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Quick Survey

With big dreams come certain realizations, the most important is do things right to avoid screw-ups later on. (How’s that for earth-shattering advice?). In order to grow Speak Up I wanted to make sure that I’m addressing the right people in the right way, which is why I will resort to a quick online survey. The purpose of it is to — gasp — develop the Speak Up target audience. I know, it sounds a bit evil and corporate, but I assure you that I’m doing this with the best of intentions. This will help Speak Up to make sure that we are providing the appropriate content online, but now, more specifically offline. Since the costs of producing printed stuff is high, we want to make sure we get it right.

Privacy — I can’t reinforce enough how much I understand the privacy and confidentiality of a matter of this nature. I can assure you that your personal information will be treated with the highest of confidentiality and respect — it will not be sold, reproduced nor distributed in any way. The final results after being calculated and tabulated will be made available, these will take the form of percentages, tables or little pie charts, no trace of individual information will manifest there.

With all this said, please direct your browser to our online survey.

If you have questions or concerns about this, as always, feel free to let me know.

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ENTRY DETAILS
ARCHIVE ID 1840 FILED UNDER Speak Up Announcements
PUBLISHED ON Feb.23.2004 BY Armin
WITH COMMENTS
Comments
Matthew’s comment is:

Why on earth do you require our street addresses for this survey? Country, City, and ZIP is understandable, but why the full address?

On Feb.23.2004 at 12:45 PM
Armin’s comment is:

Right! I forgot to address that point… so that we can have a mailing list in place to send publications/invitations/candy/whatever.

On Feb.23.2004 at 01:02 PM
Tom Dolan’s comment is:

You ask for street address for one reason: to send snail mail (from Xmas cards to snail-spam).

On Feb.23.2004 at 01:02 PM
Armin’s comment is:

I wish I had the money to spend on snail spam… but I don't, so I'll hopefully only be sending stuff that is worthwhile.

And maybe Xmas cards (hadn't even thought about it).

On Feb.23.2004 at 01:19 PM
Rebecca C.’s comment is:

Paranoid much?

On Feb.23.2004 at 01:47 PM
Greg’s comment is:

I'll be waiting for my candy to show up in the mail.....

On Feb.23.2004 at 02:02 PM
justin m.’s comment is:

I like candy!

Where do I get a speak up t-shirt? Are there any for sale because I want one. I noticed them in the recent comments today and would purchase one if available. =)

On Feb.23.2004 at 02:27 PM
Armin’s comment is:

Justin, there are t-shirts still available (in all sizes)! You can use this ordering page.

On Feb.23.2004 at 02:32 PM
marian’s comment is:

I was, however, a little surprised that you didn't ask if we wanted snail mail. I do (send me more snails!) -- but i remember during the Sheep episode that some people weren't so sure about Speak Up in print.

On Feb.23.2004 at 02:50 PM
Brady’s comment is:

This is Armin we are talking about.

Look at how innocent he is.

If you want to participate, do so. If you are fearing that Armin may show up to crash on you floor and raid your fridge... then you might want to skip the survey and write your congressman to repeal the Patriot Act. There are worse things going on with that than some benign little survey.

Further, Armin provides this forum for us to express ourselves and connect with others in our profession. While it costs him money and time, he asks nothing for it. Yet, when he provides us an open opportunity to improve the site for us we complain about providing a little information so he can once again enrich our experience and relationship with Speak Up and our profession.

Good grief, Charlie Brown.

On Feb.24.2004 at 09:02 AM
Todd W.’s comment is:

it sounds a bit evil and corporate

When did it become evil to understand your audience? I always thought that was the first rule of communication, and therefore, design.

On Feb.24.2004 at 09:31 AM
Darrel’s comment is:

You have a few javascript errors on the page (when running IE6/PC)

On Feb.24.2004 at 10:29 AM
Rob’s comment is:

Gee, I was hoping the Armin had my address he'd come babysit my kids for some extra cash. And now I get candy on top of that. What a deal!!

:^)

On Feb.24.2004 at 11:08 AM
Armin’s comment is:

Thanks Brady for the support. Although, I don't know about exploiting that baby picture of mine… I do look innocent.

> You have a few javascript errors on the page (when running IE6/PC)

I'll check to see what's going on.

> When did it become evil to understand your audience?

It was more a figure of speech I guess.

Gee, I was hoping the Armin had my address he'd come babysit my kids for some extra cash. And now I get candy on top of that. What a deal!

Saturday night. You guys go out, relax, watch a movie. I watch the kids. Just leave your computer on so I can keep track of the survey responses.

Thanks to everybody who has taken the time to respond. The feedback is quite enlightening!

On Feb.24.2004 at 12:21 PM
kris’s comment is:

I found donuts at my front door yesterday! Thanks Armin - that survey really worked!

;)

On Feb.24.2004 at 01:33 PM
justin h’s comment is:

I'd be careful eating those donuts if I were you. They might be evil and corporate. :) (mmm... krispy kreme)

So this makes me wonder, and maybe this has been addressed before... How is speak up supported? I'm guessing this thing isn't run on a $4.95 "unlimited" hosting account somewhere and that Armin does put a heck of a lot of time into it. Is it a labor of love to the bitter end?

On Feb.24.2004 at 02:30 PM
Armin’s comment is:

Justin, in a nutshell yes, it's a labor of love. The hosting initially was pretty cheap and I didn't bat an eye on the price. Last summer I exceeded my bandwidth and storage so I had to upgrade and was fortunate enough to have the support of the readers to help me pay for that. In two days I got over $500. Other than that, most of the expenses (like kris' donuts) come from my pocket — which I don't mind 'cause I love this thing.

On Feb.24.2004 at 02:37 PM
marian’s comment is:

Brady, I sure hope you (or anyone) weren't interpreting my comment as some kind of criticism of Armin or the wonderful thing he bestows on us in the way of Speak Up and other bounties of his time and effort. I was merely surprised that the questionnairre didn't somehow try to determine what people would or would not value receiving -- in the interests of potentially sparing him more time and effort on a pack of freeloading ingrates his eager acolytes.

On Feb.24.2004 at 02:59 PM
Brady’s comment is:

No, no Marian. I knew your comment was productive and in no way a complaint.

I was surprised that some would hem and haw over providing a street address for such a benign pursuit in light of all that Armin does here.

On top of it all he wants to design, print and send us stuff?

And, I can't even get my first post off the ground!

On Feb.24.2004 at 03:45 PM
ps’s comment is:

the missing question in the survey was:

would you be willing to support speakUp with an annual donation of (please pick one of the following options):

a) $20

b) $50

c) $100

d) no fucking way i'd pay for this

On Feb.24.2004 at 05:16 PM
Armin’s comment is:

d.

On Feb.26.2004 at 02:24 PM
chris ’s comment is:

I wrote a big comments post about how you neglected to place the Middle East on your country drop down list and how I feel that Speak Up often is too euro-centric.

Perhaps it's an audience issue, but as an American designer living in the Middle East, I see how the future of globalization and outsourcing could effect our profession and think it a facinating topic. A topic I suggested once and recieved no response.

May I suggest widening the aperture that Speak Up uses to judge the depth of both it's posts and considerations with?

I won't be giving out my information - call it a small act of protest toward site that I enjoy very much.

On Feb.27.2004 at 06:54 AM
Armin’s comment is:

Some preliminary results. This is based off a little over 300 responses.

All results given in percentages.

Highest percentages in red.

1. Gender

Male: 63

Female: 37

2. Age

18-24: 17

25-29: 32

30-39: 35

40-49: 13

50-64: 0

65+: 3

3. Location

Within the USA

East Coast: 38

Midwest: 35

West Coast: 23

Pacific: 4

Outside the USA

Asia & Oceania: 24

Europe: 18

North/Central/South America: 58

4. Type of Work (Multiple Option)

Print: 24

Packaging: 10

Identity: 19

Web: 18

Motion Graphics: 6

Environmental/Exhibit: 8

Illustration: 7

Photography: 6

Other: 2

5. Position/Title

Owner, Partner or Principal: 27

Freelancer: 10

Art Director: 10

Design Director: 6

Senior Designer: 9

Designer: 19

Entry-level Designer: 6

Web programmer/Developer: 3

Copywriter: 1

Other: 9

6. Type of Office

Design Firm: 34

Advertising Agency: 4

Publishing House: 5

Web Development: 2

In-house Design Dept.: 18

Freelance/Solo: 23

Other: 14

7. Number of Co-workers

2—9: 64

10—30: 21

30-99: 8

100—999: 4

1,000+: 3

8. Type of Clients

Local/Regional: 43

National: 30

International: 27

9. First Heard of Speak Up

Link on Another Web Site: 43

Referred by a Friend: 30

Read About it: 10

Searching on the Web: 13

Other: 4

10. Visit Frequency

More than once a day: 18

Once a day: 24

Once a Week: 28

Once a Month: 19

Every other Month: 3

Rarely: 8

11. Browser

Internet Explorer: 46

Netscape: 5

Mozilla: 5

Safari: 41

Other: 3

12. Platform

Macintosh: 83

PC: 17

On Mar.03.2004 at 03:21 PM