X-Message-Number: 9707 From: "Scott Badger" <> Subject: The Survey Date: Thu, 14 May 1998 04:25:43 -0500 Many thanks to those who have commented on my idea regarding the need for a consumer survey. Allow me to respond: >From Leonard Zubkoff: >Bulk email of this sort will only annoy a very large number of people and will >not make them any more receptive to the idea of cryonics. Unsolicited bulk >email is a very hot topic at the moment, and we do not want to align ourselves >with those who use it. I don't think we can assume people will react this way. It will depend, to a great degree, on how professionally the study is conducted. Personally, I am only mildly annoyed when I receive solicitations or get-rich-quick schemes in the e-mail. I must not be on very many lists. I understand that some people are though, and many resent the intrusion. On the other hand, I think the average person is familiar with the existence and the legitimate need for genuine consumer surveys. I have one friend who greatly appreciates the opportunity to provide consumer input because she wants her needs recognized and catered to. Successfully identifying and servicing the needs of consumers simply requires accurate data gathering. I am not inclined to ignore a powerful medium such as the internet simply because it has been abused by some. >From: "den Otter" <> >Date: Mon, 11 May 1998 11:44:36 +0200 >"Incidentally, I had a more or less related idea yesterday: >use bulk email to newsgroups, mailing lists and maybe private >addresses to increase public..." I would prefer to do a random sampling of the general population. It's too early to do target marketing. >A survey would be a good excuse to do some large-scale (yet cheap) >promoting, and might generate some interesting data too. Indeed it >would be practical to direct interested folks to a special website, with >the full survey, but also a list of cryonics organizations, some other >cryonics links and a FAQ. Basically a simplified version of the CryoNet "Good excuse"? Hmmm. I do see the survey as having a promotional aspect to it, but only in an educational sense. I would not want to make any direct solicitations or offers. Nor will I ask for names and addresses so we can send information. All responses will be anonymous and respondents will have no reason to believe that this is anything but a survey. And yes, I had already planned on a "links" page at the end of the survey. >From: Thomas Donaldson <> >valuable. The only things close to surveys on cryonics happened >more than 10 years ago, and are probably outmoded. It would also >give some more concrete answers to hypotheses about WHY cryonics has >grown slowly. Hopefully. >I believe that such a survey would also tell us such things as >whether or not our level of research had any influence on membership >growth . . . This question will be addressed. >There are some insights such surveys may produce which will not >satisfy anyone. And naturally they are likely to be approximate, only, >without decisively settling our questions in the way a physics experiment >might. We should all realize these possibilities. Yes, I mispoke earlier when I suggested that this would "...settle..." anything. It should, however, serve to narrow the debate and guide our discussions. >From: John de Rivaz <> >An excellent idea. What about including a "give away" - the (say 10) best >essays on "why I didn't sign up" get a free book, or even a single much >bigger prize. They should obviously be encouraged to list everything that >worries them. I'm not very disposed to the idea of a prize or giveaway. It smacks too much of promotion and I think the promotional aspects of the survey are inherently built in. I'm open to more discussion on this point though. >I think the big difficulty, though, is that a lot of people may not be >honest - they don't want to admit even to themselves, that the real reason >is "what will the neighbours think" syndrome, or "once you get involved with >these people you can never get rid of them" syndrome or whatever. (I have >heard the last being presented as a reason for not seeking ordinary medical >treatment. I am sure it also stops people buying life insurance, making >wills, and even giving to charity.) I'm more inclined to present the objections we already know are out there, and ask the respondents to rate how much weight each might have in their decision making process. They would also have an opportunity to communicate "OTHER" objections. ************************************************* My thoughts are that the survey should have 3 primary sections: (1) Demographics - age, gender, income, ethnicity, religion, family size, etc. (2) A cryonics quiz - a series of questions designed to measure the respondent's current familiarity with cryonics, and to identify misconceptions and myths about cryonics. I believe that a quiz is an effective survey tool. It's interactive and helps maintain interest. It also creates the desire to find out how many answers one got correct. Since the answers aren't revealed until the end, the respondent is motivated to complete the entire survey. (3) Attitudes and Opinions - designed to measure interest levels and specific objections to various aspects of cryonics. As mentioned, once the survey is submitted, the respondent will be sent to a web page with the correct answers to the quiz questions. This page will also contain a number of cryonics-related links to aid those who want to know more. I would like to invite anyone with an interest to e-mail me directly if they have a survey item/question that they believe should be included for any of the sections. Write the item out exactly as you would like to see it on the survey. It might be better to send your recommendations directly to me at rather than create a lot of extra noise on cryonet. I will compile the recommendations and suggestions and develop a rough draft that I will make available to the cryonet group to critique before conducting the survey. I would like to have a working model and invite cryonet members to actually take the survey over the web to discover any bugs. This will be a time-consuming project for me and I remind all that it will be later this summer before I can really work on it. Comments? Scott Badger Rate This Message: http://www.cryonet.org/cgi-bin/rate.cgi?msg=9707