Re: Number of people interested?

[Erik Olson <erik@thekrib.com>]

On Sat, 17 Jul 1999, George Booth wrote:

> I was wondering if anyone has gauged the overall interest in the showcase,

I think one of the ideas here was to involve people from regional groups
as well.  I mentioned in an early post that in the Seattle club, we've got
maybe five or so possible entrants who don't take their own pictures but
whom I could probably pursuade to enter (one such person was very
surprised and pleased to find his planted tank in AFM a few months back!).

Part of how I envisioned this group could help (yes, even the lurkers),
would be in rousting some support in their clubs as well.  There's a
pocket contingent from Vancouver in addition to Olga and Dirt Boy -- their
auction of plants was HUGE last year-- and a similar clan in the bay area.

Point is, since it's a national contest, if we get five entries from 10
regional groups, plus assorted onesie-twosies, that's great to me.

> I am curious what the response was to the last AGA photo contest (the one
> Olga won?). Was it tens of entries, thousands of entries or what? 

Gomberg said it was fairly dismal turnout.  This is what we see locally in
our photo contests as well.  I think this is part of the point that keeps
getting made that we shouldn't have a photo contest.  

> The reason I'm asking is I did something like this on my own 7 years ago
> and was very disappointed in the results (I was over-expecting). I made a
> video tape of our tanks in Feb 1992 and offered to send it free of charge
> to anyone who was interested, hoping to get video tapes of other aquariums
> in return. 

Oh yeah... when I think real carefully about that, I do remember you
mentioned the hopes of circulating other people's aquariums at the time.
But you only mentioned that once, I think, in the original post?  I
thought the main point of your video was so people could see how you did
your tanks and learn from this (which I did).  I didn't have a video
camera at that time... and would have been totally embarrased
sending shots of the crap I was keeping at the time (melting sticks).

Some key differences (I think):

        * No intimidation factor of seeing your tanks first.
        * incentives (prize, website display, print)
        * Higher availability of still cameras, media type.
        * Clearly-defined goal: "send us pictures, this is a
          contest and showcase."

> immensely by sending a few more copies out). It took 6-9 months for all the
> tapes to make their rounds due to some butt-heads not bothering to spend
> the $3 needed to forward the tape.

Wow, you got them back in 9 months?  It took a year for the copy I
forwarded around.  And last year I send a pair of VHS tapes of the ACA
talks I taped, in a loop of 8 people.  They still has not come back. In
March I learned one guy sat on the copies for 2 months before learning
he'd busted one tape and had to send it back to me for repair.  Another
pair I sent to Australia for a guy to duplicate, and he's also never sent
them back (or reimbursed me for postage).  I will never offer to circulate
vhs tapes again... 

OK, that was a bit of a digression, but it does sort of have a tie-in
here, namely that circulation loops *suck* if you want anything done in a
timely manner, and I'm much happier with our distribution via WWW or CD
mailing (to both recipients and judges).

  - Erik

-- 
Erik Olson
erik at thekrib dot com

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