The Great Chennai Book reading survey March 19, 2009
Posted by amrut in Book reading survey.trackback
Announcing The Great Chennai Book reading survey and The Great Chennai viral networking challenge.
The survey is meant to address one question – Is Chennai a ‘well-read’ city or not. The idea is that while everybody seems to think that Chennai is a ‘well-read’ city, i.e. people in Chennai read books a lot, there is no hard evidence. And one cant act on a thought. If we can prove the statement either way, then we can present it to the people who matter and say, look Chennai doesnt read as much as you think so lets do something about this OR wow, Chennai reads a lot, lets be proud of it.
While we were discussing this survey in its initial phases, we thought we will pay a market research organization to do this for us. But then we thought, lets viral-market it. And while doing so, lets test the mathematics behind viral marketing. Essentially, Chennai is a small city and most people are separated by a max of 3 degrees of separation* (this is my guess), so that would mean that the exponential growth of viral marketing will plateau. Simply put, the number of respondents over time should like like this — link here.
If we are able to get a good curve, then it might be possible to estimate an average degree of separation in Chennai. (Although, I wont promise it.)
The link to the survey is here — http://survey.we-bloggers.com/index.php?sid=62781&lang=en (Survey average fill time = 3 mins.)
The live result of the viral networking curve (updated hourly) is displayed at the end of the survey. There is also a link to an internet usage survey that you might want to answer.
Please please answer the survey if you are in Chennai. Please inform your friends about it. Please blog about it. Please put it in your status / facebook / orkut message. Please be part of the survey and the challenge. I’ve sent out an email forward, if you want a copy, email me at booksurvey[at]gmail[dot]com.
* — Degree of Separation — If I know Amrit and Amrit knows Raghav and Raghav knows Ashwin. Then Ashwin is 3 degrees of separation away from me. It is theorized that everybody in the world is separated by a maximum of six degrees of separation. BUT, in a closed world (like Chennai), this will maybe smaller. For instance, in a village of 200 people, eveybody will know eveybody!
** — Survey owners — Amrutash Misra (alumnus IIT Madras, PS Senior school) and Suchitra Sastri (alumnus Wharton b-school, PS Senior school). Webs space provided by — Amrit Vatsa (alumnus IIT Madras). Bezier curve representing results — Arun (slinky) (IIT Madras). Special thanks to all the people who have argued over Chennai book reading habits over cups of filter coffee. And extreme gratitude to all our friends and wellwishers for helping out.
Why is that a bias error? It could just be that many people u know live in that area right? Or most people who use the internet regularly live there. Does that count as a bias? Is it an error then rather than just a bias?
As in, its not representative of Chennai. The IIT area contribution is ob, and so it the Mylapore (school) area.
Oh ok.. I wonder if this could be used to find out where most of the people in your address book (or less than 6 degrees of seperation away) live.
Yes. Its reflective that most people in my address book stay in south centre Chennai. And I couldnt convince them to send the survey to lots of people outside the south-centre. Anything else?
Yeah, perhaps, after the survey is completed you could have a form that lets people enter their friends list to forward it.. that might help in viral aspect.. or maybe take advantage of facebook!
Other than that, good work! Hope it gets better
Ok.