2005 SSTI Weekly Digest Survey
If you appreciate receiving the SSTI Weekly Digest and Funding Supplement, then please read on. During the past 12 months, we've delivered hundreds of stories on technology-based economic development and more than 1,000 unique funding opportunities to your e-mail box. Now, we come to you asking for your assistance. As we approach our 450th issue, we would like our readership to take a few minutes (and we actually mean only a few) to complete the SSTI Weekly Digest/Funding Supplement survey. The results help determine the editorial direction and content of future issues. We're making the brief survey available at: http://www.ssti.org/digestsurvey05.htm (expired) All of us know that feedback is critical for ensuring that a program, service or product meets the needs of its customers or clients. But most of us don't participate in surveys when we're given the opportunity. As we did in 2003, the SSTI Weekly Digest Survey tries to address the most common reasons for not participating:
We don't have any incentives to offer. I guess we could say the one millionth respondent wins an iPod, but you probably already have one and we don't really have an extra to give you. Plus we work hard to maintain the integrity of our work so why start lying to you now? As in years past, we can only offer the sense of accomplishment you can get by: 1) adding the Digest survey to your "to do" list right now; 2) then immediately clicking on the link below and completing the brief questionnaire; and 3) after a few well spent minutes, crossing the Digest survey off of your list for another year.
- I'm too busy. We know you are, so this year's form has been pared down to only eight vitally important questions to make the participation process as painless as possible. A few clicks, a couple of sentences of your own honest testimonials, and you're on your way. They don't really read the responses. Poppycock. Every person on SSTI's staff involved with bringing you the SSTI Weekly Digest and Funding Supplement assuredly will read every single comment or suggestion. In addition, the names of those people who sign their survey forms are added to our Board of Heroes, regardless of what they say. Responses are anonymous otherwise. I like it as it is, so I don't need to respond. Because so few people complete surveys when asked, those who do take the time to say what they like or don't like end up having quite a bit of power. We also are asking this year for feedback on any impacts, benefits or outcomes resulting from applying the knowledge gained from reading the SSTI Weekly Digest or Funding Supplement.
- I'll get to it later. This one is a challenge for us. We've tried to make it easy. We've tried to show how important your opinions are to us. And we're on our knees with hands outstretched as we type this email. To discourage procrastination, we're only offering the link for a limited time.
Again, the survey is available at http://www.ssti.org/digestsurvey05.htm (expired). To aid in your assessment, we encourage you to visit the page on our website listing the headlines and links for each Digest issue released so far in 2005: http://www.ssti.org/Digest/2005/headlines05.htm We'd appreciate hearing from you. You'll feel good about this afterward, too. Trust me.
Mark Skinner
Vice President
SSTI
State Science & Technology Institute
5015 Pine Creek Drive
Westerville, OH 43081
(614) 901-1690© 2005 State Science and Technology Institute. All rights reserved.