MyTwoCensus.com hopes to learn how much $ Dr. Groves raked in for this keynote address…
Stay tuned for Dr. Groves’ exit from the federal government followed by his immediate decision to join a Fortune 500 company as the director of Market Research…
Here’s a piece from the Bellvue News-Democrat:
$300,000 census promotion falls short in East St. Louis
Only 63 percent of residents mailed in their forms
BY SCOTT WUERZ – News-DemocratDespite the investment of more than $300,000 in promotional programs designed to encourage East St. Louis residents to return their census forms, the city had the worst participation rate of any large community in the metro-east.According to U.S. Census Bureau records, 63 percent of East St. Louis residents mailed in their forms. O’Fallon had the highest return rate of any large city in the metro-east with an 81 percent response rate.
Edwardsville saw 80 percent of residences return their census forms, Fairview Heights had a 79 percent response rate, Granite City had a 78 percent return, 77 percent of Belleville residences and 75 percent of Collinsville households returned their census forms.
Read more: http://www.bnd.com/2010/07/04/1317981/300000-census-promotion-falls.html#ixzz0shiDKdtV
A few weeks ago, Census Bureau Director Robert M. Groves said that the 2010 Census advertising campagin was finished. Later, he said that the Census Bureau was still working to advertise in Mississippi. Yesterday, I published an article from Mississippi that complained about the lack of advertising dollars from the Census Bureau spent in the state:
Much of the blame has to fall on the Census Bureau. In the past, the Bureau used the American Association of Advertising Agencies and national media groups to provide millions of dollars of donated advertising to motivate readers and viewers to fill out and return their forms. That was not done this year.
If anyone reading this blog has knowledge about 2010 Census operations in Mississippi, please be sure to let us know!
UPDATE: For those people who are arguing in the comments section, Groves, in his prepared remarks, which can be found at the following link on page 1, stated that the ad campaign has been completed:
http://www.mytwocensus.com/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/GrovesRemarksJune2010.pdf
At his most recent press conference (on June 2nd), Census Bureau Director Robert M. Groves stated that the Census Bureau had completed its 2010 Census advertising campaign. Yet, yesterday, it was reported that the advertising campaign is ongoing in Mississippi:
JACKSON, Miss. (AP) – The U.S. Census Bureau will increase its advertising efforts in the poverty-stricken Mississippi Delta to encourage people to respond.
Census Bureau director Robert M. Groves said Tuesday the agency is committed to a complete and accurate count of area’s population.
The Census is conducted once every 10 years and helps determine how millions of federal dollars are spent. Officials use the updated population figures to reconfigure lines for districts in the U.S. House, the state House and Senate and for local offices such as county supervisors.
Graves met in Jackson last week with several groups concerned about an accurate count in the Delta, including Southern Echo and the Sunflower County Parents and Students Organization.
To Census Bureau officials reading this: Is the advertising campaign really complete?
“The U.S. government reported spending $22.7 million on such promotional products as part of a major awareness campaign, according to the Advertising Specialty Institute.”
Read the full story here at Promo Magazine.
Today’s Daily Sound Off comes from Georgia:
From a contender to the title of “The Worst LCO in the Nation”
Well, it looks like the U. S. Census finally got the PBOCS software working. The solution, reduce the number of users from 10 to 2. This means it will take 5 times longer to key the volumes of returned enumerator questionnaires that have been stacked into boxes waiting for a clerk to key them.
While we are on the subject of questionnaires I would like to explain the process in our LCO (local census office), Macon Georgia.
!. Enumerators turn in their completed questionnaires to their crew leader who reviews them for completeness and then initials showing his approval. Enumerators are experiencing a large number of irate people that do not want to participate and have discovered it is easier to call the residence vacant of cannot locate than it is to try and get the information. No one likes to be chewed out and in a way I don’t blame them. A large percent of the population don’t trust the Census and wish to be left alone.
Residents are handing the Census envelopes they received in the mail to the enumerator and telling them to leave. These envelopes are not being mailed but are being thrown into boxes. At least if they were mailed, the people might be counted.
2. The crew leader brings them to the office where clerks log the receipt of “X” number of questionnaires.
3. Then they are given to clerks for review of completeness. We have about 30 clerks on three shifts doing this. Those that fail are returned to the crew leader for rework. The return rate is about 50% because Crew leaders are not reviewing, just initialing, and sometime not initialing. What company would pay for this amount of poor performance and then pay more to the same people to do the work again and even worse allow it to continue?
4. Once the clerk begins keying another 20% of the forms are pulled out to be returned to the crew leader because the clerks did a poor job of their review. Another 20% to 30% of the questionnaires are sent to Data Collection office with incomplete information
5. Where are the managers and supervisors? What are they doing about it? Well last month, the Area Manager took over the office but after two weeks she could not make a difference even with the assistance of three RT’s so they assigned another area manager who left two RT’s with us and one is acting LCOM (LCO manager) after firing the LCOM. The acting LCOM can barely speak English and neither knows enough to do anything but contribute to the turmoil. They think the solution is to see how many people they can make miserable by denying them food and drink in their work area and not allowing them to leave except for a two 15 minute breaks and a 30 minute lunch. They must raise their hand when they need more work or have to go to the bathroom. Next there is a field operations manager who has 3 office supervisors and 7 field office supervisors to help her. All are poorly trained and most are not supervisor material, The solution is to add two more Field Office Supervisors (both have less than 30 days experience) to supervise the office operations supervisors. To the Census, more is usually the solution not accountability for their actions. The same people that did poor work during Address Canvassing, and Group Quarters are still being paid to make a mess of Non Response Follow Up. These RT’s will not listen to those managers that years of supervisor experience and know how to solve the problem. We probably will soon have a new set of RT’s and another Area Manager because nothing is improving.
6. Finally there is shipping of the questionnaires. The Census Bureau with their infinite wisdom decided to take some strain off the PBOCS by moving shipping to a DAPPS based program. This seems like a good idea but in doing so removed the checks and balance that PBOCS had which prevented questionnaires from being shipped without being checked-in. Now any questionnaire can be shipped. What a mess we are going to have.
Conclusion:
Management is the source of all problems within the Census; i.e., I should say the lack of management and it starts at the top. The U.S. Census has grown to be a management nightmare and will need serious restructure if it is to survive. All the public relations, TV commercials, nor increased spending can cure the festering sores.
I sense that these problems are common place throughout the nation. With all the problems that have come to light, we are previewing the Death of the Census because the problems will ultimately make 2020 Census impossible. How can the Secretary of Commerce keep a straight face when he presents the results to President Obama on December 31, 2010?
Update: After speaking with the Census Bureau’s public information office, I want to clarify that this is not federal money but Chicago’s money that has allegedly been spent improperly.
I’m not sure how I missed this piece from the Huffington Post when it originally came out on 5/19, but I am now investigating the claims laid out here:
The cronyism, corruption and shady contracts continue to emanate from the Todd Stroger administration, as a new and yet all-too-familiar scandal involving US Census contracts is emerging Wednesday.
With a few hundred thousand dollars of federal grants left to publicize the census, Stroger’s spokesman Eugene Mullins told the Chicago Tribune that he and deputy chief of staff Carla Oglesby awarded contracts to eight publicity firms to spread the word. So far, so good.
But all of the firms — like Oglesby’s own PR firm, which is now under investigation — were awarded contracts of $24,995, five dollars less than the amount that would require County Board approval.
And, of course, as a little digging from FOX Chicago revealed, it gets worse. (Scroll down for video of the FOX investigation.)
Nearly all of the companies receiving contracts were incorporated just days before the contracts were issued.
One business was run by a convicted felon, and listed a vacant lot as its business address. One business appears to be a modeling agency. Two of the contractors submitted nearly identical invoices, and gave the same unlisted phone number.
The contracts were all paid up-front, before any services were rendered.
Story continues belowAnd, the Tribune writes, “leaders of the Cook County Complete Count Committee, appointed by Stroger to conduct census outreach, said they were unaware of the contracts.”
How did Mullins respond?
When asked about the contracts on camera by FOX, Mullins was silent. Anchor Jeff Goldblatt said on air that “he called me late tonight, a profanity-laced phone call” in which he “basically threatened to sue” for “defamation of character.”
Mullins gave an on-the-record quote to the Tribune: “Either we can spend the money the best we can or it goes back to Washington,” Mullins said.
Both Mullins and Oglesby, who signed off on all the census contracts, are themselves involved in other Stroger administration scandals.
After Stroger’s defeat in the February primary, the lame-ducked Cook County Board President gave Mullins a $10,300 raise — despite a pay freeze that had been on the books for months.
And Oglesby is only recently back at work after a five-day suspension for steering a similar $24,995 contract to her privately-owned public relations firm, CGC Communications.
According to Finance Committee chairman John Daley, “All of this is under review by the inspector general.”
Here’s the video from Fox:
Here’s the video of the 2010 Census sketch from last night’s Saturday Night Live starring Betty White and Tina Fey. The Census Bureau should drop NBC a thank you note for the free advertising. The classic Christopher Walken SNL sketch can be seen here.
Note: If you look closely, you will see that Tina Fey managed to obtain what appears to be a genuine 2010 Census enumerator bag for this performance. I wonder how she got it if it’s only for employees?
Obviously, for me, the jury is still out on the above question. But on Monday, Ed O’Keefe of the Washington Post tackled this question:
At least 72 percent of American households returned their forms to the U.S. Census Bureau this year, matching returns for the 2000 headcount. Final numbers will be announced on Wednesday and Obama administration officials cheered the early numbers late last week as evidence of successful outreach efforts.
But a leading Republican Census critic phoned The Eye within minutes of Friday’s announcement and raised an interesting point:
“This census cost more than double what the census cost in 2000,” said Rep. Jason Chaffetz (R-Utah). He finds it curious that officials would be happy to only match 2000 figures despite a 2010 budget that was more than three times what was spent ten years ago.
“They spent $300 million on advertising that a lot of us were critical of and they’re getting poor results in the places we know we have problems,” he said, referring to a controversial Census Bureau Super Bowl ad panned by critics.
The agency’s 2010 budget was the same as 2000 on an inflation-adjusted basis, said Census Bureau spokesman Steven Jost.
“We spent just 5 percent more in equivalent dollars this year on a population that was 10 percent bigger,” he said in an e-mail. The 2000 Census was also the first conducted with a paid advertising campaign, so 2010′s headcount needed an equally robust ad strategy to stay even with previous numbers, he said.
In his e-mail Jost listed other reasons for only breaking even with 2000: The country has grown in size and diversity since 2000 and the last headcount was conducted at a time of economic prosperity when Americans had a better opinion of government.
“Most observers of the census during the last several years predicted these factors would make the job tougher in 2010 but so far the public has got us off to a great start,” Jost said, noting that the second part of Census operations kicks off soon when census takers start knocking on doors.
So who’s right? Chaffetz or Jost?
Leave your thoughts in the comments section below
I’m a few years behind the rest of the world as I only recently started watching Mad Men, the hit TV series about the world of advertising. The show got me thinking about many things related to the 2010 Census ad campaign. Rather than advertising with “Portrait of America” themes, Christopher Guest nonsense, and other ads that seem to be unclear, unpointed, and uninteresting flops. Why not go straight to the numbers? The simple ad campaign I would have created for the Census Bureau would have gone as follows:
Cost to mail back your census form: 42 cents.
Cost to send a Census Bureau employee to your house if you fail to return your form: $57.
Amount of federal money at stake if you aren’t counted: $1,333.*
Total amount of available funding that you are community should get its fair share of: $400 BILLION.
2010 Census – Mail it back and Participate.
(Back in February, Census Bureau Communications Director Steve Jost told readers of this blog — see the comments section — that the Census Bureau and Draftfcb were in the process of creating a 2010 Census ad competition for the public to compete in…clearly that never happened!)
*The Census Bureau uses the term $400 billion for the total amount of money at stake. $400 billion divided by 300 milli0n people (an approximation of America’s population) is $1,333 per person. Some estimates determine that it is about $3,000 per person missed. Shelley Lowe of the Census Bureau’s Public Information Office said of the per person figure, “We don’t calculate that, but other organizations have attempted to.”
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