Scott Hansen, co-chairman of the Symposium did an evaluation again this year. Here’s is his
unvarnished report. Even those who didn’t attend may find it of interest.
I have attached the Symposium Evaluation Report. I received 29 responses out of 54 sent – a 54% response rate, just a bit down from last year. The report follows the same format as last year. I have collected all of the individual comments essentially verbatim in the appropriate categories. There is, however, one change. Where there were comparable sessions, I included last year’s score for comparison purposes. After you have read the report, let me know if you would like me to edit it in any way.
Scott

John Clayton of Los Angeles, who presented on a marketing panel at the
Symposium has looked over the survey results that were sent out last night. In
response he is sending along his analysis of the data to Scott Hansen for more
of a marketing expert view. I found his review thought provoking and it bears
reading and comment. So, here is a copy of what is being forwarded to Scott.

Alan,
Could you please pass this note along to Scott Hansen, too.

Scott:
Thank you for your hard work in compiling the responses. You should be happy with
such a high response rate, as most surveys are lucky to get 33%.
As you may know, in the science of marketing research, there are biases. In this case,
the club members who also attended are, by definition, the most active participants and
the ones who, by extension, have the most interest in having a club.
The comments of each event should be clearly separated from the actual scores.
Generally, we put comments, known as “verbatims” at the end of the report under a
separate header so as not to prejudice the more quantitative rating. As with focus
group verbatims, survey verbatims are highly self-selective. The “noisiest” response
tends to get more attention than the considered response, and tends to bias the person
reading the report. So, if the consensus that the program offering was good, then
publishing a negative and the positive next to it will slant the perception of the actual
score in the direction of the negative, or noisy, response. In short, verbatims should
be separated out, otherwise the results will have to be relegated to the “hear-say”
category and not to “survey results.” So, with your good sample size of the most involved (i.e., investing time and money) of the active club members, here is how a marketing research professional might report the results:

Executive Summary
Of the “Program Schedule” Events with a significant number of responses, the 2008
ratings in order of descending scores were as follows (with 6.0 being the overall
symposium rating, down 3% from 2007 which is, statistically speaking, not a
significant number, meaning for all intents and purposes the rating is the same year
over year).
Note: If a change was statistically significant over that of 2007, it is
noted below; if no note, then the scores were, for all intents and
purposes, the same.
Collector’s Choice: 6.7
Wine & Dessert Reception/Gallery 6.7
Saturday Evening Banquet: 6.65
Pizza, Wine & Fellowship/Facilities 6.65
Lunch (Friday) 6.6 (10% higher than 2007)
Memories of … Frederick Carder 6.6
Registration, Welcome & Opening 6.4 (11% higher than 2007)
Auction 6.4
Exhibition of Carder Design, etc. 6.3
OVERALL SYMPOSIUM RATING 6.0
American Scent Bottles 6.0
Museum Gifts, Accessions, etc. 5.8
Ephemera “Show & Tell” 5.5
Sat. a.m. Panel discussion 5.2
CMoG Market Display 5.0
Annual Business Meeting 3.0 (down 57% from 2007)

Overall Conclusions
The top 2 activities for club members are looking at each other’s glass collections and
socializing over food (presumably to discuss their common glass collecting interests).
The collector’s choice activity is by far the most highly rated. For 2009, find a
way to have a collector’s choice activity every day of the symposium.
The “food & fellowship” activities were the highest scoring group. They scored
10%+ higher than the overall symposium content (see blue font color above).

Recommendation: Focus 2009 efforts to have primarily socialization
opportunities involving food.

The “business & state of the union panel” activities were the lowest scoring group (see teal font color above). They scored 32% lower than the overall symposium content.

Recommendation: Focus 2009 efforts to have fewer and/or shorter/tighter
“reality” programming modules. Avoid discussions that bring the reality
of the market into the mix as the club’s collectors have a low expressed
desire to hear about it.

If the Club’s mission is to please members, consider refocusing the Carder Steuben Club as just a social club for insiders who want to show their collections. Discuss the possibilities of having more gatherings in more geographic locales so collectors can easily bring the choicest pieces of their collection to share with other like-minded individuals. Given the limited interest and low budget, dramatically play down discussion of outreach and educational efforts. These areas appear to be too “high involvement” for the current club membership base.