How to collect information after the events end

The strength of events and measuring their impact and success come from the strength and volume of data and their analysis. Whenever the data is collected correctly and analyzed as required after the events end. It will give you the most wonderful and accurate results. Whenever the quality of the data is not of the required quality, even with good analysis. The results will not be accurate and sound. The whole world is very much oriented toward analyzing data and extracting information from it, as there is no place for randomness, confusion, and lack of study of reality and trends.

That is why, in this article, we will discuss the different ways in which you can collect data that may benefit you in the future in improving the expected outcome of various events or seminars.

There are many methods and methods, and the more effort you put into the data collection process, the more accurate and safer the results will be. What is important is not only the collection but also the quality of the collected data.

Quantitative Surveys

This method seeks to find out what are the views on a matter in a quantitative and numerical way, and we use this method for several purposes, including knowing the size of the market, the size of the target group, or a poll for a specific opinion.

Quantitative polls are usually a specific closed question with a specific set of answers, so the person has to choose the answer that is closest or most likely to him. Example of zooming in: How many hours of volunteer work do you do during the week? This type of question is especially useful for testing assumptions, or giving you a clear picture of the way your audience behaves, or the way your target audience thinks about a particular topic.

Advice: In this type of survey, make sure that the questions are clear and easy to understand, and that they are convenient for filling in, because most people if they feel uncomfortable at any stage of filling in, they will stand directly and not complete the questionnaire after the end of the activities.

Qualitative Surveys

This method seeks to obtain more objective opinions, and this type also helps to understand the motives behind the actions and actions of the target group after the events end. The results of this type of question are often more accurate and detailed about how the target group thinks or feels, whether it is a product, service, or any other topic.

Zoom in example: Do you do volunteer work in your daily life? We will notice that the answer here has two or three possibilities at most: yes and no, or always, sometimes, and rarely. This type of question differs from the previous one because the answer is not quantitative/numerical. The answer is in the form of an explanation or a characteristic of direct behavior. Qualitative surveys are useful for understanding issues from a respondent’s point of view, generating ideas for opportunities for improvement, or revealing trends in thought and opinion.

Advice: try to make the survey short, because the response rate decreases dramatically the more effort and time spent on filling it out. Ask directly about the main point that you need to answer.

Focus Groups

Focus groups are a group of people who come together to discuss a specific topic. Participation is usually based either on the basis of experience. The diversity of the field of work, the behavior of individuals during a past period, or other matters.

There will be a session supervisor who will ask questions, and listen to the answers of the audience. Open the way for discussion, and stimulate the ideas of the participants. All notes and ideas will be recorded. There is a set of skills that the discussion moderator should have, which we will not discuss here.

Focus groups usually aim at development, improvement, and finding imbalances with solutions. There are a few things to keep in mind with this method:

• People participating in this discussion must have something in common.
• The meeting supervisor should collect and unify information about similar opinions and points of view.
• The recommended number in each group is 6-10 people. You can form more than one group to get more objective results. In order to get the best results, it is recommended that one operation not be less than three groups.
• Do not forget that the goal of the group is to focus on benefiting from the information and data of the participants, whether in the form of feelings, perceptions, or opinions.

Interviews

An interview is a conversation between one person and another or between one person and a group. In which a question is asked either to understand a particular topic or to gather more information.

One of the benefits of using interviews to gather data is the ability to dig beyond the initial answers for nuggets of useful information or insights. For example, when you ask a question. You may get an answer that opens up horizons for you that you did not think of. Or you get a reaction that shows you a meaning that you cannot extract through other methods. You can also draw a clear picture from the interview data of the reality of what is happening or what your target audience thinks.

Observation and documentation (Ethnography)

Ethnography is the study of a group of people in a specific environment and observing their behavior. It usually begins with observing and documenting phenomena, behaviors, community interactions, behavior based on their culture, and so on.

This type of data provides rich, broad, far-reaching insights into a particular setting or environment. This method of collecting data does not ask the direct person what he did or what he thought in a particular case. Rather what the community actually did in that case. For example: If you are an organization concerned with youth, you can study and monitor the behaviors that young people take once they leave school.

This type of study requires field studies and real community coexistence, which may take a long time. And then arrange, organize, and compare this data, and after that comes the role of the analysis. This type may be difficult for medium and small organizations. But it is a requirement for large organizations and government agencies. This type requires highly experienced researchers in the field of data collection and the study of reality and social status.

Text Capture

Many of us have a huge amount of textual information already available from which data can be extracted and analyzed. It is true that you need to make a great effort, and you may need some technical means that facilitate this for you. But in exchange for all this, you will find a lot of data. One of the advantages of the data taken from the texts is that it contains a lot of apparent and hidden information. But you can take the meanings, emotions, and feelings behind the words.

Ways to benefit from questionnaires or opinion polls

It can be done in several ways, either on paper or as it is distributed to invitees. It can be sent later by e-mail or by using any of the known electronic means.

Mail surveys

Pros: It can reach anyone and everyone without hindrance.

Cons: Expensive, data collection errors, time delays.

Phone surveys

Pros: High degree of confidence in data collected, up to almost anyone.

Cons: Expensive, cannot be managed by itself, you need to hire an agency.

Web/online surveys

Pros: Cheap, self-managing, very low probability of data errors.

The negatives: Not all of your customers may have an email address. It may warn customers against disclosing information online.