Re: Annual Oracle World Database Survey

Mark Townsend <markbtownsend_at_attbi.com> wrote in message news:<3F57FCCC.2070403_at_attbi.com>...
> <Snip>
> > The more I've thought about it, the more I expect to receive some
> > stupidflashgigantormailclientcrashingspam about six weeks after Oracle
> > World.
> > I'm tempted to sacrifice a virgin email account as a honeypot to find
> > out if this whole "survey" is just email harvesting. Even the best
> > anti-spam legislation would probably not protect against "prior
> > business relationships."
> >
> > A bad survey just has that spam smell.
> >
> <snip>
>
> > The business decision is getting more obvious to me in retrospect.
> > Harvest email. Make some useless rah-rah presentation at Oracle
> > World. Target-market email. Target-market snail-mail.
>
> Joel - I'm sorry you feel that way. I have followed up with both you and
> Daniel specifically asking for feedback on the areas you do not like or
> feel are broken. I've also followed up with the other person that
> emailed me directly at my Oracle account. I will read and reply to all
> similar feedback anybody else wants to send me - at mark.townsend_at_oracle.com

Well, I think we've pretty much covered the specific areas that are broken, but more generally, it seems unfocused as to what it is trying to gather. The format is just too much like those for the "free" magazines, where they are obviously gathering targetting information, as evidenced by most of the junk in my post office box. Sorry if I haven't responded personally yet, I've been too busy to check my personal email/spamboxes this week. Of course, if you sent it to joel-garry_at_home.com, I won't get it - my web site comes up easily if you search the web for my name.

>
> In the meantime, the newsgroup has my personal assurance that
>
> 1) This is an Oracle survey.

Of that I have no doubt, and appreciate any effort you make to actually incorporate feedback into product support and planning.

>
> 2) We do and will continue to make quite sane and rational product
> decisions based on the answers.

Well, see the posted responses, GIGO. Frankly, whoever designed it missed the introductory classes for relational design, survey design and/or statistics.

>
> 3) We are not doing this to collect email addresses.

I've gotten some pretty ridiculous flash emails from Oracle, so I'm dubious. Now I'm definitely setting up honeypots.

>
> Note that this survey is not new - we have been doing this in person,
> via paper, in the Oracle World Database campgrounds, for at least the
> last 8 years (we did go online for the Oracle World attendees last year).

I know many, many people who do not go to Oracle World, as they are put off by the hype level. I haven't gone in a few years because I generally have to pay my way myself, as well as lose billable hours if I'm lucky enough to be working, so IOUG has been more cost-effective for me when it's nearby (SoCal). But I can't afford Canada. Wanted to go to Oracle World (I have relatives up there so I don't have to hotel), but have too much work - drought or deluge for us poor independents! :-) Those of us who don't have corporate education budgets and aren't professional lecturers can be quite put off by the costs.

>
> If guilty of anything, I'm only guilty of wanting to get a better
> representative sample - i.e replies from people that use Oracle but will
> never get to attend Oracle World in San Francisco. Having spent the
> first 35 years of my life not being blessed by living and working in the
> USA, I happen to think that this is important. However, if anybody else
> feels that the survey is inappropriate, just a poor excuse at stripping
> email ids, and/or is inherently broken, then by all means simply ignore
> it. And, if requested, I will withdraw the link totally from OTN.

Well, that's a good thing to be guilty of! I for one am glad that you are taking this as constructive criticism, because if you genuinely believe these things are important (and I am one who believes people in general _want_ to do a "good job"), that is how it is intended. It is unfortunate that some people's idea of a good job is a small percentage of responses from spam, and surveys, warranty cards, visiting websites and other harvesting methods happen to look just like your survey.

And I've gotten a lot of junk mail from having registered for free passes to shows with fake names. Some of it actually has several fake names where someone obviously xreffed the address. That totally cracks me up, since I never actually have _used_ a fake name at a show, they're mostly from showing people how to use a sign-up site or if I suspect harvesting. Some have suddenly shown up several years after last use.

Welcome to America!

jg

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