What is behind Shambhala’s “Recommender Score”?

Our First Blog post

This is the first blog post on the Societal Mirror, where we dig further into the data we’ve collected, discuss our processes, and speculate about where to go next.

First graph may not be the best graph

The January 2022 Societal Mirror questionnaire asked members and friends:

How likely is it that you would recommend Shambhala to a friend or colleague?

That is a very standard marketing question. It seeks to get at the level of enthusiasm in a group of people. We did not have explicit expectations since it was the first time the question was asked, but it felt somewhat deflating to see that almost 40% of our respondents would be less than likely to recommend Shambhala. The somewhat disappointing picture of we see in graph that appeared in the 2022 edition of the Societal Mirror represents the overall response:

We decided to publish the result regardless of whether we liked what it said about Shambhala.

So we decided to dig deeper

This is what we found:

• Most of the respondents who consider themselves to be Shambhala members were very likely to recommend Shambhala
• People who connected with Shambhala at different times have different levels of enthusiasm; non-members from earlier decades are more negative about Shambhala
• Most of those who relate to a local Centre or Group would recommend Shambhala, while those who do not have a local connection are less positive

This blog post explores recommender energy along three dimensions, based on the following questions that were posed in the January 2022 survey:

• Do you think of yourself as a member of Shambhala now?
• In which time period did you begin participating in Shambhala?
• Do you relate to a local Shambhala group or centre, or to a Shambhala land centre?

Questioning the question itself

Even after we’ve asked the question, we have to ask questions about our question. There’s a big difference between recommending a particular teacher, teaching, or book and “recommending Buddhism” or “recommending Shambhala”. The Societal Mirror questionnaire as a whole has many indicators of enthusiasm and commitment to Shambhala, but the recommender question is probably a good summary indicator.

What’s useful about gathering hard data like we’re doing is that it can help sharpen our questions. We will never get “the answer”, but we can re-analyze the data we have gathered and formulate different and hopefully better questions next time.

Looking at the data helps us go deeper in our engagement with the world.

The question remains: Why this very mixed response? Or, perhaps, are certain groups more likely to recommend Shambhala compared to other groups? Which groups are likely to not recommend Shambhala?

Impact of membership status

The invitation to participate in the January 2022 survey went to members and friends. We now realize that because our member records depend on the diligence of many volunteers, people who are listed as members in Shambhala’s records may no longer consider themselves to be members.

We recognize that people who do not consider themselves to be members but who are willing to complete a questionnaire can have very important perspectives or insights that we should listen to. They are connected to Shambhala enough to respond to a questionnaire. We care about them among other reasons because in many cases they were members and have left.

Impact of generation and membership status

Another question is whether people who connected with Shambhala at different times would have a different likelihood of recommending Shambhala.

Members who connected with Shambhala more recently are slightly more positive, but non-members who connected before 2000 are unlikely to recommend Shambhala.

Impact of affiliating with a local centre and membership status

We asked whether respondents were affiliated with a local centre or group with the question, “Do you relate to a local Shambhala group or centre, or to a Shambhala land centre?” (Yes or no)

Members who relate to a local centre are the most likely to recommend Shambhala (upper-left quadrant). Members who do not relate to a local centre are not as positive about Shambhala as those with a local connection.

We checked on the size of a local centre but it did not seem to have an impact on the recommender score.

Caring about Shambhala is not the same as being likely to recommend it to a friend or colleague. But it is remarkable that people who are not members and who would not recommend Shambhala are nevertheless willing to give detailed feedback. And feedback could help us all look forward with more precision.