topic Re: Global Community? in BreakPoint

Global Community?

Molly K — Tue, 10 May 2005 19:44:53 GMT

Who wants to guess what percentage of active forum users in Q1 2005 said their country was US in their NI User Profile?

What countries do you think are the top 5 on that list?

Good Luck!

Re: Global Community?

Johnner — Tue, 10 May 2005 23:39:37 GMT

I will refrain from guessing anything specific, since I had too many opportunities to peruse NI's User Profile data during my NI days.

But I will take the opportunity to lay out an idea that I had. I would love to see a world map that has a little push-pin icon on it representing every contributor here who chooses to participate. I have the feeling that the community is surprisingly Euro-dominated, and such a map would reveal just how much so.

Aside from just being neat, the map could also provide an impetus for participants to communicate a little more with neighbors, and potentially get together in real life. Each little participant icon could also serve as a hyperlink elsewhere--perhaps to the corresponding user page at forums.ni.com by default, but potentially to other places as well.

I think that the new Google Maps is going to offer a simple way to realize this vision sometime soon, but for the moment they don't permit the saving of custom maps. There are some enterprising people out there who have cobbled together a tentative service that takes advantage of the Google API (see myGmaps), but it's limited to 10 locations per map, so it's not practical for our situation (assuming more than ten of us would participate).

Is anyone else interested in this? Any thoughts on existing services or APIs that could make it a reality? Obviously, someone will suggest doing it in LabVIEW, and that's not a bad idea, but it might be nicer to hop aboard a commercial product and thus take advantage of the work of its development team.

--John
("Stuck in Tampa," in more than one way if my push-pin icon sees the light of day at some point)

Re: Global Community?

becktho — Wed, 11 May 2005 10:36:17 GMT

Hi

I love the idea with the map. It would be very nice to see where all the users are located.

Thomas

Re: Global Community?

Ben — Wed, 11 May 2005 14:26:50 GMT

Great ideas!

When will the map be ready?

Based on all of the questions that are answered before I get up, I suspect europe would have a lot of push pins.

Ben

Re: Global Community?

Johnner — Wed, 11 May 2005 15:10:53 GMT

Is nobody going to stick his/her neck out and make some specific guesses for Molly?

Ben, I figured you would volunteer to make the map in LabVIEW! Or maybe that can be CC's next project, after he gets some more bugs ironed out of The List. Personally, I want to give Google another few weeks. They move pretty fast.

--John

Re: Global Community?

chilly_charly — Wed, 11 May 2005 15:56:15 GMT

Johnner wrote:...maybe that can be CC's next project, after he gets some more bugs ironed out of The List...

I knew that could happen anytime. Here is another criticizer. Don't you think tst is not a pain enough ? 😄 😄

Re: Global Community?

Ben — Wed, 11 May 2005 16:21:48 GMT

WE could start with the winner of the last 3-d solar system challenge, (just to plan ahead).

User would have to let us know the latitude, longitude, and planet of where they live.

Ben

Re: Global Community?

RobertoBozzolo — Thu, 12 May 2005 13:24:46 GMT

As a representative of old Europe of course I am interested in knowing spatial distribution of my collegues here in the forums: maybe I can find some friends of mine is participating without letting me know. 😉

@Johnner wrote:
Is nobody going to stick his/her neck out and make some specific guesses for Molly?

Ben, I figured you would volunteer to make the map in LabVIEW! Or maybe that can be CC's next project, after he gets some more bugs ironed out of The List. Personally, I want to give Google another few weeks. They move pretty fast.

--John

To try a guess, in Europe I suppose France has a good position in this list, at least it has gained a localized area in the forum.

But basing on time of posting of several messages, I suppose we will have some surprise looking at middle- and far-east communities.

Re: Global Community?

chilly_charly — Thu, 12 May 2005 15:19:01 GMT

Please Molly, do not give the answer yet. Leave us some time to think "seriously" about your question. May be you could propose to offer some mugs to the winners 😉

CC

Re: Global Community?

Molly K — Thu, 12 May 2005 15:41:53 GMT

It's a deal. A mug is on the table. Who wants it?

Re: Global Community?

RobertoBozzolo — Thu, 12 May 2005 15:54:27 GMT

I already placed my guess 😉

Message Edited by Roberto Bozzolo on 05-12-2005 05:55 PM

Re: Global Community?

waldemar.hersacher — Thu, 12 May 2005 21:04:18 GMT

I will make an attempt for all forums:

US 55%
France 15%
Asia (Inda, South Corea, Philipines ...) 5%
Germany 4%
Italy 2%
Spain 2%

Maybe Canada would be in the list and then lowering the contigent of US. If you would keep Asia devided into their states maybe UK will come on the list.

Why do I always type "mayby" when I mean "maybe"?

Message Edited by waldemar.hersacher on 05-12-2005 11:05 PM

Re: Global Community?

altenbach — Fri, 13 May 2005 00:30:01 GMT

@Molly K wrote:
Who wants to guess what percentage of active forum users in Q1 2005 said their country was US in their NI User Profile?

OK, lets do the scientific approach. From the SEC filings, the NI net sales precentage per world region has been quite constant over the last few years. Americas 47%, Europe 32%, Asia Pacific 21%. I could not find a breakdown by country. Since "Americas" is more than just the US, the answer definitely less than 50%. My wild guess: 32%.

@Molly K wrote:
What countries do you think are the top 5 on that list?

Since you don't want numbers just five country names, here's my list. We know that LabVIEW use is high in Europe, but the countries are small. I would guess that Industrialized Asian countries are well represented.

As a guideline, I picked a dozen of the most likely candidates, then narrowed the list down by counting the number of scheduled NI seminars in each country. (well, I need to base it on some real data, right ;))

Here are my top 5 in no particular order:

USA

Japan

China

Australia

France

(Runner ups are Poland, Germany, Korea, ...).

(While even Antarctica is on the list, there are currently no seminars there. :))

Re: Global Community?

shoneill — Fri, 13 May 2005 08:04:06 GMT

I have no idea of the distribution, but I reckon there are quite a few in the new EU member states and quite possibly a significant number in India.

Otherwise, I reckon Germany is one of the top runners in Europe.

Wouldn't it be funny if I was totally wrong? No not really, it's only funny the first time...... 😛

Shane.

PS The fact that the US HAS to be in position 1 country-wise seems almost TOO obvious.

Re: Global Community?

LV_Pro — Wed, 18 May 2005 16:55:15 GMT

A possible method to arrive at a closer number would be to analyze the timestamps of submissions. While not perfect, there are always some of us pulling our hair out at "O -dark thirty" who jump on the discussion group for a brain break, statistically it would be reasonable that most submissions would be during "normal business" hours. Then again I could be completely wrong, we are talking about techno-geeks. 😉

Putnam Monroe
LabVIEW geek curmudgeon since 1992

Re: Global Community?

altenbach — Sun, 29 May 2005 16:50:17 GMT

Nearly three weeks have passed since this thread got started and it is probably time to post the real answers.

I'm curious! 🙂

Re: Global Community?

chilly_charly — Sun, 29 May 2005 19:02:40 GMT

Just before the game is over, my own guess is
USA 56%
Canada 7%
GB 10 %
France 7%
Germany 7%
India 3%
Mexico 3%

Totally empiric, since I did not succeed in analysing the posting time. 😞

CC

Re: Global Community?

Molly K — Tue, 31 May 2005 21:20:59 GMT

I will post the answer tomorrow... This is your last chance to try to win the mug...

Re: Global Community?

AnalogKid2DigitalMan — Tue, 31 May 2005 23:12:33 GMT

Here's my guess:

US 35%
Germany
Japan
France
India

Re: Global Community?

LV_Pro — Wed, 01 Jun 2005 11:58:54 GMT

From my analysis of submission times 38.295% Just kidding, it as a WAG estimate rounded to 38%

Putnam Monroe