Valentine's Day is almost upon us. So before you carry on reading this, make a note in your diary or Google Calendar or whatever reminder system you use that you need to order those flowers/chocolates/feather-lined handcuffs or whatever else it might be ahead of February 14.

Done that? Good. Potential matrimonial crises averted, and just another of the many services we aim to provide our members with here at element14.

Now, I'm going to go out on a limb here and suggest that of all the annual "holidays," Valentine's Day is the one that engineers and makers care the least about. However, upon discussing this with other members of the Community team and doing some online research into love and romance (be careful what you search for if you do this yourself), it became apparent that there are still ways for the more pragmatic among us can do to show the affection at this time of year.

"V" is for Valentine (Not Volts)

The truth is, we harbour a great deal of endearment to the element14 membership, and not just because you go and spend money over at Farnell and Newark. But if it's not because of the money, what is it that creates this special bond?

In good engineering fashion, it turned out that the proof was right there in the numbers. Love, it seems, can actually be quantified using statistics (probably not a big surprise to you guys) and my research highlighted that sharing is a big part of what you humans consider to be intimacy.

This isn't normally something that we'd do, laying our statistical hearts bare for the world to see, but these numbers belong to everyone at element14, and not just the admins. So in honour of Saint Valentine, here are some of the numbers we regularly generate that show how strong the bond really is between the community of electronics engineers, makers, enthusiasts and element14.

Sharing is Caring

And in return, we thought we'd set up a new badge for you to earn by sharing the love around the Community! To get the badge is pretty easy in principle, but requires some careful consideration and no small amount of effort when it comes to showing your loving side. If you know what I mean...

Yes, well, anyway, to get the new Share the Love Badge, you need to...

• Like 20 different pieces of content on the Community, and...
• Get 10 likes on your own original piece of content (a blog post or a document, for example).

If you can earn the badge on or before February 29th -- the day when women traditionally propose to men, I'm "reliably" informed by Wikipedia -- and you're okay with our Ts&Cs on the subject, you're in with a chance to win a very special token of element14's affection: a cotton candy machine!

The Mathematics of Love

So, on with the numbers that demonstrate our deep connection to each other in a way that engineers, mathematicians, coders, scientists, technicians and makers can appreciate. Through the magic of statistics!

Membership

• • We now have over 390,000 registered members at element14.com.
  • Over 80,000 of those registrations happened last year alone.
    
  • At the moment, around 31% of our members are in the US, 17% are in the UK, 6% are in China, 5% are in Germany, 5% are in India, 3.7% are in Canada and 2.8% are in Australia.
  • Our monthly newsletter is read by ~125,000 people.
  • Over 1.25 million people have gone on from the Community to buy stuff from Farnell, Newark, CPC, MCM and element14 (which we'd like to thank you for doing!).
    

The Community

• • Last year we had around 10 million visits to element14.com.
  • You've interacted with us over 450,000 times in the last 12 months.
  • Over the past year (ish):
    • The Raspberry Pi section has had the most views, at over 7 million, and has the largest number of followers.
    • The Top Members section has the most Likes on its blogs, discussions, messages and posts.
    • You guys have posted more responses to content in the The specified item was not found. section than anywhere else.
    • There are almost three times as many votes cast in the Member Awards than any other section (not a big surprise there, though).
      
  • More than 40% of you identify as engineers in your element14 profile, with makers/hobbyists coming in second.
    

Feedback with Feeling

You might have noticed those survey links at the bottom of the screen, which we use to solicit feedback on the public's experiences at element14.

Below are just a few recent comments from the last time the survey results were collected, which gave us a warm, fuzzy feeling inside (it was either that or the canteen's chilli, anyway).

And much of this feedback is the result of interactions with element14 members, rather than us, so this feedback is for you guys.

• • "Years ago a place like this with all of this content was not available. Keep up the good work."
  • "The question/answer discussion was very helpful regarding an electronic problem I have. Thank you"
  • "Well done guys, keep it up."
  • "I have some experience in data acquisition, but this is my first venture into coding. I like what I see here!"
  • "Looking forward to finding out more about how I can use the Raspberry Pi."
  • "I am an electronics engineer and work on a lot of different circuits. This website is perfect, thank you."

No time for love, Doctor Jones! Go get started on the brand new Share the Love badge!