Dear editor:
Recently, my children and I participated in the Zero-Waste breakfast, which the town and the Cochrane Kitchen put on.
I want to state up front that I am fully in favour of the Zero-Waste concept. In the lineup, adults were invited to provide their email address to participate in an online survey because, “the initial survey conducted by the town had a very poor response”.
Why a poor response?
Today, I received the email to conduct the Zero-Waste survey and I jumped in with both hands. However, I have to say that I will be truly surprised if this survey gets valid information for the Zero-Waste initiative. The survey itself was comprised of numerous open-ended questions – and while this may be valuable to help clarify a point, open-ended online surveys frustrate the participant. It took me over 30 minutes to complete 50 per cent of the survey. The last 50 per cent was not completed and I was not prepared to spend another 30 minutes on this. I was tired of explaining myself over and over.
To suggest that this survey was not a good idea would be incorrect, however, for Ipsos-Reid to permit its client (Town of Cochrane) to conduct a survey in this manner – an open-ended, online manner – is poor market research professionalism.
I would also propose that to pose open-ended questions like these in a public, tax-funded survey, means the planner of the survey had no real idea on what options should be proposed. I believe a stronger response rate with a higher completion rate would have been attained if there were pre-determined choices with radio-button responses with one ‘other’ field to elucidate additional answers or clarifications.
Given that the municipal election is around the corner, I hope that the cost of this survey enters the first council discussion. How much did we as a town get charged for this? Additionally, I wonder if the other residents of Cochrane who have received this survey are far less frustrated and have a lot more time on their hands than I do to complete this survey.
As the saying goes, “If you put garbage in, you get garbage out,” and somehow this may be the cruel paradox of the Zero-Waste survey.
Alexander (Sandy) Dubyk
