Athearn asking for suggestions on Facebook

[ljudice]

You really have to wonder how they are going to go through hundreds of replies, each one with numerous requests, and make any sense of it. This looks like an exercise in corporate BS, not unlike the recorded message that you get whenever you call a company and are informed that "your business is important to us" right before you put on hold for 15 minutes.

Best wishes, Dave

INTERNS!!!!!!     

But seriously, Dave, I think you're 100% right - my only reason for posting the thread was to be sure N-scale was (hopefully) over represented.

[CBQ Fan]

I asked for more F45/FP45's so I can increase my fleet.

[mmagliaro]

You really have to wonder how they are going to go through hundreds of replies, each one with numerous requests, and make any sense of it. This looks like an exercise in corporate BS, not unlike the recorded message that you get whenever you call a company and are informed that "your business is important to us" right before you put on hold for 15 minutes.

Best wishes, Dave

Well, they *might* do that.  But it is not that bleak.  They could assign somebody to simply go through the hundreds (or even thousands) of suggestions and make up an Excel spreadsheet with a line for each product requested and a count of how many people asked for it.  That wouldn't take too long, perhaps a few days if there are a lot of entries.
And then they can see what the most sought-after products are, and make their choices.

Now, where this breaks down is if they don't split it by scale.  That is, the top 10 requested products could easily all
be HO, just by sheer numbers, in which case they might do nothing in N.  But if they pick the top 3 in HO, the top 3 in N, the top 3 in (O?)  ... that would work out.

[Kev1340]

You really have to wonder how they are going to go through hundreds of replies, each one with numerous requests, and make any sense of it. This looks like an exercise in corporate BS, not unlike the recorded message that you get whenever you call a company and are informed that "your business is important to us" right before you put on hold for 15 minutes.

Best wishes, Dave

You're joking right? Or are you looking to justify slating a company for asking for its customers input, not just the opinions of 'qualified' forum users?

Cheers,

Kev

[ljudice]

Much as I love Railwire and my fellow asshats here, I'd use Facebook before using forum discussions to drive marketing decisions at a BIG firm like Athearn. It is certainly more representative of "average" modelers, and despite the scattershot nature of the responses, there are surely trends in there - for example the LPG car rerun (in N and HO).

[Scottl]

I'm sure Facebook will provide a text summary of the responses and they can analyse for content.  It is a largely automatic process that requires almost no effort on a companies part.  The Facebook "population" is likely a much larger representation of the modelling community than any given forum could be. 

Posting here, as the Shapeways rep found out, is a lot of effort.  We're high maintenance and it is easy to troll due to forum anonymity.  Perhaps most importantly, we've self-identified as more fringe than core 

[C855B]

... The Facebook "population" is likely a much larger representation of the modelling community than any given forum could be. ...

I disagree that Facebook is any significant representation of the modeling community. Maybe the Gen X'ers, but the core of the MRR hobby - and I daresay the guys devoting time and funding to their hobby - are 50+. The male, over-50 population on Facebook is for all intents a vacuum, even by their own analysis. Facebook is perceived by "us old farts" as an egregious waste of time and electrons.

It pisses me off to no end that the big players such as Atlas and Athearn basically have said "bugger off" to the demographic that funds the hobby by embracing a marketing communications channel directed at the under-40 crowd. One could argue "well, that's the future", but nobody in their right mind these days thinks they're going to stay in business by ignoring their current customer base and concentrating on product development pandering to a market that won't bear fruit for 10 years or more.

FB? FU!

[Scottl]

Well, if you don't like it, join Facebook and make your voice heard.  It is free, and you don't need to share any information about your life that you don't want to.  Just don't post pictures, like everything, and link to TMZ articles from Facebook!

As I said, from a marketing standpoint, these forums where the "old guys" hang out and hold knowledge are a terrible interface to gain a cross-section of viewpoints.  You get lots of great exchange, but these groups are self selecting and prone to negative tangents because of the format.

I prefer forums because of their substance, but I can completely see the reason a company would bypass a forum for Facebook.  Look at how our friends from companies that announce product or engage here are treated.  I think they minimize the interaction because they get a modest amount of actual feedback, a lot of complaints, and in some cases, outright hostility.  The Shapeways exchange, however positive and useful, was overwhelming and in the end I suspect rather unusable, hence they moved on quickly.  The same can happen on Facebook, but text analysis software of data feeds provided (at cost) by Facebook to the company can discard the noise and extract real information from a larger transect of responses.

[Scottl]

I might add that I know a large number of 50-somethings that engage with Facebook by simply having an account with no further information posted.  It is a search and discovery mechanism, and important if they want to be found by others, professionally or otherwise.  Zero time spent on FB, but they have a placeholder.  At the very least, it lets them participate in MRR polls!

[SkipGear]

I disagree that Facebook is any significant representation of the modeling community. Maybe the Gen X'ers, but the core of the MRR hobby - and I daresay the guys devoting time and funding to their hobby - are 50+. The male, over-50 population on Facebook is for all intents a vacuum, even by their own analysis. Facebook is perceived by "us old farts" as an egregious waste of time and electrons.

It pisses me off to no end that the big players such as Atlas and Athearn basically have said "bugger off" to the demographic that funds the hobby by embracing a marketing communications channel directed at the under-40 crowd. One could argue "well, that's the future", but nobody in their right mind these days thinks they're going to stay in business by ignoring their current customer base and concentrating on product development pandering to a market that won't bear fruit for 10 years or more.

FB? FU!

I disagree.

  Athearn is looking at future customer wishes, not the same old answers from the "old guard" model railroaders. The people spending lots of money on trains are not the monster empire builders but the people just getting started. Many of those people are posting on facebook. They are serious enough to care but a young enough demographic or at least on top of technology enough to be on Facebook.

Being that I work in a full line, mainstream, hobbyshop, I have a much different view of what will actually sell. I have used this forum and others to gather suggestions for what would sell in our shop....guess what, about 50% of the time, they are wrong. So much of the stuff asked for on here is obscure, essoteric equipment that the median modeler doesn't understand. What is pleaded for on the forums is just too specific for the average joe to want or care about. They don't know an Evans from a ACF car, they just know it's a box car in Railbox paint that they saw the other day and they want one for their layout. I have quite a few very serious customers that will come in when something that fits their modeling is announced and ask for 10 of these or a dozzen of those, but it is rare, and it on one specific item that somebody got lucky on picking to produce. One guy that might hit on a couple big hits in a year does not make up for 20 other people with completely random desires that may not be on the thoughts of a "serious modeler."

[C855B]

Well, if you don't like it, join Facebook and make your voice heard.  It is free, and you don't need to share any information about your life that you don't want to. ...

When Hell freezes. Facebook stalks you whether you've joined or not. They know much more about your online activities than you realize - that's not paranoia, that's genuine knowledge as an IT pro. Joining, even with their ephemeral, untrustworthy "privacy" settings set to maximum, simply allows them to connect the final dot.

It looks like it may be time for real correspondence, you know, that thing that shortly won't be delivered on Saturday. 

[Scottl]

You know, now the web data collectors know you are an old school, want my mail on Saturday type...   

[DKS]

When Hell freezes. Facebook stalks you whether you've joined or not. They know much more about your online activities than you realize - that's not paranoia, that's genuine knowledge as an IT pro. Joining, even with their ephemeral, untrustworthy "privacy" settings set to maximum, simply allows them to connect the final dot.

+1, emphatically. I used to have a FB account, because it was "strongly recommended" by a former employer. It's like herpes: you're never rid of it, and I dearly wish I'd never joined. Yes, FB has some benefits, but IMO the downside is far worse.

[C855B]

You know, now the web data collectors know you are an old school, want my mail on Saturday type...   

And proud of it! 

[Denver Road Doug]

You know, now the web data collectors know you are an old school, want my mail on Saturday type...   

 

That "Over 50" bias may have been true 2-3 years ago, but not so much anymore.   And they looooooove to post about politics.   I have almost unfriended my dad on several occasions.    But anyway...

Athearn requested only "rerun" type requests.   Of the 700+ responses, it seems that at least 50% of them were new tooling suggestions, and anybody with any knowledge of the Athearn product line can weed those out quickly.    Put the remaining 400 or so responses into a text file, and with a decent text editor you can split out the "multiple requests per comment" pieces pretty quickly.   You'll have have maybe 1500 individual product requests which you can then start working in Excel or whatever you choose.   2 hours, tops.

To me, using Facebook makes sense.  I'm guessing Athearn *probably* gets a ton of marketing numbers from the NMRA, which is going to be made up of mostly 50+, (60+?) HO-biased curmudgeons.    So between the two, you've got pretty much the entire market covered!