First Statistical Speech Oct. 20 Ithaca NY OWS General Assembly

METHODOLOGY

Two poster boards were set out at the Occupy Ithaca General Assembly on the evening of Thursday October 20, 2011. At the announcements part, participants (henceforth called "speakers") were encouraged to speak statistically and sampling commenced at 7:47 PM. It lasted for one hour, ending at 8:47 as the meeting winded down.

One poster board contained only yes or no questions provided by myself (Harry Bowman, 108 N. Geneva St. Apt. 8, Ithaca NY 14850, @HBowman108, hbowman108@hotmail.com). The second was open to questions submitted by the speakers themselves.

RESULTS:

This is the original order of the questions I provided:

White? 23 yes, 0 no

Black? 0 yes, 8 no

Asian? 1 yes, 8 no

Latino? 0 yes, 8 no

US Citizen? 21 yes, 3 no

Registered to Vote (US citizens only)? 18 yes, 4 no

Voted in 2010 (US citizens born before Nov. 2 1992)? 15 yes, 6 no

Voted in 2008 (US citizens born before Nov. 4 1990)? 16 yes, 4 no

Live in City of Ithaca? 17 yes, 6 no

Male? 14 yes, 3 no

Female? 9 yes, 6 no

Employed (other than participating in OWS)? 17 yes, 4 no

College Student (undergrad)? 7 yes, 10 no

College Graduate? 15 yes, 5 no

Native speaker of English? 19 yes, 3 no

Submitted questions (in submission order):

From Finger Lakes area? 5 yes, 5 no

Aged under 18? 1 yes, 4 no

19-25? 4 yes, 3 no

26-45? 6 yes, 1 no

46-64? 1 yes, 2 no

Over 65? 2 yes, 3 no

LBCATQ? 2 yes, 2 no

What is your economic background? 2 responses: $120,000 a year, $12,000 a year

Indigenous? no yes, 2 no

OBSERVATIONS (includes personal opinions of the author)

On some questions, it may be useful to explicitly describe the format. Results suggest that many speakers may have viewed the ethnicity questions as not being independent and only submitted a single response. My intent was to allow multiple responses as is allowed on the US Census. The age question was different, as speakers presumably should only identify with a single age group, and for this multiple choice may be a better format than yes or no.

One question was submitted without a yes or no answer. Such questions are more difficult to report if the number of responses is large.

I found that facilitators may need more pens than I thought due to the often chaotic conditions under which statistical speech may occur. In large settings such as Liberty Plaza, boxes of writing instruments will probably be needed and I will check on prices on those. I recommend that pens should be used instead of pencils since the marks may smudge in transport away from the speech site.

SUPPORT THIS WORK

Donations to the facilitator of this statistical speech should be sent to PayPal at the account linked to my email address, hbowman108@hotmail.com. Facilitators are free to link to statistical speeches in the comments section or elsewhere.