APS Survey Report Posted

This is going to be quite a harder group to focus towards. Not only are the Gen X-Gen Y era working more hours than ever before, their incomes are for the most part lower than their parents' incomes at a similar point in life thanks to all the changes in the nature of the workplace and careers. Most of my friends in this age bracket do not have a large amount of disposable income, and if they have kids then it is even less.

Plus this is the first cohort where the internet has been an integral part of daily lives, which means that "traditional" outreach may not work as well as methods that make more use of social media to attract interest (the Facebook page seems to be updated regularly, but while I am following the page I rarely see posts as part of my "most recent posts" scroll. Linn's Facebook page does appear, so don't think it's a setting I have made).

Perhaps the APS should have a Twitter account and use it regularly? Instagram?

Not saying that the APS should give up on this demographic cohort (which at 46 is the one I belong to) but we need to keep in mind that this cohort is not economically similar to where the Baby Boomers were at these ages, and that will have a knock-on effect for hobbies of all sorts. But the old school methods of drawing in new members that worked with earlier age cohorts are not going to be as effective in this age of social media.

Indeed, I think the #1 factor for me in progressing to the "advanced collector" stage was a significant rise in my disposable income. Not everyone can count on something like that, though, at least not before their kids are done with college. But you've got to start somewhere. Outreach to 30 and 40-somethings may still bear fruit when they reach their 50's and 60's.

We'll start with the obvious disclosure that, at 46, I fall into the odd position of being a "young" collector. Facebook's algorithms will sync us up eventually, but Linn's posts multiple times a day versus our two to three a day, so they are going to get pickup for some people - depending on engagement. It's really less about settings and more about each person's behavior. If you look and like more of our posts, you will see more of our posts.




We have a Twitter account: @APS_stamps - when I first joined the APS, I had nearly 2,000 more followers than the APS did. We are working on closing that gap - almost 2,000 now. Twitter is a less stable environment unless you are dosing content three times or more a day and engaged in the moment. Using it as a brand awareness tool is a tough slog unless you can get deep engagement.

But, you are correct, we do have to move away from relying on "fixed asset" recruiting to draw in more people from this age group. This is where revising the web and generating a content email for non-members has been a topic I've discussed with members and as fundraising. The reason we started a blog last fall was to develop new daily content for sharing on social media. The last piece is to convert that to content pushing through email. Our current membership is not heavily active via email, but the membership we are trying to increase is. That's why we have to put it with them and give them a chance to engage on their time. That is tougher to do at a stamp club or stamp show. We've raised about $86,000 in the last four months and on our way to a minimum of $100,000, but the more commitments we receive, the more we can build out the web as a tool to promote and recruit.




Beginner collectors spend far less money on acquisitions than more advanced collectors do. The reason being that they are starting and learning - so they go about it very basically. We can offer more practical insights to beginner collectors through education missions, giving them ways to build their collections as inexpensively as possible. Stamps don't need regular feeding, so I think you're take is wise. Even if they cannot commit to advanced collecting now, give them the tools to enjoy a break from the rest of the world when they can.

Hi Scott,
This thread has raised some interesting discussion, thank you for your time and effort at reaching out to online hobbyists. It has also raised some questions for me and I do not know where to find the answers to them other than to ask them here.

With regards to the website upgrade.
1. Will the upgrade include porting the entire website to a responsive design?
2. Will the upgrade include improvements to the APS Store and making more digital resources available from the APRL?
3. You have worked hard at finding the funding to do this project, I cannot tell you how much this is appreciated. I assume that APS decided to continue to outsource this work. Were there quotes generated for this upgrade? If so, how many quotes did APS get and who won the business?
4. Was a specification developed for this large project? If so, can this spec be shared?
5. This is a pretty big project. I assume there are typical project management resources in place including a schedule. What are the major progress milestones for this project? And end date?
6. Were baseline metrics developed (pre-update) as an comparison for post-update to measure project success/failure? If so, can the pre-update metrics be shared now?

With regards to the AP digitalization efforts.
1. Scanning all the APs were a huge effort. Were the scans first saved in some image format? If so, what image format were they saved in?
2. Are they being ported to PDF format?
Thanks
Don

From my view, this forum is one of the most active stamp clubs...it is meets 24 hrs a day, has many experts (for more than most stamp club), do not need drive any distance to attend, interact, and learn. I can buy, trade, and sell stamps too.

In any case, I would recommend that APS not try to make money off beginning collectors. They should offer online education to beginners for no cost to encourage people. These are often the ones with the least disposable income.

Don - I like to think I am the most accessible Executive Director the APS has ever had. I give out my direct line, cell phone, and email address regularly and try to be visible in online forums and do Town Halls and clubs pretty regularly. I will be at Garfield-Perry next week if anyone is there, please say hello.

The project is not underway and no work has been contracted. I have also repeatedly stated that I will be using you as a resource once we get underway and have invited others with a real technology background to contact me directly (Email is scott@stamps.org and phone: 814-933-3814). I don't negotiate scoping and contracts online, but once an agreement is completed, our membership will know what to expect.




What to provide for free and what to make a member service is a longstanding debate. We provide ample resources for the new collector and continue to develop it. Our membership would like a return on investment, that comes in the form changing and redefining the services and not increasing membership costs. We would not charge for online resources to members and would not sell on-demand courses to non-members.

Scott,
Sorry for seeming impatient, just got back from Duke Cancer Center on Wednesday where they delivered the 'there is nothing more that we can do for you' speech to me. As such, I hope you can understand my urgency at wanting to help/see APS move forward with the new website.
Don

Don --

I understand - my wife and I spent most of 2016 caring for her dying mother after Round Three of cancer.

We've shared a passion on this, but I want to make sure that it is possible and not done in the traditional way of "this is all we have to spend." That is how we ended up with the website we have and it's not sufficient.

If we could resource an It staff to manage things, it would be nice, but I think we can safely and securely outsource the work and use contract management to protect the interests of the APS. The APS is gifted with members from all walks of life and I have ever intention of including those with experience, knowledge, and ability to make sure we do this right.

Keep being an advocate!

Scott,

I agree that you have been the most accessible person in APS history. I commend you for it since information on APS strategy has been hard to see. I had supported APS through donations (ask Ken) but became disillusioned and skeptical so giving support for failing strategies. Ken Martin was better than the predecessors.

Many board members have also avoided the forums. I am not going to post guesses of their motives but the lack of involvement in online forums has not been positive to APS. Many were more visible in the last election looking for votes but most have gone back into hiding. They should be sharing their contributions to APS etc rather than just running on their resumes.

If they wanted to support and promote APS, they would be on all the forums. These forums are the largest stamp clubs and likely many are not APS members. A lot of new people drop in to ask about selling an inherited collection (something that is less obvious on the APS website).

"if they wanted to support and promote APS, they would be on all the forums........." Not exactly. As I understand it, the APS board has a board that is typical for most non-profits. That is, the board is a governance board, not a working board, and takes broad, more policy oriented, views, which are then carried out by the executive director and his staff. The board of a non-profit is also responsible for seeing to the financial sustainability of the organization; a lot of said work is done behind the scenes.

There have been several board members posting here and also on the other SCF forum. But, in general, the day-to-day management should be done by the E.D. Which means that board members are not avoiding forums. Being regularly on forums is not part of their overall duties.

Promoting and supporting APS is not a violation of some board rule. Some are active but not on the forums.

The benefits for the operational staff using online technologies for communicating seems pretty obvious. But having the strategic staff (BOD) only present an online presence pre-election seems short-sighted. It certainly seems a wise method for staying in contact with the membership and to give the appearance of availability.

Additionally, I would love to hear the strategic thinking in the context of the recent survey results. It appears clear that the APS is predominately an 'advanced hobbyist' organization. Strategically, do the BOD members think APS should continue down the 'advanced hobbyists path' or should it be looking to expand? Do the BOD members think the survey confirmed the current strategic vision or does it signal time for a change in that vision?

If using online technologies is not the media of choice for these topics should the membership look somewhere else (i.e AP?) for this kind of feedback?
Don

Don
I do not understand this Urgency stuff about the APS (I am member X 1 Year or so)when your HEALTH is more important at this time and wish you the best ! Thanks for your contributions-


Rene

Scott,

As a 50 plus year member of the APS I really appreciate the efforts you and others are making to chart the best path forward possible for the APS in these rapidly changing times. Specific to the survey and this discussion let me offer two points for consideration.

None of us are ever physically perfect. The question is how do others perceive those with obvious physical limitations compared to most folks in the general population. This I have learned now having spent almost seventy years enjoying a lifetime with a noticeable limitation. It would have been much better stated in your survey if you asked how many folks in each of the other classifications had a physical limitation affecting mobility, sight, etc. rather than making disability a unique group onto itself. I would like to see how the numbers for those in the non attending groups compare to the attending folks.

Stamps and especially postal history are a subset of communication technology which has changed dramatically over time at an increasing rate. There relevance to current and future daily live is beyond our control. I recently sat in the audience of a local town meeting where two grade school age kids were texting each other board with what the adults who had dragged them there were doing. No stamps or letters involved.

Keep up the good work.

Best regards,

Russ

Was race or ethnicity something that was surveyed? I know this can be a touchy subject that many organizations would just as soon avoid, but it could be an important question. I know the stereotypical stamp collector is an older (probably grumpy) white male, and that's probably true enough in "mainstream" philately and among APS members. It's true for me as well (even the grumpy part), except perhaps that I'm merely middle-aged, at 47.

Anyway, the reason I bring it up is that I think that other ethnic groups may be similar to women in that there are a lot of beginners among them, but not as many intermediate or advanced collectors. I only have anecdotal and perhaps altogether dubious evidence of that, but I sell WW beginner packets on ebay, having sold around 1000 of them in the past 3 years or so. I only have names to go by, but I can vouch that a lot of females buy packets, probably at least the 21.8% of the beginners they comprise in the APS survey. Again, I'm just going by names, but I'd say an equal or better share is sold to people with decidedly "ethnic" names, by which I more or less mean mean names of Hispanic or non-European origin. The reason this may matter is that if the APS and organized philately is ignorant of this, they may not be truly understanding both their opportunities and risks. There could be a missed opportunity if minority communities are being overlooked.