Except. Well. I can't promise any real gems - but I'm going to try!
All is quiet on the riding front since I haven't actually breathed in the smell of a horse since last week's lesson on Wick. There are plans tho. Slow to develop, but hopefully exciting all the same. More later.
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| gotta love when helmet cams catch that precise moment when things went from "ho hum" to "rider meet earth" |
In the meantime, there's another topic on my mind right now. You all might have noticed I haven't been keeping up with my own posts (or yours - so sorry, will hopefully fix that soon!) this last week as I've been out of town.
There was one notable exception tho. The subject of the relative safety of an externally mounted helmet camera cropped up in my last post's comments section, and prompted me to pull away from work for a minute to expound (at great length) about my thoughts there.
Mostly because I'm puzzling through my opinions on the topic of safety and risk. I've got opinions on the matter, perhaps to come out in a post later, but am generally struggling in organizing my thoughts. I mean, we ride horses, and riding horses is inherently risky, right? There's more to it than that, tho, of course.
And. The thing is. I'm a data scientist by nature and profession. It's not enough for me to shape my own opinions, or allow myself to be influenced by one compelling argument or another. I need more, always more. I want numbers, folks.
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| equipment failures are expected to be a frequent source of woe |
So I pulled together a brief 10 question survey. Shouldn't take longer than a couple minutes to click through.
The survey ranges through a couple areas on how you make choices about your equipment, your experiences with said equipment, and some basic details on your horsey backgrounds. It's pointed towards a more english-oriented audience simply because that's my experience - but please do not let that prevent you from adding your voice should you be so inclined.
And here's where I need your help. The laws of statistical significance and whatnot say I can probably pull a large enough sample for drawing conclusions just from you who visit regularly. I'm feeling a little greedy tho.
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| it's generally not advisable to mix sliding stops with jumping |
So. I ask that you please click through the survey. And. If you are interested in seeing the results from it, please consider sharing it through your own channels, whether that be your own blog or facebook or whatever.
The survey will be open for two weeks, closing the morning of August 15. And to sweeten the deal, one random participant will be chosen to win a $25 gift certificate to Riding Warehouse. Extra contest entries to those who share (let me know in the comments).
Thanks in advance for you participation - and please also chime in below with your thoughts etc in the comments!
I can't wait to see your results! Hopefully you get tons of data
ReplyDeletethanks i hope so too!! i <3 data :D
DeleteI did the survey- with the helmet question it would only allow me to have two fields filled in.
ReplyDeletehm interesting, i'll take another look at the question logic options
DeleteIf it is the one I'm thinking of you can't reuse numbers, so I just listed mine from 1-5 in order of importance.
DeleteI took the survey and shared it on my blog's FB page (and my personal page). I am interested to hear the results once you have them tallied! It's a fascinating topic and I imagine you'll get a wide variety of responses!
ReplyDeletei sure hope so!! i don't have a ton of experience in actually building out survey questions, but i love playing with the responses once they're in!! i can already tell there's going to be some interesting outcomes :)
DeleteSurvey completed. Not sure how useful my answers will be for the last question. I don;t use most of the stuff you had on the list, so I put N/A for a lot of the gear.
ReplyDeletethanks - and that's about what i expected for the gear question. not much to say about all of it, unless there's a real story there haha. so i'm hoping to figure out where the trends are there
DeleteVery curious to see these results, I will post on my blog as well!
ReplyDeletethanks! feel free to post wherever you think riders might see it!
DeleteSuper curious about the results!
ReplyDeletemeeee too! i'm super eager to get in there and start messin with them too :D
DeleteLooking forward to seeing the results!!
ReplyDeletethanks - i'm really hopeful to have interesting insights!
DeleteIts not letting me select anything :( I'll try again later on a different browser!
ReplyDeletehmm that's weird - lmk if the issues persist!
DeleteVery interesting survey!
ReplyDeletethanks! i'm not a survey expert by any means and struggled a little with structuring the questions i wanted to ask into the available survey monkey platform features... but so far there are some really interesting nuggets in the responses!! :D
DeleteI took the survey and linked to it via my blog facebook. Good questions!
ReplyDeleteyay thanks Aimee!! each question prompted even more in my mind, and i'm toying with the idea of whether some sort of follow up is appropriate... will hold off tho until the results are in :)
DeleteOOOOHHHH DATA! Loves me some data!
ReplyDeletemeeeeee too :D
DeleteOhhhh I love me data too. I took the survey and made a post about it as well. Good luck with your results!
ReplyDeleteooh thanks! i'm seriously getting super excited and am visualizing visualizations.... (obvi i have a geek problem lol)
DeleteI took the survey (great questions) and am looking forward to the results. I can't share on a blog obvi, but will happily share the link to your blog post on my FB page if you'd like. It'll expose the survey to a lot of non-blog reading riders. :)
ReplyDeletethanks - i appreciate that! there's definitely a wide world of riders beyond blogland, and i think it's important to reach them in case there's some sort of bias or selection criteria that separates people who read blogs from those who don't lol
DeleteFor the helmet question, I wanted to rank fit and certifications as tied for most important, and don't care about the rest, but it wouldn't let me. Very interesting survey!
ReplyDeletedamn survey monkey trying to force us all to fit within their narrowly defined social constructs!! regardless - thanks for participating even if the response categories felt a little too blunt for some of our more nuanced feelings regarding safety. can't wait to see the results!
DeleteThese were really interesting questions! I'm a pretty basic rider, so couldn't offer much opinion on all the various equipment.
ReplyDeletethanks for participating! and you might be surprised - one thing i'm really happy with in the responses is the variety of opinions / experiences
DeleteCan't wait to see the results!
ReplyDeleteCool Survey. One thing you might want to consider is an additional option for "have had the item break, but managed through sheer luck not to get in an accident." I have had a bridle break on me while riding in the past and managed not to die purely through the benevolence of the horse I was riding and maybe some skill at staying on, but it could have been bad.
ReplyDeleteAnyway, I shared the survey on my blog's Facebook page for the extra credit!