Downtown Survey Now Online

I took the survey, but it required me to enter my home address and there were no assurances of privacy. What’s up with that? Of course, the sponsors can now say someone at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue filled out the survey… 😉

There are assurances of privacy on the last page when you click on the terms & conditions. Poorly designed — but important nonetheless.

The address is important. It helps them carve out certain addresses for certain questions. For instance, 3 of the questions are asking if residents would be open to a small fee from the Downtown BID in exchange for greater services. The BID boundaries are a subset of the survey boundaries. The BID needs a way to exclude certain responses that aren’t in their service area. I for one answered ‘No’ to all the Downtown BID questions because I’m already in the MVT CIDs service area and don’t need to be double raked for fees. =)

Other than that I’d say address is probably meaningful to those that will analyze the data because spatial representation of data is increasingly becoming the rage.

I had the same concerns as #1. They ask for specific info about our exact addresses and then make income a required question. As much as I support the association, I was not willing to disclose this information, despite the privacy assurances, so I closed out of the survey without completing it.

PQ Observer, are you in the House? If so, come to the Lincoln Bedroom for a séance at midnight tonight.

Based on those same privacy concerns, I also stopped midway through the survey and didn’t complete it. I don’t understand why they need an exact address. A separate question asks if you reside in the BID area, and if you’re going to lie on that one, you’re going to make up an address anyway.

#1/#4 – Odds are if you live downtown you live in a multi-unit building. What about just leaving your unit number off the address? Would that ease your mind some? The building only address probably still gives the survey tabulators enough to work with.

Please complete the survey. Just don’t put your unit number on there. How about a House of Blues in the neighborhood?

There are several questions concerning privacy. The reason we need to know the address is so we can identify the building and make appropriate geographic weighting. The second reason is that prizes are being given and we need to know who to contact and, hopefully, be able to announce who the winners are. There were many great prizes given out last year and the the survey collaborators want to be able to announce who won.

Individual contact information is not being shared, marketed to, or revealed in any way beyond prize announcement.

Thanks,

Miles E. Groves
Downtown Neighborhood Association