On surveys

I empathize with Jeff Jarvis, who probably gets bombarded with interview and survey participation requests a lot more than I do. Nevertheless, I get my fair share and lately I've been declining a few. As Jeff does, I already say 'no' to organizations which do research on behalf of a company. They can hire me for an hourly fee, if they like. Unless, of course, I have personal ties with said organization.

Yesterday, for the first time ever, I threw away an email by a student who was doing her MA paper. I make it a matter of personal pride to always help out students, but this was different. She wanted me to answer survey questions, but couldn't even be bothered to draft more than a very brief standard message. Not only did it address readers as 'Dear journalist' (there's only 10,000 of us in the Netherlands), she didn't even bother to explain what the survey was about exactly, how respondents were selected (i.e. how she got my email address), or whether interviewees would be sent a copy of her paper. There was, however, a very long url to a badly designed website on which I was supposed to fill out lots of questions.

I don't mean to discourage any student from contacting me, but it seems to me that someone who's trying to get a degree in communications might have realized that this is not a very good way to communicate.

9:15

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