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The unconnected amongst us

Right now I'm busy trying to organise what I hope will be a very large event in late November.

As regular readers will probably know, I fly RC model aircraft and every year I've mooted the prospect of having a "national model-flying day" in the lead-up to Christmas.

The goal of this event would be to promote the hobby to all of NZ and give folks a chance to see: what's involved, how much fun it can be and whether it might be something they too would enjoy.

I mean let's face it, who hasn't at one time or another built (or wanted to build) a model aeroplane? In fact, I'd wager that there are thousands of folk who probably engaged in the hobby when they were kids and might just need a little kick to get back into it.

Unfortunately, there have been some problems with my desire to get this ball rolling.

The first problem was communications.

The national body for model flying in NZ (MFNZ) operates a mailing list through the Yahoo Groups service so this seemed like the ideal mechanism for soliciting support and communicating with the 2,000 affiliated members.

Apparently not.

It seems that although NZ has a very high number of internet users per capita (compared to most other countries), surprisingly few model-fliers use the internet.

In fact, barely 18% of the membership subscribes to the mailing list.

This makes it very difficult to "spread the word" or get any kind of truly representative feedback from members via the internet.

So why is the hobby so "disconnected" from the online world?

Perhaps one reason is that there really are an awful lot of "old men" flying models these days. Whereas once the average club was rich with youth, these days it seems that the average age of model fliers is climbing at an alarming rate and many of these people are not of "the internet generation".

I figured that this was all the more reason to run an event that promotes the hobby to the wider population and recruits new members of all ages.

Is this a catch-22 situation?

Are few of the MFNZ members Net-users because they're too old or is the average member old because the Net hasn't been used to its full potential as a method of recruiting new "connected" members?

How many other hobbies are in the same situation -- neglecting the internet as a powerful tool for spreading the world and expanding their ranks?

Fortunately, the very people we need to reach are very much of the internet age so I'm hoping that the presence of our "big event" in the media and via the online promotion will significantly reshape the demographics of the bobby.

To reach the "online generation" we've set up a Facebook page and a couple of WordPress blogs and been dropping links (where appropriate) around the web.

The good news is that we're generating a lot of interest and it would appear that attendance will be very strong.

I've been trying to also rake up some sponsorship and encountered some very interesting responses.

One of the first things I tried was organising some "prize packs" from sponsors, particularly a well-known "energy drink" company. I emailed them with my proposal (just drop us a few prize packs of your product and we'll promote your brand at the event and online) but it was rejected. What the?

I find it amazing that a company which can spend so much hard cash on MSM advertising would not be interested in throwing a few boxes of product at an event which will have a significant online presence and should also feature in the mainstream media. I even pointed them to my YouTube channel and suggested that having their branding on some of my videos (which may reach as many as a million or more people) would be a cheap way to promote the product.

Nope, not interested.

However, I think a penny must have dropped somewhere and perhaps they had a good long look at some of my videos because.. just yesterday I got a phone call from a company that's been commissioned to make another TV ad for this company. They want me to build a humongous pulsejet engine to be featured in an ad that they also hope will go viral on YouTube.

So let's get this right... they wouldn't throw $50 worth of product at me to get a prominent presence on my new vids but they'll spend tens of thousands to try and produce the same outcome?

Duh!

Somehow I have a feeling that perhaps the executives who make these decisions might be just as disconnected as the 82% of model fliers who can't even spell "net".

And yes, just in case you were wondering.. today has been a really slow news day, hence the somewhat rambling nature of today's column.

Are you a member of any hobby or sports club? What percentage of your club membership takes advantage of the internet to its full effect? Do you actively promote your hobby or sport via the online world? Any suggestions, tips or tricks for others seeking to do likewise?

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