Do today’s engineers actually need engineering publications? Perhaps a better question is this: How much of the information being published today is helping engineers be more effective in terms of doing their jobs? Between online and printed material, there is no question that a ton of information is being created all the time. But how much of that information is actually useful to engineers? That question is likely to produce a wide range of answers.
Of course, delivering quality information to its audience should be the goal of any media outlet. In the engineering realm, the massive amount of information for engineers to sift through seems to have no end. But does high quantity also translate to high quality? While the internet and social media can produce more content today, just how valuable is that content? How much of today’s information is “good” information and how much of it is “not-so-good”?
Another issue concerns the amount of time that engineers have to go through all of the information being made available. With new information to choose from every day, do engineers even have the time to examine it all? Obviously, the answer is “probably not.”
With busy schedules, many engineers will simply not be able to do too much with all of the information at their disposal. And if some information is good and some is not, just sorting out one from the other will take time. And even if all of the information is valuable (hold your sarcasm), time constraints would prevent engineers from taking advantage of it all anyway.
At Microwaves & RF, we certainly hope that engineers are benefitting from the information we provide. But how much do engineers depend on us to do their jobs? In other words, is this publication something that engineers read closely? Or does it just get tossed aside without ever being read at all? I’m sure that our subscriber list includes those who do both—with everything in between.
With all of that being said, I hope that the “good” outweighs the “not-so-good” and that our content helps those who choose to read it.
