Old Takoma Business Association Preliminary Online Survey Results

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Old Takoma Business Association Preliminary
Online Survey Results

• May 8, 2007

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• Executive Overview
• Survey History
• Initial Excerpts

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The Old Takoma Business Association (OTBA)
needed, and received, community input around
desired downtown businesses
Status Overview
Situation
Challenges
Resolution

• A team of volunteers, Ethan Landis, Sabrina
  Baron, and Seth Balsam, put together a survey
• The survey was posted online at
  www.advancedsurvey.com, a basic online survey
  tool
• After significant publicity in the Takoma Voice,
  Gazette, and various listservs, a total of 880
  respondents submitted their input
• OTBA is in the process of reviewing over 35,000
  discrete data points all pertaining to the
  needs, wants, spending and travel habits of the
  survey respondents

• The original survey was too focused on dining
  establishments
• A business survey had been carried out a year ago
• There was no real consensus around how to best
  distribute a survey
• OTBA wanted as much as possible for as little as
  possible professional survey firms were not an
  option slave labor was the only means available.

• OTBA was searching for a way to gather community
  input and basic demand information around desired
  downtown businesses
• An initial restaurant-centric survey had been
  created
• The desire for a restaurant was well-known, but
  other wants were not
• In order to speak in realistic terms about
  overall demand with potential new businesses,
  fact-based data was needed

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• Executive Overview
• Survey History
• Initial Excerpts

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Initial plans had the survey closing at the end
of January and output completed by April these
dates were modified
Survey Timeline
Initial SurveyTeam Meeting
Survey goes live
Initialclose
Initially targeteddata review
Output to be made available in database /
graphical format
Oct 15th
Nov 15th
Nov 26th
Jan 31st
Feb 28th
Mar 31st
June 15
Feedback fromER Group
Extendedclose
Revised data completion(tentative!)
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The goal was to understand what people wanted,
what theyd spend, where theyre currently
spending, and what theyd need to spend here
Survey Goals
What would you spend?
Where are you now spending?
What do you want?
Consumer insight
What would make you spend here?
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The first part of the survey dealt with
restaurant-related questions
Survey Questions 1-12
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The second part of the survey dealt with other
desired shops, demographic information, and
competing locales
Survey Questions 13-24
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A total of 880 responses were received, which
lead to considerable manual effort in evaluating
the free-text inputs
Response Evaluation
Evaluation Approach

• Enlist help! (Many thanks to Sharon Broderick)
• Separate individual questions and their responses
  (from 200-800 per question)
• Scan responses identify top 8-10 themes
• Classify each response with up to five themes
• Tally each questions responses
• Go to 1, above

There were approximately 7200 data responses from
the free-form text fields, each with up to five
potential responses. This yielded 35000
individual data points
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As with any public effort, the responses tended
to be rather eclectic
Yes-Theyre-Really-True Responses
Sample Response
Question

• I don't really care but for god's sake, PLEASE
  put in a bar!
• Never mind cuisine, I'd like something dark with
  alcohol.
• MEAT! No more organic, healthy bullshit. Give us
  some steak and potatoes! Real food, please.

9. What type of cuisine would you like to see
added to Takoma Park's restaurant scene?

• Good exhaust fan, good acoustics
• Not too kid friendly
• A reasonable restaurant that 1) Does not have the
  food sitting in a display case for hours 2) has
  some atmosphere (no leftover kitchen tables for
  seating)

12. What features, apart from food quality and
price, would be very important to your decision
to patronize a Takoma Park restaurant?
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There were a number of key learnings from the
effort all of which should be applied for the
next survey
Survey Key Learnings
Issue
Key Learning

• Publicity. Our grade A
• Neighborhood chatter, momentum. Our grade A
• Need to make sure all affected residentsare
  notified. Our grade B
• The heavy lifting is related to the
  dataanalysis, which in turn is related to
  survey design. Our grade C-

• Start early, and repeat messagingaround intent,
  timing, and participation
• Monitor whats happening on the listservskeep a
  finger on the pulse of public response (TPCB
  Syndrome)
• Communicate across the DC line to
  ensureparticipation for all potential
  businesses,MD- and DC-based
• Ensure that the survey structure allows
  semi-automated review and collation ofsurvey
  results

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• Executive Overview
• Survey History
• Initial Excerpts

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