Please give 2 min to a student!

Hello

I am a student at Newcastle univerity(UK) studying e-business and information systems management.Pls give me 2 min by completing a multiple chose survey.Your help would be much appreciated.Thanks

http://www.surveymonkey.com/s.aspx?sm=bsx2Qw0dWRNhP1XDriDdAQ_3d_3d

The password required for the survey is: Diminator444

You may end up with a lot of problems in forum coz many people are tired of surveys. Yours sounds complicated to get into. Passwords etc. I dont mind surveys butI wont fill one in outside SL. Why not meet people in world and establish a base of people who will help you? You can IM me, for example. I like interviews.
Be prepared for a whole pile of posts to your thread.
Errr ... what is information systems management?

Beni, people are going to get to "e-business" in your post and stop right there, assuming this is just another of the many thinly-disguised inworld marketing surveys that get posted here.

A little more detail about what your survey is actually *about* would help your cause, as well as a more realistic approximation as to how long it will take (I've never yet encountered *any* survey that only took two minutes, except the ones I stopped doing after that time, for whatever reason) so that people know *before* they have to enter password protected sites.

Edited to add: *sigh* And spamming SIX of the forums here* with the same request will NOT help your cause, mate.

*
Products Wanted Today, 11:20 AM
Resident Answers Today, 11:21 AM
Property Sales and Rentals Today, 11:22 AM
Services Today, 11:25 AM
Land Sales and Rentals Today, 11:33 AM
Employment Ops & Help Wanted Today, 11:34 AM

"Multiple chose"?

Pep (If you're so lazy you can't even be bothered to check your post is sensible . . . )

ditto

Newcastle U. Pep - not Oxbridge. But I think he meant choose - like "You can multiply choose you answer" errr, no. That doesnt work. Choice? Yeah. Now you see why I didnt go to University.

OK, I took the survey. Actually, it *was* pretty short, but Beni, you need to study the business model *as it applies to Second Life*, because aspects of it cannot be compared to Real Life.

For anyone thinking of taking this survey, if you're not a content creator/business, it's probably not worth it; this survey is geared towards business, and particularly how businesses/creators *invest* in their business.

Your final question (#5) simply doesn't take into account all kinds of investments made by businesses and creators in SL. As a creator with a business, my primary investments are in other peoples' products that I then use in my own creations. Yes, these cost me real money, but they are not a pure injection of funds into my own business.

(As an aside, your first question about how the survey-taker earns money in SL; many of us buy it from the LindeX. It is quite hard to earn enough money to 'invest' in anything in SL, especially in the early days of a business. So the initial outlay for things like textures and scripts and sculptmaps, and even for texture uploads sometimes, that SL content creators use in their businesses often comes from L$ purchases on the LindeX, rather than from any inworld source. Camping, money trees and inworld jobs notwithstanding )

So, for example, I will buy full permission textures and scripts from other creators, and then use those in my own creations. *Those* are the typical investments that SL businesses make, as well as placing ads and classifieds and other more purely financial investments. You need to consider, too, that paying rent for land/paying land tier to Linden Lab is also an investment for businesses, as well as choosing the right location for stores and satellite locations (and the right location can cost a lot more, too).

Your survey appears to be approaching the subject more from a financial investment, a la stocks and shares and "I'll put this much money into your business to help it get off the ground" kind of thing, which is not a typical business model in SL.

I hope this feedback on your survey helps

It's a clue to what the survey is like .. "You wanted to sale an already existed product/service but slightly differentiate?"

While I normally admire people's achievements in speaking English as a foreign language rather than criticize their inaccuracies, I do think it would have been wise to ask someone whose mother tongue is English to look over a survey that's aimed an English speaking audience. My French is pretty good but I'd certainly ask a native speaker to check my efforts in similar circumstances.

The questions aren't, I fear, particularly well thought-out. They don't really seem to accommodate people who, like me, started with no particular plans to do anything commercial in Second Life, then started scripting or sculpting or building or animating or whatever out of interest or because we couldn't afford to buy whatever it was we wanted so we had to learn how to make it ourselves, and then found people are willing to pay us for doing stuff we enjoy doing anyway.

I'll happily participate in a survey if it'll help someone's studies, but not if I have to struggle to find answers that fit my case.

I had a quick look through ... the survey is only really relevant to those who run businesses in SL. He's not trying to sell us RL goods, at least.

I am not sure how relevant all the questions about market sector are - in SL, who really knows the age, gender or social group (class?) of their customers? This survey seems to be aimed at RL business people who have joined SL specifically to set up businesses inworld, whereas my perception (which could be wrong) is that many, perhaps most, SL business owners have had no prior experience of running a business and their "marketing strategies" have just evolved as they go along, by trial and error.

There are a lot of spelling and grammar mistakes in the survey and, while I am not usually one to complain about this, for a survey originating from a university I think it does matter. There must be somebody in the university who could check it over if written English is a problem. Also, I wonder why these surveys are always on Surveymonkey. My university has in-house survey software, hosted on their own servers, so that if I wrote a survey (hmmmmm ... ) it would have the added credibility of the university's name in the URL.

OP, if you are as new as your forum join date would suggest, I recommend that you spend lots of time inworld, as well as reading relevant threads here (Advice on Sales has popped up again, I notice), and really learn how SL businesses work. That way, you can make your survey questions more relevant.

OK, that's my two minutes' worth, good luck!

I only got as far as "Newcastle university [sic]" and stopped. There are many differences between British and U. S. English, but I believe we both expect "University" to be capitalized in that context. I also expect college-level students, especially those making public requests for assistance with business-related research, to put effort into making a good impression by proofreading their writing.

I try not to be as critical as some others here, but some posts cry out for correction.

Kidd, you should have stopped at the fact that 'university' was not only un-capitalised, but also contained no 's'. The OP spelled it 'univerity'

I did think about mentioning that, but I had enough feedback to give on the survey itself. I didn't want to approach TL;DR status

Sorry, only one error per word per customer. Otherwise I'd have to charge for proofreading.

(Good catch. I missed that error, because I literally did stop caring about the content when I hit the "u".)

Already had this via IM, did anyone else?

I don't do surveys, sorry. I'm not a lab rabbit.

The quality of English didn't improve during the survey, and the quality of the survey wasn't exactly shining.

Posted to five other boards too. Bad form.

So who else Meaded it?

That's enough to keep me from even clicking the link.

So no one else got the IM first?

Yeah, that was the point where I decided not to even follow the link. And though I'm not a content creator, I'm one of the strange sort who actually likes answering surveys. I gave you my 2 minutes wading past your spam, Beni.

ETA: No IM, though, thank goodness. Don't even go there...

Oh, how I have missed surveys. Now the schools are starting back we can expect more.
.. oh well, I can't do the survey. I don't do business in SL. It's really for those that sell in SL.

/me laughs heartily

As soon as I read that I knew you'd be on it.

No IM here, either, Clarissa.

BTW, is this the Friday thread?

This, this might be of interest to you, original poster:

"Similarly, some of the first educators and researchers in SL were a bit clumsy in their approach. There were early incidents in which Residents felt—rightly—that they were being spied upon or treated like guinea pigs rather than human beings. Imagine how you would feel if an entire class of students set up right next to your vacation hideaway, left trash lying around, logged your conversations, and posted them on the Internet with criticism and mean-spirited comments. This is exactly what happened to some early Residents. Things have improved greatly in the years since then, but sometimes SL Residents are still subject to that kind of inconsiderate behavior. For example, a constant stream of researchers (often students) posts on the Second Life official forums requesting that Residents please take their surveys. Most of these surveys include the same questions that have been asked over and over. Often they aren't spell-checked, or refer to SL as a game—a sure way to irritate a substantial number of Residents. Some Residents make a hobby of critiquing these surveys, pointing out how the questions and their wording make it clear that the researcher isn't familiar with Second Life. Some post outright that they are sick of badly planned surveys and suggest that the researchers log in and do their own research."

From The Second Life Grid: The Official Guide to Communication, Collaboration, and Community Engagement
by Kimberly Rufer-Bach
ISBN-13: 9780470412916

I like that....well done for posting that, Mari

Yer welcome. I keep it handy for times like this.

(Good book overall, too)

*That's* the book I tried to figure out the title to. Thanks. Looks like a good read.