Birds of a Feather Flock Together - Cool Benefits of Twitter

We can all find others with similar interests as ourselves. We just need to ask the right questions. The problem comes in finding where others gather and then to find the ones actually listening.

I have been hearing a lot of buzz lately about the benefits of Twitter, a new technology for sharing short(140 characters or less)comments(tweets). Twitter is growing exponentially. For example, in the last seven days there have been close to 2 million tweets posted to the Twitter cloud. These tweets express the momentary interests of the twitters tweeting. Some are silly. Some of them are expressions of frustration or requests for assistance. Many are short reviews of products and services including short URL links to blogs or company websites.

By using advanced twitter search criteria, you can filter these tweets to display only those that contain words related to your particular interest. This is exactly what a lot of companies are doing. They use specific search keywords to effectively listen for specific tweets that include their company name or products. Then they respond directly to these tweeters with an introduction to begin a new client relationship and offer assistance.

This very thing just happened to me today when I posted that I had sent out an email newsletter using Constant Contact. Within 3 minutes I had received a reply to my tweet from none other than Constant Contact informing me that they noticed I was using their product and offering me any assistance I may need via Twitter. How cool is that?

Since discovering this new paradigm for relationship building around a common interest, I have been creating twitter feeds based on what I do in the OMR and web survey business and adding these feeds to my Google reader so I can easily follow anyone who tweets based on keywords that apply to our business. When I see relevant posts, I can respond by offering our company's assistance in areas of form design, or printing, etc.

If you happen to be on Twitter and have any related interest in web and OMR form design, printing, scanning and reporting, please follow me. My Twitter username is bubblepeeps. I will follow you back. It would be beneficial for us to form a flock around the topic of OMR Scantron type forms and processes. I will be looking forward to seeing you on Twitter soon!

OMR

OMR is an acronym for Optical Mark Recognition. You can read more about OMR here.
OMR forms are used for collecting data. Preparation of this type of form involves several critical steps.

Obviously, one needs to thoughtfully determine the kind of data that needs to be gathered and layout the questions in a clear, understandable format. These questions are then sent to the designer to figure out the best way to present these questions in an attractive layout. The designer needs to understand how the OMR scanner reads this information and position the questions and related response bubbles in just the right position on the form to assure that the scanner can accurately read the information. When the form design or layout is approved by the customer, the electronic form is moved to the printing phase. It is critical that the printer also understands the importance of consistent positioning of the printed sheet according to the layout. Below is a grid layout that represents the critical positioning of an OMR form.
As you can see, there are several grid density options to use based on the amount of data required for the form.

The two basic elements of this grid are the timing marks and the response bubbles. The timing marks appear in one column on one edge of the sheet. These rectangular marks are viewed by the scanner as the sheet travels through it. A timing mark determines when to begin and end the viewing of the corresponding row of bubbles and record the results. A typical form can have up to 48 bubbles across the sheet. In order for the scanner to know what bubbles to look at, a file called a scanning definition needs to be created with the scanning software prior to the actual scanning process. This scanning definition tells the scanner which bubble or bubbles in the grid to look at if filled in, record the assigned value. These values or results are then added to an Excel type data file as each form is scanned. When the scanning is finished the results are then tabulated with the use of special reporting software.

If the quality of the original scan form has been compromised by sloppy layout or printing processes, then the scanned data and the tabulated results potentially may not be reliable.

OMR is a great time-saving process in collecting data but can also create a huge headache if not done correctly.

Survey Systems launches OMR blog

September 12, 2008, Survey Systems, Inc. launched a new blog called SURVEY SYSTEMATICS.
This first blog entry comes more in the way of a press release to announce it's creation, drawing some attention from those in the OMR crowd. "What is OMR?" you ask.

OMR stands for Optical Mark Recognition. It's not like you have to know what it is to have ever used it. You probably have filled in those funny looking survey forms with the rectangular marks down one side of the sheet and the little bubbles that you color in to indicate your answers to given questions. I remember randomly filling in those bubbles on something called the Iowa Basic Skills Tests when I was young. ;-)

OMR is a technology used for data collection from paper based surveys and evaluations. It requires very precise designing and printing procedures and specialized scanning equipment for accurate data collection. This is not an inexpensive or simple process. You will need the knowledge, experience and equipment for the detailed tasks in preparing a course, instructor or satisfaction evaluation form or survey. Hopefully many will come to this site to learn about all the unique processes and issues related to OMR form design, printing, scanning and reporting. We will also review the various kinds of OMR software, scanners and services.

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