Rachel, you write:
> Remember that InfoWorld is written for IS managers in various businesses -- but not the
> IT industry (software developers, chip makers, and systems manufacturers, and the like).
I have an IT job at a non-IT company; I make my living as a programmer. Funny, I feel I'm in the IT business, not the pointy-haired managing business.
> We try to let our target readers vote -- once a year -- on the products that they choose and use. We disqualified all vendors
> -- big and small. I don't see how that makes our conclusions less statistically valid given who we say our audience is.
Interesting choice of words, "given who _y_o_u_ _s_a_y_ your audience is" . . .
So I guess we can take the "Readers' Choice" as given from above by the powers that be, too:
It darn well better be what _y_o_u_ _s_a_y_ it should be, or the results get thrown out, right?
Yes, of course that's "statistically valid"; only, as a picture of *what*? A 100% true description of the results _y_o_u_ _w_a_n_t_e_d_ -- no more, no less.
Oh, and by the way, was it only _v_e_n_d_o_r_s_ who were excluded, or their customers, too?
In "Big Name Computer Company" (Posted by: rparker Date posted: Mon, 16 Jun 1997), you write:
>> Here's why we chose readers outside the IT field: Say Big Name Computer Company finds out that its product is being considered for this award,
and suggests to all of its employees, suppliers, and *BUSINESS PARTNERS* that a smart thing to do would be to be sure to vote for its product.
HMMM. What if it even offered a financial incentive to the employee who got the most votes cast. All legitimate votes, of course. << [My emphasis]
In business newspeak, everybody who _b_u_y_s_ a computer or a program is surely a "business partner"
of the vendor in question, so I don't see who would be *left* as the target population of your survey . . .
Those who neither make _o_r_ _u_s_e_ IT products?!?
Well, if nothing else, it shows which lengths you had to go to, in order to get the results you wanted . . .
Christian R. Conrad
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