For next week

OK, so after the brainstorm session this week . . .

SUNDAY, FEB. 3:
The on-site team will visit the church this Sunday to get an idea of the scope of our project, and what it believes will be feasible activities for all of our groups to tackle. These three members will start an investigation of the current communication tactics used on Sunday mornings, when many people are in the building. They will help us brainstorm again during a shorter session next Monday, and provide information we'll need to help the quant team. A sample question that they might provide? What about this: What information did you learn at church on Sunday morning that helped you make plans for the week? This would have to be reworked for use in a survey, but it will give the survey team some material and general ideas to work with.

MONDAY, FEB. 4:
We'll meet during our regular class time, when each group will have a mini report to make, based on secondary research, literature reviews, and/or preliminary analysis of its area (or materials related to its area). One goal of our class meeting on Monday will be to provide information that may be shared with the quant team for its survey.

Basically, we need to help the survey group figure out what questions are most suitable for this client. So, if you could ask a survey-type question or two about your area, what would it be?

For the print/online group, maybe one question would be: What printed materials are most useful to you for keeping up with the activities you are most interested in? For this question to work, the survey group would need a list of print materials to include in the survey. Another question might be: How do you use the web site? Again, the survey group will need our knowledge to help them figure out the tools and information offered by the web site. Of course, they can look at the web site, but we'll have a better context for analyzing it.

The focus group team could be reading ahead about how to conduct focus groups and how to recruit for them, from one demographic that is important to the church: families with children. Is there information that we could garner through the survey that would help you with this task? Do you want to ask survey respondents if they are interested in participating in a focus group, too? Do you want to ask one or two open-ended questions on the survey that could give you background or information that you would need for the focus groups? What about asking about times most convenient for meeting in a focus group?

TUESDAY, FEB. 5:
A few students who are able will attend the quant class at 6:30, to share what we know so far that would be useful to their work in building a good survey.

ALL WEEK:
If you need help in contacting Meredith Bell, remember to talk to Sarah Junek first, at sarahjunek (at) mac.com. All students will be helping us put together literature reviews based around their teams: organizational communication and worship community communication (on-site team); best practices for focus groups, especially groups that are involved in talking about organizational communication (focus group team); best practices for print and online communication (print and online team). Please email me with your questions.