I've been trying to find good ways to better market SurveyorConnect, but without degrading the quality of our membership. What I mean by that is to market this website to actual surveyors or those with a specific interest in surveying, not the general public. I'm proud of our high level of surveyor members here, even though it keeps the overall member numbers lower -- but our number is real. Many might remember that rpls.com had around 40k users at one point, but it was painfully obvious that the vast majority of them were spammers.?ÿBut I digress.
One of the ideas I recently stumbled upon is the Get Kids Into Survey program -- they offer sponsorship packages, which include some pretty great features. We would have a SurveyorConnect character featured on one of their posters, along with logos, mentions and listings for SurveyorConnect from their printed materials and online campaigns. For what it's worth, I was thinking about a squirrel or sloth as the character, since nobody else has used either of those.
Anyway, It's a one-time fee, so we wouldn't have to keep paying for it.?ÿThey are finishing up their last (ever!) posters and need a few more characters. I'm seriously considering a sponsorship, but it would be about $1,700 USD.
Being that there have been several mentoring threads here lately, it really got me thinking that the GKIS program might be a worthy endeavor for us. One of the key thoughts I seem to read in our mentoring threads is that we need to find ways to get younger people into surveying -- and to this website. We have quite the assembly of experience here and many members have a mentoring attitude.
But to say I'm concerned about the entry fee would be an understatement. It's not so much the actual price as it is where the funding comes from. What I mean is, many people here have supported us monetarily and it has helped immensely with keeping the lights on. But diverting any of those funds to the GKIS program might not be what our supporters have in mind. However, many of those funds have also come from advertisers. I'm struggling with how to handle this, should I decide to pull the trigger.
So... as per usual, I come to you with this issue for your consideration, feedback and advice.
On one hand, I was thinking we could start a special fund just for GKIS -- any overage above the sponsorship price could be donated to help further their cause.
On the other hand, I could just dip into the advertising income to cover the sponsorship price.
But, generally speaking, I'm looking at the potential benefits of having SurveyorConnect plastered all over the GKIS website, printed materials, social media, email campaigns and in schools all over the world, encouraging kids to get into surveying. But I wonder how much benefit we'd get in return? Would our membership numbers increase enough to justify the cost? Would the increase in traffic lead to more advertisers?
I love the idea but am not completely sold on it yet. What do you think?
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I vote for the squirrel.?ÿ We spend a lot of time in the woods working for nuts. ??? ????ÿ
IMHO a fund raising campaign should work rather quickly, with any monies over the target sponsorship fee donated to either the GKIS program or an educational/scholarship account.?ÿ Since these contributions would be coming in from all over the world (theoretically), any donation to an educational/scholarship account should be to a national organization that has a good track record for disbursing such funds.
My guess is that there are over 10,000 members to this forum.?ÿ If half of those were to donate $0.50 each, the sponsorship fee can be raised rather quickly.
my $0.02
P.S.?ÿ I agree with the Divine Bovine regarding the mascot/avatar.?ÿ
Mixed feelings on this based on many years of being involved, or having staff involved with various efforts to attract "kids" to the profession. Although there is no way to measure the impacts of talking to a 6th grade class to see if any of them actually pursued the profession, the real time evidence has been less than encouraging. Using props like drones, scanners, and the fancy next gadgets can help to engage them, but hard to compete with the dream of being a gaming developer making millions a year.
Based on experiences, my own and others (both as "recruiters" and people who got recruited) I think the biggest area we are missing to target are engineering students early in the program. Many are likely majoring in engineering because a counselor/teacher suggested it, a family member is an engineer, or just because they think it would pay well. There is a prominent NGS employee (has given many webinars the past few years) who is vocal about this missed demographic. He entered college laser focused on a civil degree, but as soon as he took his one required surveying course, he knew he wanted to be a professional land surveyor. He finished his civil degree, became dual licensed, then pursued a doctorate in geodesy. He insists there are many more like him out there, and he has walked the walk. I know two year programs that have done successful on-campus recruiting especially from the "non-declared" category.
Our department has been heavily involved with the NSPS Trig-star program for many years and we have a bunch of the GKIS posters to put up at Trig-star presentations and testing. Again, we have no mechanism for tracking whether any of the participants ever even took a surveying course post Trig-star experience. Regardless, it it is important to support a STEM program like this.
Many years ago, during career day when my daughter was in 3rd grade, I gave a presentation on land surveying. The biggest hits were my 90 degree prism for "spying around corners" and my hatchet, for who knows what? However, I did have the class drive in a large spike in a grassy area, then brought my daughter out and handed her my?ÿ Schoenstedt where she proceeded to find the treasure in short order. They seemed to like that...until the bell rang.
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Are you going to come up with a cartoon squirrel or whatever with a surveying theme? Vest and rover?
Do you think it would bring in traffic from students? We might get a chance to do some explaining.
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The sloth is my favorite animal as well as my favorite virtue, but I'm not sure it's the best cartoon character to promote surveying.?ÿ
@spmpls?ÿ
Others may disagree, but those posters didn't impress me as good recruiting tools. For one thing, the dense text would seem to fit a higher age than the cartoon pictures. The pictures are very "busy" and hard to relate to the message.
But I'm a geezer, so maybe wrong.
Save the sloth for most any Government agency.
Are you going to come up with a cartoon squirrel or whatever with a surveying theme? Vest and rover?
No, part of the sponsorship package includes their artist creating the character based on my specs, so that it fits within the overall design.
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Do you think it would bring in traffic from students? We might get a chance to do some explaining.
That's a tough one. I'm going to default to "no". But I do think it could create awareness among others, not necessarily just students.
As others have said, it's hard to track who's doing what, so we'd never truly know how well it worked for us.
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Save the sloth for most any Government agency.
Yeah, I like the sloth because it would be so easily identifiable. But I agree, their mannerisms might not work for us.
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Although a hobby, not a career, I have been a member of a very active collecting forum for maybe 15 years. During that time we have only had two active members under the age of 18 (could have been some registered and never post). Based on that, it's difficult for me to imagine much traffic here from a similar demographic. I would love to be proven wrong, however.
But I wonder how much benefit we'd get in return? Would our membership numbers increase enough to justify the cost? Would the increase in traffic lead to more advertisers?
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They should be able to show you that information on how much the average traffic increase is from their sponsors.
That's a fair question to ask.
It's a great place to get parents of kids Interested in getting their kids into survey, but not this forum is appropriate for most school aged kids, and I digress.
How much time do you have to make a decision?
"On one hand, I was thinking we could start a special fund just for GKIS -- any overage above the sponsorship price could be donated to help further their cause."
I like this approach and do think it would be a good thing to donate to.?ÿ I don't think it would yield "the solution" to our greying hair (at least those of us still luck to have them) and declining numbers but it would be a part of a solution.?ÿ I would be happy to donate into a separate fund for this to help cover the costs and I don't think you should pull from existing revenue.?ÿ?ÿ
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Money and job stability will attract the numbers.?ÿ Everything else is feel-good stuff.
When young people see this as a profession worth spending money to obtain a degree, with the ability to get a good job with comparable pay as engineering graduates, then more will choose it instead.?ÿ?ÿ
Also, when non-educated technicians can make similar money doing survey fieldwork instead of working construction, plumbing, electrician work, etc, then more will enter this line of work.
Unfortunately, I still don't think we're keeping up in that regard.?ÿ Laws of supply and demand somehow don't translate as much as they should for us
non-educated technicians
I'd like to think of them as educated in the survey field like anyone else in a mentoring apprenticeship like plumbing and electrical.
We should support non licensed people dedicated in the process as much as the license.
IMHO
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I totally agree, and I've spoken out every time I've seen a posting here about formal education/degree requirements.?ÿ I'm not for them.?ÿ Not against formal education, just don't think it should be or needs to be a requirement, and it shouldn't be an impediment for those wanting to pursue licensure.
My point was, when you're trying to attract field help, they're probably non-educated, non-experienced at the beginning.?ÿ And yes, their education starts with the first day of fieldwork.
It's a really difficult question, this one. Yes, the idea is good but...
Those of us from outside the USA who might offer support understand that realistically the main drive of the campaign would inevitably go towards the USA and the spin-off around the rest of the world would be marginal.
Even if kids don't go into surveying, they might gain some useful understanding, so that when they become architects, developers, engineers, financiers, etc. they might take with them the realisation that there is a benefit to having a survey input early in a scheme, rather than at the last minute.
Encouragement is needed at all levels, not just top-end professional. A survey assistant who cares is worth five qualified persons who don't.