It has been a week of forms and requests for information on forms. One particular delight came from a well-known organisation in response to a request for grant.
Please will we supply data on our visitors in the following age groups: 17-18, 19-25, 26-59 and 60+
Now why did we not think of collecting our data in such a logical format? For some silly reason, our surveys collect it in groups of 14 and under, 15-24, 25-34, 35-44, 45-54, 55-64, 65+. It won't take us long to change it for next year but let's hope no one asks for it in any other, less useful, groupings.
Gender: they seemed to know that there should only be a choice of two but this is not something we ask in surveys and stupidly don't record at the point of sale as visitors are not terribly keen on telling us the gender of every member of the family. The same is true for the ethnicity and disability questions they expect us to answer: we have estimates but do not ask everyone. And actually we do not distinguish how many of the Irish are Irish or Irish (travellers).
And then there are the socio-economic groups. They use the government's NS-SEC groupings: Higher managerial and profession, Intermediate, Lower supervisory and technical, Routine, Lower managerial, Small employers and own account workers, Semi-routine occupations and Long-term unemployed/never worked.
I know that we are a bit out of date but the standard grouping used for marketing is the familiar NRS grouping: A: Higher managerial, B Intermediate managerial, C1 Supervisory, clerical and junior managerial, C2 Skilled manual workers, D Other manual workers, E Pensioners and the unemployed - or more complicated ones like ACORN or Sagacity groups. So we need one to fill in their forms and another one for our marketing. Thanks Guys.
Oh, and can we have that data on a landscape sheet instead of portrait? Sorry, no we cannot as you have asked for the data to be submitted on an online form which we cannot print out and cannot be turned around.
Oh the joys of good, reliable, accurate data for decision-making.
