While many things in an engineer's life are done for reasons other than economics, money obviously plays a major role in why people work at the jobs they have. Engineering salaries and the perks that attract the best designers are major factors that help determine whether a company is profitable or not.

Over the next couple of months, EE Times would like to discuss finances with a few hundred of our closest friends, our readers. We've sent out a few thousand copies of our annual Salary Survey, and we hope that a fair number of the recipients will send them back. In an attempt to get even more of the survey recipients to respond, we've put the questionnaire online. This first time around, we've kept the site closed to maintain the integrity of the survey, though in future years that may change.

If you're one of the survey recipients, I'll now use a historical word and beseech you to send it back. After completing it, of course.

The issue with the survey results, which will appear Oct. 30, is always among our most popular of the year. We're still getting e-mails about last year's survey. Readers clearly want to know what's going on with careers and to see how their salary and perks stand up to others'.

Engineers seem to be moving up a bit in the social strata of America, and this is our chance to quantify that move. Who knows, it could happen that in a few years moviemakers will look back at the turn of the century and say that this year marked a real turning point. They may point to the real transition that occurred, among the many other marvels of the new age, when America changed over to the information society, when we truly became a nation built from the fruits of engineers who helped Al Gore build the Internet. If so, wouldn't it be great if they used your comments from the EE Times Salary Survey in the movie that defines our era?

It would be truly astonishing to see engineers up there on the big screen, driving yet another American revolution. It's an especially exciting prospect for me. I'm sure Mel Gibson will want to play the role of the EET editor who slaves over that Salary Survey issue. It's a role he'll surely jump at even without an economic incentive.