Chugwhump
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Is ScubaBoard representative of the diving population at large?
- Thread starter RJP
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Quick easy survey, I hope you have high participation. Based on where your survey was going I'm not sure what you'll find but I know you're into slicing and dicing that sort of data so it should be interesting.
However regardless of your finding IMO it is fact that SB divers are a different lot compared to divers in general. The active SB member is far more educated on the topic of scuba if only by osmosis. The rank in file diver often has in head whatever their instructor told them at some point and likely carry it as gospel. The SB member has hashed things out to realize the multitude of often acceptable choices and has refined their thinking to what is the best choice for themselves. The non SB member is apt to think a SAC rate is a grocery bagging score, is clueless of conducting a weight check and will improve their trim by clipping the Christmas tree this week.
You seem to be demographic oriented in the questions. Snow skiers, skydivers, pilots and so forth with disposable income are common in my experience.
Don't get me wrong, SB is not the last word or if it is you need to sort the wheat from the chafe to get to the truth. For those that will spend the time the payoff can be huge.
Pete
However regardless of your finding IMO it is fact that SB divers are a different lot compared to divers in general. The active SB member is far more educated on the topic of scuba if only by osmosis. The rank in file diver often has in head whatever their instructor told them at some point and likely carry it as gospel. The SB member has hashed things out to realize the multitude of often acceptable choices and has refined their thinking to what is the best choice for themselves. The non SB member is apt to think a SAC rate is a grocery bagging score, is clueless of conducting a weight check and will improve their trim by clipping the Christmas tree this week.
You seem to be demographic oriented in the questions. Snow skiers, skydivers, pilots and so forth with disposable income are common in my experience.
Don't get me wrong, SB is not the last word or if it is you need to sort the wheat from the chafe to get to the truth. For those that will spend the time the payoff can be huge.
Pete
drrich2
Contributor
There are different ways to look at this that come to mind.
1.) Overall population of divers = # certified divers who have not quit diving entirely.
Problem: The instructor who does a hundred dives/day, & leads dive club trips to dive resorts & live-aboards, is counted the same as the OW-cert.'d vacation diver who dives 2 or 4 tanks on a cruise every other year.
2.) Overall population of dives. So if an instructor does 200 dives/year, he counts 5 times what I do at 40, and I count 20 times the 2 dives/year on a cruise guy.
3.) Magnitude of Expenditure (I made that term up). You judge based on what people spend, either personally or in terms of where they control what others spend. So that instructor who does 200 dives/year and decides which resorts the dive club of 20 will hit this year counts for a lot. People often speak of the wife/mother in a family making a lot of the purchasing decisions, so marketing might target her the most. Similarly, are we most interesting in divers, avid divers, professional divers who influence their students, dive shop owners who decide what gear lines to stock & rent, etc...?
Richard.
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You still have the scarf?
---------- Post added December 7th, 2014 at 10:19 PM ----------
OK, peeps here it is....
Makeover for a Dorky Dad | Rachael Ray Show
---------- Post added December 7th, 2014 at 10:32 PM ----------
No worries, Chug. No way he paid for 'em.
Once I took the survey my thoughts on the question changed. If the question is geared towards the broader sense such as the survey questions, I would guess that SB is fairly representative. If it was geared toward more specific things such as gear choice, preference for dive vacations I would say no.
OP
I'd agree... I got mine free from John himself.
---------- Post added December 7th, 2014 at 11:47 PM ----------
This just a screener to see if we're even close demographically - no diving questions at all - to determine if it's even worth doing the full survey, and if so how would I need to modify that based on SB population.
The questions I used were plucked from the surveys I saw at DEMA... checking for degree of consistency in overlap activities, psychographics, and core demographics.
I'm not clear on how the activities portion helps you learn much. If i read it correctly, I was to answer affirmatively if id ever done something more than once. For example, hiking. Sure I've been hiking at least twice. 
but for some reason that escapes me, it's not my favorite thing to do. There were other items on the list, for example, snow skiing, which was my passion until my mid-thirties but I haven't been in many years and won't be going again.
Please advise. Thanks.
but for some reason that escapes me, it's not my favorite thing to do. There were other items on the list, for example, snow skiing, which was my passion until my mid-thirties but I haven't been in many years and won't be going again. Please advise. Thanks.
Survey completed. Good Luck!
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I'm not very smart regarding such a project as this but I must wonder: If there is eventually a survey/poll to determine whether SB members are representative of divers in general, where would it be posted? Obviously not on SB, as you'd need to get divers who are not on SB to do the survey as well, no? I'm sure I missed something here. Or maybe a survey would be posted elsewhere and mentioned on SB so SB people could also take part for the comparison?
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