VetSurgeon.org Member Survey

RE: VetSurgeon.org Member Survey

Arlo Guthrie — Mon, 07 Oct 2019 08:34:10 GMT

[quote user="GrooveJet"]I still prefer to log in to VS.org for some constructive and relevant information rather than being bombarded with endless JUNK on FB.[/quote]

Thank you Miriam Lodewyks - that's heartening to read (and I do love a bit of heartening!)

[quote user="GrooveJet"]I think things will swing back around in the end.[/quote] I think so too (though I also think I need to do things at my end to make that happen or speed it up!)

[quote user="GrooveJet"]Perhaps targeted marketing at less mainstream vet resources?[/quote] Like?

[quote user="GrooveJet"]Make it more international?[/quote]

Have often thought of that. One of the challenges is structure (I think we would need country-specific versions of the site for local audiences, but that there should also be a place where people from all countries can come together. The other is in getting the word out / marketing.

[quote user="Evelyn Barbour-Hill"]Arlo, grandmothers and eggs come to mind[/quote]

Haha. I always think worth raising point even if it is a bit granny and egg. Because it might prove not to be!

My thinking on print media advertising of a website is that it works out hugely expensive because there is such a large drop off between people seeing the advert and doing anything about it. In other words, people are not necessarily right by their computer when reading the vet rec, or feeling like putting it down and navigating to some website they've read about. Advertising online, by contrast, I find much, much more effective. Just one click away. I also doubt they would take my advertising budget, as in competition to some degree.

Maybe you're talking more about PR than advertising, and yes, I would agree with you there. I'm sort of 'frenemies' with VT. We do report each other's news from time to time (which is nicer / more generous of them than me!) - though it has to be news about something other than the site itself. For example, I think the last of my stories they covered was about bullying in the profession. More recently, I had the story about how much vets and nurses dislike seeing jobs advertised without a salary, but that was not one they would ever report as VS jobs is in competition with VT jobs.

But yes, I need to think of a news 'hook' ...

Although it will have to wait a little while yet, as we now have the upgraded website on a test server and I am now testing / working on the design (primarily making sure it works well on mobile).

RE: VetSurgeon.org Member Survey

Evelyn Barbour-Hill — Fri, 04 Oct 2019 15:32:35 GMT

Arlo, grandmothers and eggs come to mind, and heaven knows I'm not the person to turn to for management advice, but I'm reminded that you can have the best website in the world but you still have to draw people to it by old-fashioned publicity – paper advertisements. I know you've thought of this, I'm just thinking that I haven't lately seen many plugs for vetsurgeon.org as I skim through Veterinary Times or the Super Soaraway Vet Wreck over breakfast.

RE: VetSurgeon.org Member Survey

Miriam Lodewyks — Fri, 04 Oct 2019 13:09:41 GMT

For what it's worth Arlo: I do follow VV on Facebook intermittently, but am becoming fed up and bored with the whole Facebook platform as a whole and have considered closing my account completely. I feel that it's simply become a voluntary advertising platform, a bit like those TV channels trying to sell you those gadgets you didn't know you HAD TO HAVE!!!

If I'm having a quiet day (like today) I still prefer to log in to VS.org for some constructive and relevant information rather than being bombarded with endless JUNK on FB.

So I think you should hold your nerve with our Forum, I think things will swing back around in the end.

Perhaps targeted marketing at less mainstream vet resources? Make it more international?

RE: VetSurgeon.org Member Survey

Arlo Guthrie — Wed, 02 Oct 2019 13:14:50 GMT

[quote user="Bob Russell"]Many of the questions are really very basic stuff and that does make me wonder if particularly younger vets are actually being put off/intimidated by some of us!![/quote]

Possibly, but I think that actually for a certain demographic, the bigger thing is just that for a certain demographic, Facebook is just so ubiquitous.

[quote user="Bob Russell"]Very sad if it does because they tend to be posts that we have stacks of experience with![/quote]

My thoughts exactly.

But this is really what my next site upgrade is trying to address in lots of different ways. It will look very similar (other than being better on a mobile phone). But functionally, it will do lots of things which will allow me to 'reach out' (hate that americanism), and hopefully create a much more engaging forum experience.

RE: VetSurgeon.org Member Survey

Bob Russell — Wed, 02 Oct 2019 12:56:47 GMT

I have looked at what I suspect is the main FB competitor. It does make very interesting viewing.

Many of the questions are really very basic stuff and that does make me wonder if particularly younger vets are actually being put off/intimidated by some of us!! Very sad if it does because they tend to be posts that we have stacks of experience with!

Not sure if it a generational thing or not!

RE: VetSurgeon.org Member Survey

Arlo Guthrie — Wed, 02 Oct 2019 08:10:25 GMT

A little bit of an update ...

I've pulled the name out of the hat for the case of champagne for taking part in the draw, and it goes to a Lindsey Hodes MRCVS from the Joel Veterinary Clinic.

I want to thank everyone for taking part ... really, really helpful and has given me a good sense of direction. I'll leave the survey open in case of any latecomers (https://www.surveygizmo.com/s3/5137607/veterinary-social-media-survey), but the champagne has gone!

The main findings are that:

VetSurgeon and Facebook are the two main players. A few other forums mentioned, but not in significant numbers. So this is, as I thought, largely about competition between VS and Facebook.
I say 'competition' but actually, VS and Facebook are very different, and I think they should be complementary to each other. What this survey has done is shown me the things that you think are the biggest problems with Facebook, which I can then offer a solution to over here.
My general direction of travel, though, is to introduce technological developments that make this site a centre of excellence for clinical information-sharing (where Facebook is more suited to general chit chat). Clinical information-sharing is something I am very confident we can do SO much better than Facebook (apart from anything else, Facebook isn't built for that). Whether being better than Facebook will be enough, only time will tell, but I am confident!
You've given me an order of priorities for the site development. I'm not going to say now what that is (commercially sensitive), but when I think it is safe to do so, I'll explain what I'm doing and why!

In the background, the site upgrade has been hugely delayed by events outside my control, but my developers advise that functionally, the new site will be ready for me to start testing this week, maybe even today, but there is still some work on the graphics to be done. Still, not far away now.

Exciting (for me, anyway!)

RE: VetSurgeon.org Member Survey

Arlo Guthrie — Thu, 12 Sep 2019 08:31:05 GMT

[quote user="Julie Innes"]Instead of "YIP" or "YR", it might be easier to put year of qualification and from where eg Edinburgh 1995, as that's the way most vets I know refer to each other (and that would give me an idea of whether I might know them!)[/quote]

BRILLIANT! Thank you. That's definitely the answer.

RE: VetSurgeon.org Member Survey

Julie Innes — Thu, 12 Sep 2019 08:26:56 GMT

I like the fact that you can see at a glance here people's specialities etc. when you said beef up the profiles I was a little worried you wanted us all to write a biography, but I see it's just the qualifications etc.

Instead of "YIP" or "YR", it might be easier to put year of qualification and from where eg Edinburgh 1995, as that's the way most vets I know refer to each other (and that would give me an idea of whether I might know them!)

RE: VetSurgeon.org Member Survey

Arlo Guthrie — Thu, 12 Sep 2019 08:03:18 GMT

[quote user="Arlo Guthrie"]Using this as an example (though I haven't yet discussed with developers), I feel strongly that we must beef up the display of the professional credentials of our members in two ways ... firstly to encourage you all to add more detail to your profiles, and secondly to display qualifications adjacent to forum posts. I'm aiming to have this done for the deployment of the next version of the site ... [/quote]

No reaction to that ... perhaps because I didn't explicitly ask for one! But given that being unaware of someone's professional qualifications was the thing highlighted as 'significant' weakness of facebook by the largest number of people, do you agree that it would enhance the experience over here by making a few tweaks to forum posts so that they give key facts about the poster at a glance.

The question is what exactly? Currently, we display member category badges for specialists (on request) and industry and commerce members.

My thoughts are:

1. We'll automate member category badges, so that all display either General Practitioner or Referral Practitioner or industry/commerce or academia

2. We'll take the qualifications field in the profiles and display that in addition (so it will show automatically if someone is a Specialist / AP etc)

3. Then I am thinking perhaps a YIP or a YR figure displayed for the general practitioner category. That's years in practice or years retired.

What do you think?

RE: VetSurgeon.org Member Survey

Arlo Guthrie — Wed, 11 Sep 2019 09:12:33 GMT

Very interesting results in from the survey so far, and they've reignited my sense of purpose.

I was particularly interested in what vets and vet nurses thought was the biggest weakness in Facebook, and the most commonly ticked option amongst both vets and nurses was:

You cannot see the professional qualifications of those contributing to a discussion, so, unless you know them offline, you don't know if they know what they are talking about.

Quality answers being drowned out by 'me too' and the difficulty of finding useful info posted by people were in second and third place respectively.

What I plan to do now is use the results to brief our developers as to what needs to be done first. After we've decided, I'll then post our proposals with the supporting research so you can comment.

Using this as an example (though I haven't yet discussed with developers), I feel strongly that we must beef up the display of the professional credentials of our members in two ways ... firstly to encourage you all to add more detail to your profiles, and secondly to display qualifications adjacent to forum posts. I'm aiming to have this done for the deployment of the next version of the site ...

PS - If you haven't done the survey yet, please do: https://www.surveygizmo.com/s3/5137607/veterinary-social-media-survey (Case of champagne up for grabs for all entries received by the end of the month)

RE: VetSurgeon.org Member Survey

Lucy Fleming — Thu, 29 Aug 2019 23:27:39 GMT

[quote user="Arlo Guthrie"]

[quote user="Lucy Fleming"]The only thing I did notice for the survey was that, particularly for gender, more often than not there is a "prefer not to say" option, so not sure if you felt that was something you particularly did or didn't want to have?[/quote]

I didn't want to have that for a few reasons. First is that all the questions are optional anyway, so you can just skip it. But also, gender is a really important part of this survey, and I just don't see any reason to be coy about whether one is a man or a woman!

[/quote]

Fair enough. I must admit I've never really given it any thought before, but I noticed that it wasn't there, which made me think it must be pretty common nowadays!

RE: VetSurgeon.org Member Survey

Iain Richards — Thu, 29 Aug 2019 17:19:58 GMT

Ah, neat. I suggest that instructinon is not in grey then... Otherwise OK.

RE: VetSurgeon.org Member Survey

Arlo Guthrie — Thu, 29 Aug 2019 15:47:43 GMT

Yes, that’s right, you’re supposed to drag the items in the left over to the right, in the order of importance, first being most important...

RE: VetSurgeon.org Member Survey

Iain Richards — Thu, 29 Aug 2019 11:39:45 GMT

Tried and failed. Could be my connection, but tried twice nad got this:

RE: VetSurgeon.org Member Survey

Arlo Guthrie — Thu, 29 Aug 2019 09:26:50 GMT

RE: VetSurgeon.org Member Survey

Lucy Fleming — Thu, 29 Aug 2019 09:11:05 GMT

The only thing I did notice for the survey was that, particularly for gender, more often than not there is a "prefer not to say" option, so not sure if you felt that was something you particularly did or didn't want to have?

RE: VetSurgeon.org Member Survey

Arlo Guthrie — Thu, 29 Aug 2019 08:35:44 GMT

[quote user="Julie Innes"] I often direct my EMS students to the site as a great resource for help and information[/quote]

Thank you!

[quote user="Julie Innes"]Maybe you could promote the site towards students, approach/ advertise at the vet schools maybe??[/quote]

I did try a bit of that a while ago, and didn't find it all that easy. But yes, agree, think time for another push. But first I need as many people as poss to do the survey, so I have a better idea of what you all want most:

https://www.surveygizmo.com/s3/5137607/veterinary-social-media-survey

RE: VetSurgeon.org Member Survey

Julie Innes — Thu, 29 Aug 2019 08:26:11 GMT

Another idea, Arlo- I often direct my EMS students to the site as a great resource for help and information. Maybe you could promote the site towards students, approach/ advertise at the vet schools maybe?? Get them young, so to speak!

RE: VetSurgeon.org Member Survey

Sarah Wheadon — Wed, 28 Aug 2019 16:54:23 GMT

[quote user="Mark Rowland"]I would like to pick this up again and respect experience as well as qualification but not abuse; thats just unprofessional.[/quote]

I'm sure I speak for many of us when I say we would like you to pick this up again, please. Exotics input from people like you, Marie and Gillian is always appreciated.

RE: VetSurgeon.org Member Survey

Arlo Guthrie — Wed, 28 Aug 2019 15:14:14 GMT

I have now tweaked the survey to take into account your feedback, especially yours, Frances Barr and also from Liz Barton, and have now published the actual survey here:

https://www.surveygizmo.com/s3/5137607/veterinary-social-media-survey

This is now the final version, so if you did the test version before, please do this one for real. And if you spot any horrors, do let me know as I will make minor changes on the fly before emailing it to all members and sharing more widely.

Thanks for your help everyone

RE: VetSurgeon.org Member Survey

Arlo Guthrie — Tue, 27 Aug 2019 09:17:50 GMT

[quote user="Rob Davis"]

[quote user="Arlo Guthrie"] Remember that I am proposing this IN ADDITION TO the free-range discussion forums, which will remain unchanged.[/quote]

Fair enough - it would be interesting to try and see how it works. How would you decide who is allowed to post?[/quote]

Sorry for slow reply, Rob Davis, was on hols on the South coast last week, trying to spend as much time away from computer as possible!

Talking of which, would you believe it, eldest daughter had a seizure and broke her ankle on day 5 of 7. Took her to Lymington, where consultants at Southampton said it was a bad break, requiring a cast and possibly surgery. So then I drove her to Bath, where the consultant said no, it's not that bad, and cut the plaster off. And then, the next day, another consultant said they were not entirely sure that she had broken her ankle at all. And all this from the same x-ray!

Anyway, back to your point ... I was thinking that the Q&A forums will be rolled out by discipline. Perhaps starting with dentistry, because we have a lot of dentists, or small animal medicine, because we have a lot of medicinists.

Any member will be able to post a question.

Specialists and those with advanced qualifications will automatically be allowed/invited to reply to questions. In addition, I will email all members of the site and invite GP members who enjoy dentistry, have a certain number of years experience, and a track record of helpful posts, to become ... I need a name for this category, and I haven't yet come up with a good idea. Think it needs to include GP. It needs to convey that the member is there to help others in the profession. Words like Helper, Supporter, Assistant, though I am not sure any of those are quite right.

[quote user="Rob Davis"]I didn't realise Vetsurgeon had a presence on Facebook so I've not seen how it works. I have just started following the page so I can see what happens.[/quote] Just spits out latest headlines and if you follow, they appear on your Facebait 'latest activity' page. Adding latest discussions to that feed would work, I think.

[quote user="Jill Butterworth"]Isn't what you are discussing rather similar to motivation behind the RCVS Evidence Based Medicine toolkit? [/quote]

Jill Butterworth - that's more about evaluating papers, than asking questions of experts, though I see crossover in the stuff about framing the question right, and you have reminded me that one thing I have planned for a long time is to include a referencing feature into the forums.

RE: VetSurgeon.org Member Survey

Jill Butterworth — Tue, 20 Aug 2019 10:12:43 GMT

Isn't what you are discussing rather similar to motivation behind the RCVS Evidence Based Medicine toolkit?

https://knowledge.rcvs.org.uk/evidence-based-veterinary-medicine/ebvm-toolkit/

RE: VetSurgeon.org Member Survey

Rob Davis — Tue, 20 Aug 2019 10:11:55 GMT

[quote user="Arlo Guthrie"] Remember that I am proposing this IN ADDITION TO the free-range discussion forums, which will remain unchanged.[/quote]

Fair enough - it would be interesting to try and see how it works. How would you decide who is allowed to post? As suggested by others, I don't think it should necessarily be limited to RCVS specialists (as much as anything, it will important that replies are posted relatively rapidly for this to attract new members).

[quote user="Arlo Guthrie"]What I haven't decided yet is whether to feed the discussion threads into the main VetSurgeon News page (above), in between news stories, or to a new VetSurgeon Forum page. If to a new page, I have the uphill battle of getting people to follow it (and until they do, nobody will see it). If to the news page, then all the existing followers will start seeing the latest discussions too. [/quote]

I didn't realise Vetsurgeon had a presence on Facebook so I've not seen how it works. I have just started following the page so I can see what happens.

[quote user="Arlo Guthrie"]Faceache[/quote][quote user="Arlo Guthrie"]Facephlegm[/quote][quote user="Arlo Guthrie"]Fleecebook[/quote]

There seems to be a problem with your spell checker.....

RE: VetSurgeon.org Member Survey

Mark Rowland — Mon, 19 Aug 2019 21:18:29 GMT

I do see there are valid concerns here.

Its taken many pages before VIN is brought up. As far as the exotics streams go on VIN you do get more than one of the board chime in regularly and occasionally you get a reply from one of the panel thats almost as long as a magazine article. Its how I learned exotics many years ago and I've become e friends with many of the consultants.

When I first started posting here it started with the "a rabbit belongs in a pot"

I don't come here much now because it all got more personal with some nasty stuff thrown at me.

Never seen any VIN consultants get that.

I would like to pick this up again and respect experience as well as qualification but not abuse; thats just unprofessional.

I would think this site could be a great asset to newly qualified vets looking for answers to questions but I think they are probably put off.

Thats just my take anyway.

Mark

RE: VetSurgeon.org Member Survey

Anthony Todd — Mon, 19 Aug 2019 12:44:58 GMT

[quote user="Anthony Dennison"]You ask for evidence, get given it and then deny or ignore it![/quote]

I suppose i'll be condemned for challenging this, but please give me just one example and, if just, I will not post again.