Interesting wood heat survey

[John Ackerly]

BTEC just circulated a wood heat survey sponsored by the Illinois Institute for Rural Affairs (IIRA). Apparently its a two-year study to determine to what extent homeowner decisions to adopt biomass technology are based on fuel cost and efficiencies and to what extent environmental benefits. Its a national survey that anyone can take and ends up asking some pretty interesting questions …

Anyone heard anything about it?

Check it out: http://www.instituteintelligence.com

John

 

[pen]

Just took it. Decent questions, not great, but decent.

 

[begreen]

It's a bit less offensive than their first attempt at a survey but still seems quite marketing oriented.

 

[John Ackerly]

It's a bit less offensive than their first attempt at a survey but still seems quite marketing oriented.

Did they do another survey? I think the marketing oriented purpose is pretty interesting because its a state funded agency, and Illinois doesn't even have any stove manufacturers. Do you think they got industry money to do it? Someone has got to be driving this.

 

[bmblank]

My gasifier isn't represented by any of their categories. I guess the closest would be owb, but it's just not the same.

 

[Highbeam]

You know the greenies are stacking the deck with biased survey takers so wood burners must speak up. I'm taking it right now.

Nothing like a survey to bring out special interests.

 

[bmblank]

82% of all statistics are made up on the spot.

 

[begreen]

Did they do another survey? I think the marketing oriented purpose is pretty interesting because its a state funded agency, and Illinois doesn't even have any stove manufacturers. Do you think they got industry money to do it? Someone has got to be driving this.

They floated an initial attempt here about a month or so ago. It got way too personal on the second page and was rejected. This one is better, but it asks some ambiguous or poorly worded questions. And I found question 1 on the second page still too personal, though you can skip answering.

For example, question 8 starts out in the plural (appliances) but the answer is singular and the first option listed is poor.

Poor choice in this case because for the most part wood stoves are not allowed in the bedroom and most pellet stoves are too noisy for bedroom use.

Interesting to note that they have already web-crawled these forums for initial data and found:

Woodstoves and fireplaces: 580,000 messages;
Pellet and multi-fuel stoves: 330,000 messages; and
Wood boilers and furnaces: 127,000 messages.

Based on the papers they have published and the focus of the dept. researchers it is clear that the purpose is marketing based. The survey seems like it is to confirm their research as noted in their current research papers. However, there are some weak or misguided assumptions and conclusions even in these papers. It sounds like an academic marketing study of a topic they are learning about but are still foggy in important details and distinctions. The devil can be in those details.

 

[Jags]

The team consists of:
Dr. Adee Athiyaman
Professor of Marketing

Dr. John Gruidl
Professor of Economics

Walter van Andel MSc MBA

Mohammad Aghdam
MSc Computer Science

It sure looks as though it leans to the marketing side.

 

[begreen]

I'm curious if any of them are wood or pellet burners.

 

[mellow]

Dr Athiyaman looks like he is originally from Australia and writes papers mostly geared toward economics, not sure about the Marketing. He has contrubuited on a book on local economic development: http://www.amazon.com/Entrepreneurs...=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1403097043&sr=1-1

Info seems to be sketchy, one kid that took his class thought he was wierd: (broken link removed to http://www.ratemyprofessors.com/ShowRatings.jsp?tid=924655)

Adee, who has a Ph.D. in Marketing, is recognized for his modeling and quantitative skills. John, who has a Ph.D. in Applied Economics, has extensive field experience in helping communities achieve their economic development goals.

Seems like an odd group of people that will not be able to relate to the common biomass user so the questions will be worded incorrectly and data skewed.

 

[midwestcoast]

I took it. I agree, some pretty odd questions. In the end if they come out with a marketing campaign that encourages a few folks to use biomass in a responsible way, then I'm all for it.
I thought most of my professors were weird. In fact, being weird & being a prof are almost synonymous to me (not meant in a bad way).
Don't really see how the address of the author is necessary or relevant to the discussion. Kinda creepy to post it IMO.

 

[Highbeam]

The background of the guy writing and interpreting the survey is very important to the outcome, the conclusions drawn. Certainly, the conclusions drawn won't be simply the raw data results. The administrators of the survey will use those results to support their conclusions and those conclusions are preconceived in many cases. Biased. Then cherry picking of data will start. Then twisted interpretations. Until the administrators can support their conclusion which may be anti-biomass, and they will do their best (these are smart people) to make it sound like the survey supports them and therefor the public supports them.

 

[mellow]

The question was asked if they burn wood or not, I simply supplied a possible answer.

 

[John Ackerly]

The background of the guy writing and interpreting the survey is very important to the outcome, the conclusions drawn. Certainly, the conclusions drawn won't be simply the raw data results. The administrators of the survey will use those results to support their conclusions and those conclusions are preconceived in many cases. Biased. Then cherry picking of data will start. Then twisted interpretations. Until the administrators can support their conclusion which may be anti-biomass, and they will do their best (these are smart people) to make it sound like the survey supports them and therefor the public supports them.

As far as I know, the authors are pro-biomass. They were involved in the Heating the Midwest conference. But the whole thing still seems a bit strange.