eddie!rutgers!bellcore!dduck!duncan
From: duncan@dduck.ctt.bellcore.com (Scott Duncan)
Newsgroups: comp.org.ieee
Subject: Re: IEEE Computer Society Membership drive
Message-ID: <15908@bellcore.bellcore.com>
Date: 5 May 89 11:05:43 GMT
References: <495@pai.UUCP>
Sender: news@bellcore.bellcore.com
Reply-To: duncan@ctt.bellcore.com (Scott Duncan)
Lines: 43

In article <495@pai.UUCP> erc@pai.UUCP (Eric Johnson) writes:
>
>Obviously the IEEE has an ACM membership list.  I only ask that
>they please cross-reference this list against their own membership
>lists, since:
        [...]
>3) It must cost the IEEE to send out these letters.  Why are they
>wasting their money (money that comes in part from my dues)?
        [...]

While I can't argue with Eric's other three points, this one does not seem to
actually work out in fact, though it seems logical that it should, i.e., that
membership list coordination would save money.

It is my understanding that the effort (human and machine) that it would take
to coordinate such an effort (especially when some of the lists are made
available ONLY as labels, not electronically) is very large compared to the
bulk rate non-profit mailing costs (and cost of materials mailed).

I used to work for a software vendor whose clients included companies with
large mailing lists.  Mailing list maintenance was/is a large problem that
they seemed to bypass due to the cost benefit.  (Image cost is, apparently,
not considered a problem or not a costly one.)

An example are the subscription records of a magazine publisher.  If the
subscription is in the name of one family member, but gets paid by another,
with perhaps a different mailing address, things can get very messy.  The
number of renewals, cancellations, etc. that come in are very large, so
maintaining one's own list is difficult enough without the worry of correlating
it with other lists for marketing purposes.

So while it sounds like it makes sense to do this, it does not, usually, from
cost perspective if you're a big enough organization to afford that kind of
mailing in the first place. In the case of the IEEE, I might assume that they
and the ACM could exchange mailing lists via labels.  Did the label on the
letter you got look suspiciously like an ACM label, i.e., did it have your ACM
membership number on it?  In any event, logic and common sense do not seem to
hold in the case of mailing lists!

Speaking only for myself, of course, I am...
Scott P. Duncan (duncan@ctt.bellcore.com OR ...!bellcore!ctt!duncan)
                (Bellcore, 444 Hoes Lane  RRC 1H-210, Piscataway, NJ  08854)
                (201-699-3910 (w)   201-463-3683 (h))