Thanks Kelly! I would love to know specific spending habits like you listed but at the same time I think there are probably collectives out there that don't keep good enough records plus the more questions there are, the less likely people will be to complete it. I'll look into the possibility of giving users the option to break down spending costs if they have that data and are comfortable giving it.

I think I'm going to go with LimeSurvey which is a tool I will have to host on our collective's site but will allow for some more advanced logic like this.

Definitely my wording needs some work, I did this in a rush and late in the evening but what I was looking for by "How much did you pay for all non-capital repair products?" was only costs that are regular expenditures, like lube and tubes. Otherwise there could be some inconsistencies in spending habits if some shops are new and needed to purchase all new workstations vs a shop that has been around for many years and only needs a few new tools. I'll put some thought into how to make that question clearer or break it down to make more sense.

As for confidentiality issues I think that all I will be able to do is give people my word that I will not be releasing data like that that you suggested, I think I'll also see if I can separate contact info from the rest of the survey results and just make everyone a number in order to make it easier for me to not see stuff like that easily but in the end, I could (but won't) decide to query information on say all bike shops in Fargo, ND which would only give me FMCBW's information (assuming they do the survey). People will just have to trust me or not answer those questions.

Thanks!
.g




From: kelly@bicyclekitchen.com
To: thethinktank@lists.bikecollectives.org
Date: Wed, 9 Feb 2011 12:04:33 -0800
CC: thethinktank@bikecollectives.org
Subject: Re: [TheThinkTank] Competitive analysis?

Godwin,

What a great looking survey!

What's this:  "How much did you pay for all non-capital repair products?"   (tools, parts?)

I think it's nonprofit, without the dash.

I think that the costs could be broken down even more, so that the "other operating costs" is more distinct.  For example, trash/recycling, insurance (liability, directors, worker's comp,) rag service, collateral merchandise, meetings, staff.  It would make easier to compare how co-ops spend money.

Personally, I don't feel proprietary about it all, but I bet there's confidentiality fear in exposing maybe your co-op is NOT paying insurance?  ;  )

totally NOT a waste of time

THANK YOU!!!!

Kelly


On Feb 7, 2011, at 11:31 PM, Godwin! wrote:

So, I have been tasked to perform a competitive analysis of similar organizations by an economist in our group. I'm realizing now that a genuine competitive analysis is probably not exactly what we need but a general survey on many of our shops may be useful to all of us. Since we are gearing up to lobby our university to support a DIY bike shop on campus again, our goal is to see what other similar organizations offer and what it takes to run them so that we can bargain reasonably. This data might also be useful for a number of other reasons to any bike collective.

I have put up a draft of a survey, please take a look. (I put this together pretty quickly, the ordering is probably not the best)

I am by no means an economist, so some of the terminology could probably be improved, same goes for US specific information. I would eventually like to offer up the data in such a way that any sensitive information could be untied from the organization information to keep information confidential, but I'm not sure of any other way than to simply query me after it is complete, I can also provide a relevant breakdown afterwards. I'm not sure if people would find giving information about income and expenditures too confidential even in that scenario.

If it interests you, I would like to hear back about a few things:
  • If you think I'm wasting my time
  • If you have any suggested amendments, improvements or additions of any questions or extraction of irrelevant or far too confidential questions
  • Suggestions for a host other than google forms

Thanks everyone,
.godwin of the Bike Root




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