On September 30, Chattanooga Stand ended their five-month campaign with 26,001 surveys and more than 100,000 total responses. Now, organizers are facing a new set of questions as they examine not only how to analyze and share their findings with the public, but what will become of Stand itself.
Processing and analyzing the responses
The next step for the campaign is to enter, process and analyze the responses to each survey question. To do that, Stand has contracted with The Ochs Center for Metropolitan Studies.
According to Stand organizers, more than 80 percent of the surveys were collected personally through canvassing or at public events. Stand delivered these handwritten responses to the Center for Applied Social Research (CASR) at the University of Tennessee at Chattanooga, which was subcontracted by The Ochs Center for data entry and coding.
Lori Quillen, Policy Analyst at the Ochs Center, explained their two-phased approach, "CASR enters all of the written responses by hand into a database (the online surveys are automatically entered into the database). They will then go back and apply a code to each response based on a list of Themes and Categories we have identified based on a review of about half the responses."
According to Sarah Lester, Campaign Coordinator for Stand, seven themes—and as many as 25 categories within each theme—have been selected by CASR, the Ochs Center and Stand. The seven themes are Places: Natural; Places: Man Made; People; Work and Economy; Government; Education; and Play. Ms. Lester said, "The final rubric is simple, and the themes are easy to grasp. It directly correlates to the categories used in Vision2000 and Revision2000, and is also informed by the survey responses, which is why the Education category was included."
Once the data has been entered and coded, CASR will turn over the data set to the Ochs Center for analysis. Ms. Quillen stated that the Ochs Center will use a software program, SPSS, to further analyze the data. SPSS, she said, will "allow us to sort the data by question number and category, as well as break down responses by demographic data, when provided."
The categorization of these freeform responses presented a significant challenge for CASR and the Ochs Center. Ms. Quillen said, "One of our biggest concerns is that the responses will be categorized correctly. We have taken great care in developing a coding rubric that will hopefully correctly characterize the responses."
Publishing and publicizing the data
The Ochs Center will then identify common themes and issues before producing a final report.
Ms. Lester stated, "Early 2010, Ochs will present Stand with a report on their findings from analysis of the survey responses. In order to validate our non-scientific questionnaire, Ochs will give the emerging themes context where possible by including baseline statistics on the region using data from their previous reports, such as the State of the Chattanooga Region Report."
Ms. Quillen described the report, saying, "The report we produce will not have a great level of detail, but will describe broad trends, themes and issues, and compare them with demographics and other available data, where possible. It is important to remember that this is not a scientific survey, with a random sample. Given the number of responses, though, no one can seriously question its value as a source of information on where the community is and where people believe it needs to go."
Stand organizers aim to make the report public as soon as possible in both digital and print formats. The group will also release a searchable, online database of the categorized results, including demographic data. Ms. Lester sees presenting the information to the public as an "opportunity to break new ground in transparency and adapting our methods of communication to varied audiences." She continued, "Our goal is to make the results relevant and digestible to the public, easy to access, searchable and functional to use, and ultimately to have them serve as a launching pad for deeper dialogue around the top themes and priorities."
The future role of Stand
With the survey responses in hand and analysis underway, Stand organizers are wrestling with perhaps the biggest question of all. Which is, what will be Stand's ongoing role in the Chattanooga community? Their answer appears to revolve around two words: connecting people.
Stand organizers plan to take the survey data to members of the community on every level, using both a top-down and bottom-up approach.
Unlike similar initiatives such as VisionPDX, Stand operates independently of local government agencies. However, Chattanooga Mayor Ron Littlefield has given public support to the Stand campaign—most notably in his 2009 State of the City Address—and council members such as Manny Rico and Andrae McGary have promoted the effort in their districts.
Katherine Nielsen, Campaign Coordinator, recognizes the ability of elected officials to build awareness, saying, "Elected officials can magnify an issue, and then the masses can shape the direction of the conversation." Stand organizers also hope to "broaden the leadership circle and empower new leaders," Ms. Nielsen said.
Stand organizers continue to seek input from board members, organizational partners and the public at large about the future of the initiative. Even the format of the public planning meetings is up for discussion.
At the most recent planning meeting, three models were presented for Stand's ongoing strategy. The first placed Stand at the center to identify problems, develop action plans and organize task forces. A second saw Stand as an intermediary between organizations such as the Chamber, the Community Foundation and Allied Arts—working closely with them to develop strategic plans and then equipping them with tools and resources to carry out those plans.
The third—and most popular, thus far—model was the "Starfish Method," as described in a Stand memo:
Stand employs the Starfish Method: engaging and empowering multiple individuals and small groups of people to address issues and assemble taskforces (sic) on their own, to encourage a community-owned and decentralized organization.
While Stand organizers say their goal has always been to translate vision into action, they also say they aren't promoting any specific agenda to address the challenges identified in the survey. CreateHere fellow and Stand volunteer Veronique Bergeron said, "We will have succeeded if there are two groups tackling the same problem in opposing ways."
Ms. Bergeron concluded, "We have this huge body of data, so what do we do with it? What's important is how it connects people."
John Hawbaker
twitter-13657752 on Oct. 26, 2009
"Given the number of responses, though, no one can seriously question its value as a source of information on where the community is and where people believe it needs to go.”
The number of results provides no support for the scientific/research validity of the (1) method of inquiry or (2) formulation of questions. It is an incredibly short and general survey. The number of responses is directly related to the incredible amount of money spent on marketing, the number of $1 beers available, and the use of people's places of employment to push the surveys onto people, not any grass roots support from the community. No one can seriously question that Stand did not come *from* Chattanoogans, Stand was *pushed to* Chattanoogans.
Again, I am specifically calling on Stand to release the uncategorized, individual responses so that outside research can at least read the real responses and not the interpretation. I was told this would happen but the article above does not seem as this is the case.