PROPOSAL: Create guest sign in book

[Paul Hickey]

I move to create a sign in book for guests to optionally sign and optionally ask for their:

Name

Age

Zipcode

How they heard about us

What they are working on

I think this would be a great resource for HSL so we can see who the people who visit HSL, why they are there and where they are from.

This could help our marketing efforts and help us see where our demographic is.  This could also help inform us of where we should maybe move in the future.

I'm open for more or less fields.

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Paul Hickey

[Nate Caine]

This could come in handy, but it also might be beneficial to do a survey of our existing members as to how they found out about HeatSync.

 

This came up yesterday in the context of "Does HeatSync's location matter".

 

I was trying to make the distinction between, "being in the downtown area has certain benefits to members because of the proximity to such things as restaurants and other amenities."

 

Versus,

 

"because we are in the downtown we get a lot of foot traffic and that leads to new members."

 

I suggest that the later is not true.  I think we do a lot of TOURS, but often is is just the curious wandering by.

 

In many areas of HeatSync people seems to have done an online search, or found out about us from a club or other organization, then decided to stop by for a look.  I think this is true in the case of the laser and machine shop, and welding in particular.  These are much more likely to actually follow thru and become regular members.

 

Maybe we can set up something on SurveyMonkey to back-fill info about how our current members came about.

 

 

[Jerry Davis]

nate don't forget about the arduino contingent also

 

 

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Licensed Amateur Radio Operator: K7AZJ
Registered Linux User: 275424
Arduino programmer

Recursion: (noun):
      see: Recursion

[Nate Caine]

 

Arduino for sure.  Along with robotics group, Women's Engineering Consortium, Ham radio, metal casting, etc.

 

These, and more, should all be check boxes in my imaginary survey.

 

"What drew you initially to Heatsync?"

 

"Which of these were you subsequently been involved in?"

 

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[Jeremy Davis]

Agree.

[Tim Gerrits]

This would be a great asset for quantifying our outreach. It's true that we don't do a lot of "conversion" so to speak, but that isn't our mission. Our goal as I understand it is to encourage people to make stuff here if they want to, and help support us if they do and can. Not to push membership. 

A goal that the community expressed was to do more outreach, but we currently don't have any data on how much we do. We have dozens of people come in the space for the first time each week, and this is part of our outreach. Even if they don't come back and make anything, they share with others that such a space exists and inspire others. They tell makers that they know about us. But we don't have any data about this. Quantifying the outreach that we do at the space already will help us as we grow and to legitimize all of the education, community service, and inspiration that we do to outside organizations that can help us to grow.

I agree that it should be optional, but I would like to add that we suggest that people fill in what they are working on / interested in working on / how they found out about us anyway even if they don't feel comfortable giving their name so that we get a better estimate of the numbers of people visiting and what they are working on. Also, how useful is age and zip code? Some might consider that intrusive. An optional organization field might be helpful. I'd suggest having some cards printed up with the fields on it for people to fill in while we figure out which ones we want and consider an electronic option that's secure and reliable.

On Thursday, November 15, 2012 8:33:19 AM UTC-7, Paul wrote:

[Paul Hickey]

I absolutely think that age and zip code are important. It let's us know where people are from who visit us, and the age range of people who walk in/visit. It can help us focus our marketing efforts and get a feel for where we should be looking for new space.

Paul Hickey
Sent from my mobile device

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[Mike Bushroe]

I can imagine people being uncomfortable about giving their ages. However, if we are looking for general demographics, we could ask for age blocks instead of age values, like:   Child  Young Adult    Adult   Middle Aged     Not so Middle Aged.
Similarly for zipcodes. If we are using a tablet or computer instead just pencil and paper, they can also click on their home location without having to give any 'hard' data. Both of these may make people unfamiliar with us more comfortable giving us the general demographic data we are looking for.

Mike

[Jerry Davis]

Don't forget "old geezer"

instead of labels, just make it ranges of years

< 12
13 - 18
18-25
26-40
41-54
55+

or something like that, then there is no ambiguity as to what age a
"young adult" is or something.

jerry

[Will Bradley]

I'm a big fan of blank fields. How old are you? Where are you from? Let people write whatever they want.

This is a lot of discussion though; I'd say plan a date and make the thing, whoever cares enough will show up and help make it happen.

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