A few friends had funny reactions to this survey I put up. Judging from some of the reactions, you’d think I was asking them to rate themselves instead of me. Maybe they feel bad by association. Boy I hope not.
I think part of the reluctance is because, as one person put it, “It’s very negative!” While the survey does tend towards the negative side, I don’t think the purpose is negative. I am not a masochist and generally avoid pain if I can; emotional pain especially!
But I am thinking of it as a data driven exercise. We look at websites in terms of performance. We examine how many page views, how many clicks, how many conversion and then make changes to improve performance. What if we did the same thing with our own lives. What if I knew that everytime I chime into a conversation I am not really involved in I hurt my performance. Or that everytime I make a snide remark I lower my “friendship quotient”. Then I would, in theory, avoid doing those things.
Here’s the catch through, the question isn’t if I percieve I do these things. What I think about them doesn’t count. It is what others think, how they percieve things that count in this case. To continue the website analogy. The owner loves the site, thinks it is perfect (since he designed it) but can’t figure out why it isn’t perfoming. That’s there the data comes in.
So, if you haven’t taken the survey, please do. Please give your honest feedback. Web analytics doesn’t rely on people’s honesty but in this case I need to.
Click Here to take survey (part 1)
Click Here to take survey (part 2)