Re: The Problems with Indoor FF

From: John Kagan <john_kagan_at_hotmail.com>
Date: Fri, 05 Jun 2009 14:30:13 -0000

I think we need to be honest with ourselves about our target market. Kids are great (I own two). And getting younger ones exposed to model airplanes is a very good thing. It plants a seed that is probably much more fruitful that we imagine. We should definitely keep doing that. But let's not expect those people to be the ones that jump right into our activity.

We mention the 40 year olds that start Indoor as though they were the dregs from failed attempts to recruit kids. Not so! That's our target: Competitive High School age people on up who are drawn to scientific challenges. Or artistic minded people who see the beauty in free flight. Or ultra-organized people who like events where structure and procedure have a deterministic affect on results (i.e. no thermals). Etc.

A cool part of the Red Bull Paper Wings contest is that they did the local contests at colleges. The finals involved young adults who were mature and skilled enough. We have the similar minimum age requirements. (Ok, I already know that everyone is going to say that they got started with they were much younger, but I'm certain that almost everyone who did had a dad or granddad or someone older who was there with them – Romash excluded).
 
And I believe that that's the problem with the delta dart build-and-fly's. They plant seeds for sure, and some of those kids are going to connect back up with us when they are older. But they aren't really the Indoor FF target audience yet.

That's also why I think SO *does* produce recruits. "What?!", you say. "There are 50,000 SO kids, and we got 20 of them!". It's a percentage game.
Received on Fri Jun 05 2009 - 07:31:15 CEST