Marketing Space Interest, The Pitfalls and Solutions
by George Howard
Having a Marketing Plan and a Business Plan in any business is
vitally important. It is even more important in a business that
somehow never seems to be able to make any revenue. This usually
means that there is something or someone preventing you from
success. Defining what those road blocks are is the key to
success because knowing what they are gives us the ability to avoid
them.
I was asked to become involved in national Space interest in
about 1995, by some friends. I had been involved in local Space
interest since about 1977, so I knew what it was supposed to be
about. I was told that there were a number of problems that were
happening in national Space interest and I should look out for
difficulties. In 1999, my first full year as an NSS Chapter
President I called The Greater Kansas City Community Foundation and
asked to talk with a consultant about the NSS. I explained what had
happened over the last 4 years 1995 to 1999, and I described the
national organization and chapters. The financial situation of
chapters and financial situation of the national organization. Also
I told him about events conferences and awards. The consultant
George Bittner's answer to me was that I was describing an
organization trying desperately to fail and it was being kept open
by a blindly enthusiastic membership. He advised me to quit right
then because I would never be able to cover my costs. I told him I
had just started and wanted to give it a try. He then said if I
wanted to stay in this I should never put any substantial amount of
money in it because I would never get it back out. I should
just learn how national Space interest groups operate. If I
encounter any conflicts don't get involved because there is nothing
to gain. If I participate in national projects or events only do so
as long as nobody puts any road blocks in my way. If somebody does
try to block progress in any national effort, drop it because there
is nothing of benefit at the end. My primary concern should be my
local chapter and that is what I should focus on. So I started out
with a detailed heads up on the pitfalls of the National Space
Society. Everything that guy coached me on was correct. Things
happened just the way he said they would. I took his advice and I am
still standing.
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The Marketing problem the NSS is dealing with is membership
response rate. Each year the NSS Heart of America conducts a
membership drive distributing at least 1000 membership forms. We
then record response percentage. The response rate over the last 13
years has been less than 1/10 of 1%, that means no responses from
the 1000 piece distribution. The only revenue generated has been
from gift memberships and it takes a year to get the chapter rebate
commission for that. So the NSS experience has been a very
financially unproductive one. The normal response
rate for ordinary direct mail offers is around 1% . So a less than
1/10 of 1% response is spectacularly low and sparks a person's
interest in finding out why. If you do a marketing effort for 13
years at a 1000 piece distribution per year and you get zero
response it amounts to a less than one in 1300 response rate.
This indicates a long term sustained effort to discourage
Space activism, at least it gives people that impression. Hopefully
it is just poorly implemented marketing efforts on a national
level. Very few if any private organizations run that badly for
that length of time without going out of business or
correcting the operational errors. The organizations that do
stay open tend to be supported by a group of people with their own
personal closed agenda to continue or by a government agency
fulfilling a policy goal. Self supporting private organizations that
have that low of a response rate go out of business or change
drastically.
Over the last 13 years from my experience the National Space
Society seems to be divided into 4 to 5 subgroups. Each
subgroup has their own valid reason to exist so I am not taking
sides with any of them here.
Group One, is composed mainly of former L5 Society members who
have a diehard enthusiasm for Space Activism that is highly valued.
The down side is many of these people hold on to the objectives of
the L5 Society that are beyond what is practical today as if they
could be implemented today. These include large scale Space
Solar Power stations, Large scale Space Colonies called O'Neill
Cylinders; large scale Lunar and Martian colonies. None of these
proposed projects are within the launch capabilities of any Space
faring nation today. This has a tendency to unnerve
professional aerospace people who see these as unworkable in todays'
infrastructure.
Group Two, is composed of former National Space Institute
members, aerospace professionals, defense intelligence people who
have regrouped as the Space Frontier Foundation. It includes people
of very high value skill, talent and knowledge. The L5 Society
and the NSI never merged fully. They just formed two subgroup under
a new name. Group Two seems to be in conflict with Group One, over
what amounts to interpersonal issues. Both groups try to bring
others into the conflict. Sometimes at great expense to themselves.
It is a very high stakes conflict with zero return on effort. Never
get involved in an unwinnable conflict, there is nothing to gain and
sometimes it take a long time to realize that as it has with group
one and group two. It is a conflict that is one big booby trap for
all parties involved. So it is to be avoided with great diligence.
The NSI and the L5 Society merged in 1987, that makes this a 23 year
long interpersonal conflict. Something tells me that you are not
compatable in a really big way and you need to go your separate
ways. There something very disturbing about people of
very advanced professional background involving themselves in
such a long term protracted conflict and wasting so much time money
and resources.
Group Three, is composed of NASA, ESA; RSA, CSA and other Space
agencies that attend and speak at Space conferences. They present
realistic goals and objectives for Space exploration that provide a
clear and comprehensive view of what can be achieved today. I thank
all of these great people for all they provide to the success of
private Space Interest and activism. Hopefully they will
continue to do this for some time to come. It is greatly
appreciated.
Group Four, is composed of individual scientists who
encourage Space activism on their own. Over the years there
have been numerous scientists that have shared their ideas and plans
for Space development. Together these people present a spectacular
vision of a potential future, however they generally also let you
know it will take a long time and will be in stages of development.
This provides a highly valued perspective.
Group Five, is composed of many of the people who became involved
in Space Interest and were not influenced by the sources
that started the NSS. They have a fresh view of Space
exploration with more practical expectations. They have seen how
long it takes to develop Space infrastructure and they lack the
unrealistic expectations of earlier Space enthusiasts. It is going
to take a long time and it is not going to be on such a grand scale
any time soon. These people learn to listen to group Three and
Group Four advice and ignore the conflicts of Group One and Two.
Group Five is a new beginning for Space Activism.
Outlining the pitfalls and listing the solutions.
1. The first pitfall of Space Interest is
a financial one. There has never been a specific product
established to present Space Interest. So you can't go to
the store and buy a box of Space Interest. On a chapter level there
is no functional financial infrastructure. I am not aware of any
chapters that employ anybody. NSS chapters should have as an
objective to generate enough income to employ at least one
person.
2. The second pitfall of Space Interest is internal conflicts due
to scarcity. People in an environment of scarcity tend to
destructively compete with each other and justify this by saying
they had to survive The other guy doesn't have anything either so
they never make progress. This is how ghettos and bad neighborhoods
are perpetuated. This is also how NSS chapters fail to achieve
objectives. NSS chapters should make a concerted effort to
avoid pointless conflicts and should focus on positive constructive
engagement with others.
3. The third pitfall of Space Interest is support for project
objectives that are vastly beyond the launch capability of Space
faring nations today, however these ideas may be achievable at some
point in the far future. The NSS should focus more on tangible and
inspiring projects and objectives to give a sense of achievability.
Establishing tangible qualities in Space Interest makes it more
appealing.
4. The fourth pitfall of Space Interest is over use of lobby
efforts in non profit 501 (c) (3) and 501 (h) (3) businesses. Most
Space Interest groups are non profit companies that have a very
limited lobby option. If they were for profit or 501 (c) (4) non
profit they could lobby congress all they wanted. NSS
chapters should operate within their limitations.
5. The fifth pitfall of Space Interest is that very few Space
enthusiasts see the above mentioned subjects as pitfall problems to
be corrected. Sometimes you just have to say what you see.
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Why Do We Take This Position on the
following issue?
The National Space Society Heart of America, supports the stated
objective of the National Space Society national organization. The
mission statement: It is our Human destiny to live, work and play
among the stars in permanent space communities beyond the
Earth...
What we are not here to do is support any literature with abusive
content or abusive behavior. It is not morally or ethically right to
advocate abusive content. Regardless of whether it is legal, it
diminishes the character and integrity of the organization. In doing
so it diminishes membership acquisition and puts the continuation of
the NSS in question.
********** The Robert A. Heinlein Disclaimer. ***********
Individual NSS chapters do not represent the position of the
national organization but may represent the local perspective of
Space Interest in their area of operation.These local perspectives
may differ from the national organization's opinion and are merely
reporting in a journalistic format on the views of the local area.
We do not support the Robert A. Heinlein Memorial Award or the
literature of Robert A. Heinlein due to character names and story
line backdrops that match real people in Kansas City.
The
character outlines do not match the lifestyles of those real people.
The NSS Heart of America refuses to misrepresent the residents of
Kansas City or any city. This position is not meant as an
offense to the national organization. The national organizations'
support of this literature suggests that there is a grand scale
misunderstanding of the Midwest. We do not live the lifestyles
portrayed in Robert A. Heinlein's books and those that do get
arrested. We the people of the National Space Society, Heart of
America Chapter choose not to misrepresent the people of Kansas
City. We are a people of diverse traditions but we follow civic,
state and federal law. We aim to follow those laws in the several
states that comprise The United States of America. We choose to take
reasonable care in addressing this issue. We also recognize the
First Amendment rights of the National Space Society national
organization, its right to freedom of speech; freedom of the press,
freedom of religion and the right to redress of government for
grievances. Your rights to support this literature are
recognized. However, if you do support this Heinlein literature
there is substantial public revulsion for the subject matter in
his books. This will drastically reduce new membership and your
income, ultimately putting you out of business. If that is your
objective keep on supporting the Robert A. Heinlein Memorial award.
You are doing a fine job.
It has been a question for several years why Robert A. Heinlein,
a former board member of the L5 Society, a precursor organization of
the National Space Society wrote the science fiction stories he did.
He tended to write science fiction stories that had a back theme
involving some abnormal behavior. The value of such an effort is in
question. What this type of writing does is attract higher
concentrations of abnormal people. Mr Heinlein simply proved the
advertising principle you get who you advertise for. How this
writing formula works is if you like the story, you are more than
likely attracted to whatever abnormal behavior is embedded in
the story but it is not a conclusive test. You just get a high
concentration of people with that interest. If you write stories
with an embedded normal theme you get a higher concentration of
normal people showing up. Robert A. Heinlein would have been a far
more popular science fiction writer had he done this.
Robert A. Heinlein seems to have been experimenting with his
readership to see what reaction he could get. He died in 1988, with
his experiment running and nobody shut it off. It has taken time to
identify what Heinlein was doing with his books and then time to
find out how to correct the problem. We found the shutdown commands
to turn off the experiment. We can now start normalizing Space
Interest. Space Interest is about to become more popular.
One of the primary objectives of the NSS Heart of America is to
mainstream Space interest.
One of the most meaningful ways to do
this is to passively resist those who advocate abnormal behavior. It
is okay to strongly say how you feel but Use only words to convey
your differences.
Surveys regarding the reasons people do not want to join the
National Space Society indicate that NSS support for the
Robert A. Heinlein Memorial Award and the literature of Mr. Heinlein
is one of the top 5 reasons for not joining. The controversial
subjects in Heinlein's books drives potential members away. From a
membership acquisition perspective it is counter productive to
support this subject. The national organization, NSS.org seems
to be aware of the controversial subject matter but may not see it
as a problem. There is not very much we can do about this on a
chapter level. The only non confrontational option available is to
not support this subject. This may be the only thing needed to be
done.
As near as can be determined it is vastly counter productive for
NSS.org to support this award name and the literature of Robert
Heinlein. The subject content is repulsive enough that it
undermines membership acquisition. So it is actually a
detriment for the NSS to promote that award and there is no great
benefit to it either. One suggested motivation is the NSS on a
national level is trying desperately to close but is kept open by a
membership that is blindly enthusiastic about Space exploration and
65 chapters including this one who have found new ways of staying
open. Ultimately it looks like the problem will fix itself as
membership drops and the national organization can not sustain its
operational costs. The chapters will go on as individual space
interest groups.
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