In a good-hearted intent to improve our newsletter and really make it a useful and informative tool for our readers, we have launched a survey. We asked them about their preferences and based on the fact that we were addressing quite a niche market, we underestimated how different people really are; and how different their individual interests are, even if they are working in the same field or industry.

Question 1: What areas are you most interested in: technology, banking, regulations, open source, events, corporations, business? We asked the respondents to give each category a rating from 1-not interested to 5-very interested.

The arithmetic mean was: Technology – 3.07, Banking – 4, Regulations – 3.37, Open Source – 3.11, Corporations – 3.22, Business – 4, Events – 3.07. Even though the differences are not so significant, we can see a slight inclination towards business, banking and the trends in this market rather than technology news.

Question 2: Are there other related areas you would like us to cover in our newsletter? What would those be?

In the accelerating pace of today’s world, open survey questions don’t seem to be very effective, with only 40.74% answering this question. Nevertheless, we had some suggestions like: projects developed, cloud industry, business and economic trends in the CEE states, impact of politic decisions on regulations.

Question 3: What type of information would you prefer to receive: news, analysis, how to’s, essays about personal experiences, etc? Check any that apply.

77.78% are interested in News, 62.96% in Analysis, 48.15% would like to receive how to’s and only 33.33% personal experience essays. As I said, the world is moving fast and it seems that people believe news helps us keep the pace.

Question 4: In which format would you like to receive our news? Article links you can access to read in full or a more integrated content with articles’ synopsis/text previews/opinions.

This one is a tough one. How can you decide how to improve the structure of your newsletter when the answer to this question divided respondents almost 50-50? 55.56% said they prefer article links you can access to read in full, while the rest of 44.44% opted for a more integrated type of content.

Question 5: What news/information regarding Allevo would you like to receive on a monthly basis?

Product feature updates – 59.26%

New initiatives/projects – 88.89%

Updates on the BOOST– Banking On Open Source Technologies project – 37.04%

Opinion articles on market trends/news/events – 55.56%

Allevo events/workshops – 55.56%

Question 6: What news/information regarding the FinTP open source project and the FINkers United, the community around it, would you like to receive on a monthly basis?

New releases – 77.78%

New code updates on GitHub – 25.93%

New initiatives – 77.48%

FinTP events/hackathons – 40.74%

Other – 7.41%; included suggestions like howtos and new members or partners

Answers to questions 5 and 6 show people’s interest in what’s NEW. And although we are happy they are interested in our new projects in such a large proportion, the fact that our existing open source initiative rated low in interest in this survey raised a few questions: is open source not an interest priority in the banking world yet or BOOST is just not that well known or well explained?

Question 7: What would you change in the graphic format or the newsletter’s layout?

Open question, hence few answers. Most of the respondents said nothing, but there were some recommending a more appealing layout, less information, easier and friendlier navigation.

Question 8: If you have any other suggestions, we are more than happy to hear them.

Suggestions: less links, deliver the newsletter once every three months, provide a quick to read overview for included articles.

Lessons learned:

• never underestimate people’s difference of opinions
• you can never please everyone – but this does not stop us from trying
• redesigning and restructuring our newsletter is not such an easy task