How Motivating Is Swag?

There have been polls in the past to find out what items members preferred to receive as swag, but I am curious to know how it affects participation.

I assume everyone likes to receive free swag, but how does it affect participation? Do you post a blog note when you receive swag?

If swag was often given to each participant in a Project14 or specified in specific Project14 contests, would you be more likely to participate?

I know I sometimes do a project on a Project14 topic, but my project is not very impressive, so I may or may not go to the trouble of blogging about it. Clearly these projects aren't aimed at winning the contest, but are probably still of some interest. If there was some swag up for grabs it might tip the scales towards blogging about some marginal projects.

If there was a possibility of swag for blogging about a project that is not part of any contest, does it increase the likelihood that you would blog about more independent projects?

How could the impact of swag be increased?

By the way, in case it isn't clear, swag in this context means free handout promotional items supplied by element14.

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ntewinkel over 4 years ago

Swag is always a feel good gift, even if it's just a small trinket.

> ...so I may or may not go to the trouble of blogging about it.
I'm with you on that one, but I don't know if swag would make me take the extra effort to blog about my partial or unfinished projects. It's still mainly the time considerations that are holding me back.

I do, however, think it would get me on-board with the contest projects if every project entry were to receive some sort of trinket regardless of how it ranked.

There is this online exercise motivation membership which sends out medals for each completed quest (https://www.theconqueror.events/ ) - the medals are excellent quality, and people seem very motivated by them, and will pay fairly good membership fees to get them. So I think in general swag is a good motivator.

I'm not sure what the ideal swag would look like for me, but I do know that having element14 branding on anything makes it a magnitude more special the breadboard is a great example of that. I've also very much enjoyed the branded T-shirts and bottles. I've even used element14 stickers to embellish contest prizes to give me that ongoing happy reminder of where that item came from. Maybe a few smallish element14 stickers could be thrown around so we can embellish our tiny Arduino and Raspberry Pi cases

Cheers,
-Nico
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ntewinkel over 4 years ago

Swag is always a feel good gift, even if it's just a small trinket.

> ...so I may or may not go to the trouble of blogging about it.
I'm with you on that one, but I don't know if swag would make me take the extra effort to blog about my partial or unfinished projects. It's still mainly the time considerations that are holding me back.

I do, however, think it would get me on-board with the contest projects if every project entry were to receive some sort of trinket regardless of how it ranked.

There is this online exercise motivation membership which sends out medals for each completed quest (https://www.theconqueror.events/ ) - the medals are excellent quality, and people seem very motivated by them, and will pay fairly good membership fees to get them. So I think in general swag is a good motivator.

I'm not sure what the ideal swag would look like for me, but I do know that having element14 branding on anything makes it a magnitude more special the breadboard is a great example of that. I've also very much enjoyed the branded T-shirts and bottles. I've even used element14 stickers to embellish contest prizes to give me that ongoing happy reminder of where that item came from. Maybe a few smallish element14 stickers could be thrown around so we can embellish our tiny Arduino and Raspberry Pi cases

Cheers,
-Nico
- Cancel
- Vote Up +6 Vote Down
- Sign in to reply
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