Dr. Nolinske’s second article in her series is online over at NBRI, “Methods of Survey Data Collection”.  As always, she is insightful and interesting.

As a compliment to her article, I have listed some questions that will help you determine which data collection method is best for your survey.  I welcome your input.

GENERAL QUESTIONS

1.    What type of survey?

• Employee Survey
• Customer survey
• Political Poll
• Market Research
• Other

2.    Approximately how many questions?

The type of survey often determines how many questions you can or want to ask.  You do not want to overburden customers with too many questions, we suggest keeping it under 30, even less for phone interviews since costs skyrocket and response rates plummet if you go higher.  You can go a little higher if it is online.  Employees, on the other hand, are somewhat of a captive audience.

3.    What is your budget?

4.    What is your timeline?

5.    Do you have a list of potential respondents or will you need to acquire one?

6.    What geographic location(s) will you target?

• Worldwide
• National
• International
• State
• County
• Zip Code
• Other

7.    Will this add to cost?

• Travel
• International postage
• International phone calls
• Other

8.    Are there any language considerations?

• Language translation
• Regional dialects that could effect survey data
• Hearing Impaired or other disability

9.    What information do you have for the respondents?

• Email addresses*
• Mailing addresses
• Phone numbers

* If you do not have email addresses for potential respondents, you can distribute survey invitations by mail (or payroll insert in the case of an employee survey) to direct recipients to complete the survey online.

10.     Offer an incentive to obtain a better response rate?

11.     What format should the collected data be available in?

• Raw data
• Tables
• Graphs
• Other

12.     Do you have qualified personnel to interpret your data?

QUESTIONS ABOUT SURVEY DEPLOYMENT METHODS

1.    IN-PERSON INTERVIEWS

• In-house interviewers, hired interviewers?
• Security concerns (dangerous neighborhoods, etc.)?
• Travel?
• Costs for travel?

2.    TELEPHONE INTERVIEWS

• In-house, hired?
• Required telephone equipment/office space?
• Language issues, regional dialects?
• Telephone charges (including international)
• Data entry training required?

3.    MAILED QUESTIONNAIRES

• Postage costs?
• Translation services?
• Printing costs?
• Data entry costs?

4.    ONLINE QUESTIONNAIRES

• Translation services?
• Database services?

We all have to work to live. Work can be enjoyable and even fun at times. But work is mostly something we do because we have to do it. That doesn't mean you should give up one third of your life and wonder every day if what you do for a living is worth the trouble.

If your company does not engage its employees - recognizing and rewarding measureable contributions by everyone in the work force to the company's success and profitability - you feel like your efforts are wasted or no different than any other person in the office.  If you’re in management, you may wonder if the people working for you even care if you succeed. Your company's future is at stake - and that's the message of the MacLeod Report.

An innovative and remarkable body of work, The Macleod Report, was released in July of this year. This report results from a large scale effort in the UK to understand how - and IF -companies measure their employees' contributions to the organization's success while gauging their levels of inspiration and passion for achievement. The report includes case studies of actual successes and failures for companies that actively engage their associates or don't give the matter any attention beyond handing out the employee handbook and showing new hires where the lunchroom is.

Before you roll your eyes and think "another feel-good report" from a bureaucracy, take the time to read this report and discover how successful institutions and organizations not only keep their key employees and contributors, but inspire and motivate those who are sitting back and just collecting their paychecks. The results can be beneficial to those at all levels of skill and responsibility. And it just might keep your company in business, as a leader and innovator, for years to come.

This is good stuff.  My question is why does the U.S. have to wait for the UK to lead the way on this type of initiative? Why don't we see any US-based national surveys of this type?  If there ARE domestic agendas out there for such wide-ranging studies, they’re being kept as closely guarded secrets.

These days it seems that the federal government has its hand in everyone’s business, rightly or wrongly.  Much discussion has taken place over the role of our federal government in business.  These discussions have reverberated throughout our history.  In high school we learn about economic policies ranging from the Laissez Faire attitudes of Adam Smith to the heavy handed protectionism of Alexander Hamilton.  What I personally would like to see from the U.S. Government is helpful studies like the Macleod Report. 

Depending on which statistics you believe 30-50% of all new businesses in the U.S. fail within 5 years.  Studies like the ones conducted for the Macleod Report would seem almost imperative to improving these numbers and might very well be the best money ever spent by the U.S. Government.

Research (and the resulting guidance) from Washington on how to more efficiently run a productive and profitable company, to the betterment of everyone involved, would seem more helpful than many of the inane research studies that I see being funded these days. 

As one of the standard bearers of capitalism we should be on the forefront of this type of research.  I believe this is a great way to gain economic stimulus from the ground up.  It has been proven time and time again, engaged workers are more productive workers.  More productive workers take better care of customers and that equals better profits and a stronger company.

And that one third of our lives that we spend working, seems less and less like work.

Shawn Devlin
Marketing Research Analyst
Survey Software Online

In May I wrote an article about the 2010 Census and the extraordinary difficulties that will be involved in the national survey this time around. I talked about the difficulties that Census Chief Robert Groves will encounter with this undertaking. I mentioned that the costs will be higher, district restructuring will be more heavily contested, some minority groups are planning to resist being counted, and countless other headaches involved.

However, I did not discuss the potential dangers derived from negative feelings towards the federal government in these difficult economic times.

Many times rural areas are hit the hardest by a recession. If you think it is tough to find a job in New York, Dallas, or Los Angeles these days, try Manchester, Kentucky. Hard times make for hard feelings. Imagine trying to feed your family while the government is handing out billions in free money to organizations that have proven themselves unsustainable in the current economy.

Update: Kentucky State Police now suspect that Mr. Sparkman's death was the result of suicide. If this turns out to be true, I don't believe it changes the tragedy of the situation but may help in easing tensions about the upcoming census.

Are these the emotions that lead up to the killing of teacher, Boy Scout leader, and VOLUNTEER census taker, Bill Sparkman in Clay County, Kentucky?  How could anyone think he posed any threat? What question could he possibly have asked that would make someone take his life and make an example of him by scrawling 'FED' on his dead body for all to see?

Was there another motive?

Clay County has been hard hit by the recent economic downturn. In the past, some residents of this region of Appalachia have combated poverty through black market means - mainly illegal moonshine stills. Agents of the federal government asking questions about their income and status meant potentially shutting down what may have been their only source of survival in desperate times.

Could it be that Mr. Sparkman stumbled upon the modern equivalent of the moonshine still? A marijuana field? The White House Office of National Drug Control Policy estimates that more than half of the marijuana consumed in the United States is produced domestically. Much of that - no one knows for certain how much - is grown on public lands, primarily the country's 155 national forests. The marijuana is grown in National Forests as a means to protect private property from being invaded or possibly seized. National Forests like the Daniel Boone National Forest, where Mr. Sparkman's body was found. According to officials at the Office of National Drug Policy's Appalachia High Intensity Drug Trafficking Area Program (HIDTA), Kentucky produces more marijuana than any other state except California.

Considering the location, his disfigurement, and the fact that it was harvest season, the idea that Mr. Sparkman was killed for stumbling across someone's illegal cash crop seems more plausible than the idea that he was killed for any real census related reason.

The circumstances of Mr. Sparkman's tragic death and the resentment that some people hold against recent government strategies is yet another hurdle that the census bureau will need to overcome. Volunteers will be harder to come by. Resentment of the federal government, due to political, economic, or prejudicial reasons, underscores the fact that the 2010 Census will be the Mother of all Surveys.

Update: Kentucky State Police now suspect that Mr. Sparkman's death was the result of suicide. If this turns out to be true, I don't believe it changes the tragedy of the situation but may help in easing tensions about the upcoming census

The current recession has almost every company in a state of red alert, cutting costs across the board, from canceling the year-end bonuses to purchasing cheaper toilet paper for office bathrooms. No expense is being spared.

However, the employee has been the most unfortunate victim of the recession. With unemployment at its highest rate in a quarter-century, tens of thousands of workers have found themselves in the cross-hairs of cost-cutting, and thousands more are wary of being next on the chopping block.

“Everybody is so fearful that companies are thinking, ‘What can we hang on to and what should we liquidate?’ ” Martin N. Baily, chairman of the Council of Economic Advisers under President Clinton told the New York Times recently. “A lot of the reduction in employment is businesses deciding to close down operations or get out of a certain line of activity.”

Scary stuff to think about, especially if your company just ordered a big supply of pink slip paper from the local Staples. But more and more experts are warning companies to tread carefully when taking the slash-and-burn approach to controlling costs, and think about the value proposition of what they’re doing. Sacking a bunch of employees may look good to the bottom line, but if it ultimately undermines the fundamental value proposition to customers, that company’s reputation could suffer a fatal blow.

Cutting costs is nothing new for companies, but most want to do it without sacrificing results of their products or services. The SSO idea is a fairly mainstream offering to companies that are looking to trim their budgets. The range of cutbacks can swing from creative to downright kooky. Here are a few:

▪ Employees at Microsoft won’t have to worry about ants at the company picnic, because there won’t be any company picnic. The software maker is cutting the fat and fried chicken out of its budget, canceling its annual summer picnic for the Seattle-area, which includes about 41,000 workers. That’s a lot of potato salad.

▪ At SRS Inc., employees have been recruited to be cost-cutting cops. SRS, a FEMA contractor, enlisted the help of its workers as expense monitors, rewarding individuals based on their efforts to help the company save money. One coordinator centralized office supplies ordering for SRS’s five offices through Staples, making ordering more efficient and improving the bottom line.

▪ An Australian television station has really taken a fanatical stand, downgrading the staff’s free luxury coffee to the bargain-basement Nescafe brand.

▪ Air travel is down around the world for the ninth consecutive month, according to the latest industry statistics, and business travel is one of the main culprits. With the economy in the tank, companies are cutting costs and staying at the office, choosing conference calls and virtual event solutions. As the economy sags, many events marketers are adding virtual events to their calendar. ON24 Inc., a supplier of webcasting and virtual-event solutions, recently released the results of an online survey it conducted of more than 300 enterprise business executives about their plans to attend or host live trade shows, conventions, and sales training seminars in 2009 versus their use of virtual events. Every metric from the survey showed that companies are embracing virtual events over travel, which is more bad news for the airline business.

▪ Where all the money goes is a mystery for some companies, so many are investing in software that counts every penny. Ariba, for example, sells software that helps companies track where they spend money, even when thousands of people in the company are making purchases. The Ariba software consolidates information into one place, so it becomes clear that instead of using seven different suppliers for paper, the company could use just one. Then Ariba sets up a reverse auction for suppliers to bid for business. That should leave the boss shouting, Ariba! Ariba!

▪ Even one of the most extravagant spenders on employee perks, Google, is cutting back, canceling afternoon tea at its New York office. Egads! What would the Queen think? For much of its history, Google spent money like drunken techies, hiring thousands and dishing out generous perks, including three free meals a day, free doctors, ski trips, laundry facilities, and subsidized personal trainers. While the company has vowed to keep the Google culture alive, it predicts that belt-tightening will continue as revenue growth continues to slide.

The mother of all surveys, the 2010 United States Census, may turn out to be the mother of all headaches for the new Census Chief, Robert M. Groves.

Faced with the possibility of computer glitches, operational missteps, and skyrocketing costs, surveying the nation’s population won’t be an easy task. President Obama selected Groves in early April and passed him the hot potato that’s expected to cost at least $15 billion, more than any previous count. Groves, who authored the books Surveying Victims and Survey Errors and Survey Costs, sounds like he was tailor-made for this position.

The Government Accountability Office estimates that the mandated decennial head count will cost about $100 for each housing unit, compared with $14, adjusted for inflation, in 1970.

Glitches, missteps and costs are not the only problem facing Groves. Obama also tossed the soft-spoken University of Michigan sociology professor and survey expert a political football. Counting U.S. residents isn’t just to determine how much each American is paying for the latest bailout. The primary purpose of the census is to determine how to distribute congressional seats and tax dollars.

“With the nomination of Robert Groves, President Obama has made it clear that he intends to employ the political manipulation of census data for partisan gain,” North Carolina Congressman Patrick McHenry told Time magazine. Other lawmakers called Groves an “incredibly troubling selection” who must be watched for “statistical sleight of hand.” Obviously, this is one survey that comes pre-loaded with political dynamite.

The likelihood of an unhappy Republican or two or a thousand is quite possible. At issue is the surveying method. Groves is in favor of using sampling to measure the country's population for what he and many experts say will yield more accurate survey results than an individual count, especially among those hardest to reach, such as minorities, the homeless and the poor. Generally, Republicans reach for the antacids when the words survey, sampling, and census appear in the same sentence. The reason? The populations that are hard to count typically support Democrats.

If Groves didn’t have enough issues with political haggling on The Hill, advocacy groups are also making noise. According to a recent USA Today story, some Hispanic groups are calling for illegal immigrants to boycott the 2010 Census unless immigration laws are changed.

The National Coalition of Latino Clergy & Christian Leaders, a group that says it represents 20,000 evangelical churches in 34 states, is urging undocumented immigrants not to fill out census forms unless Congress passes “genuine immigration reform.” Meanwhile, other immigrate rights groups say boycotting the census may be filled with good intentions, but is misguided and will only harm those the survey is intended to help.

Besides stepping on a political landmine or two, Groves has another homegrown problem that will impact the census: the economy.

Officials are worried that it will be more difficult to survey people during an economic recession. Among the concerns are families who have been forced out of their homes that could go uncounted, along with the untold numbers of people in flux, living temporarily with other family members, in apartments, in cars, shelters or even on the streets.

There is also concern that financial hardships will make Americans less likely to answer the door and cooperate with someone administering a survey, fearing that the knock on their door is from a collection agency.

Surveys generally are not thought of as snapshots in history, but the U.S. Census tracks some fascinating milestones in American history.

The fire that destroyed some of the data from the first census in 1790 probably wasn’t the start the founders were anticipating. Nevertheless, the surveying process endured, with the second census in 1800 showing that 5.3 million people lived in the United States, with almost 20 percent of them being slaves.

The 1850 census was a landmark year in American census-taking, as the bureau attempted to count every member of every household, including women, children and slaves.

The 1890 census ushered in the age of technology, where punched cards and machines reduced the time to publish the results from seven years for the 1880 census to two and a half years. No word on whether or not there were any hanging chads.

A hanging chad type of controversy may be par for the course for the 2010 Census considering the political, social, and operational combustibility. Grove may go back to his old job as an author, writing the book I’ll Never Conduct Another Government Survey when the 2010 census is complete.