Over at EightQuestions.info (social survey experiment), I just posted a survey asking for your thoughts on the rising fuel costs and what can be done to stop it.

Please take a moment and give us your thoughts on our 8 questions. We’d love it if you passed the word to your friends. We’re shooting for 1000 responses.

Short URL: http://tinyurl.com/4tbzz8
Follow 8Q on Twitter: www.twitter.com/eightquestions
Blog: www.eightquestions.info

Thanks!

Over at EightQuestions.info (my informal, fun, state of the culture survey site), I posted a poll about who’d win today if you voted. Among other interesting insights, John McCain was declared the winner. Fact or fiction? I’ll update you in November. Until then, here is the pulse of a small (43 people) sample of society.

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Ever wish you could get past all of the media and candidate hoopla and just know who will be President? Yeah, me too. So I thought I’d ask and what I found was a bunch of Republicans (56%) who are excited about voting for John McCain (61%). Read on to find out what the real hot issues are and if people would still vote on election day even if they didn’t know who they wanted or should vote for. Now that’s a good way of voting the new President in.

Let’s start with what political parties are represented by our participants. Over 56% were Republican; 9% were Democrat, 16% claimed to be independent and another 19% claimed “none.” Is none because you hate the establishment or because they never registered to vote? Who knows.

While I’ve watched and engaged in my own conversations about the issues of concern, it’s no surprise what ranked as the top issue for our respondents, the economy (79%). In all, I listed 17 different issues and asked each participant to select which issues played a role in their voting decision. Here are the top five:

• Economy (79%)
• Ethics (72%)
• Foreign Policy (67%)
• Faith (63%)
• War, Family (58%)

It’s interesting to note that Veterans (16%) and Technology (19%) were the least important issues to the participants.

The focus of this survey was to find out who people would vote for today. 61% said that they would vote for John McCain, 34% for Obama and only 5% for Hillary Clinton. As with any election, there is always a few write-ins. This survey had three people list Ron Paul as their candidate.

Something I found a bit disturbing is that 47% of the participants said they would still vote on decision day even if they were unable decide on one candidate. Maybe I should have followed up that question by asking if they would have just voted party lines? 26% did say that they wouldn’t vote at all and 28% said they didn’t know if they would or not. I’d just like to say, if you don’t know, do the research so you can be educated and informed.

Speaking of research, 81% of the participants said that research would be their main external influence in formulating their voting decision, followed by friends (40%), family (37%), media (33%), church (30%), parents/pastor/mentor (12%) and coworkers (5%). It appears that celebrities don’t have as much say as you’d expect. Not one of the participants cited them as an influence.

On the question of faith and their voting decision, 91% of participants declared that faith was a central influencer.

In the “sound off” box, we found one consistent comment, “I really don’t like any of the three.”

Based on this survey, it looks like John McCain is going to take this election by a long shot…that is if the remaining 47% of the population can make their decision before election day

• Male (58%), Female (42%)
• Median Age: 32
• 56% of participants were ages 25-34

Over at EightQuestions.info, I’ve posted a new survey that aims to answer the question of, “who are you voting for and why?” So far, after just 14 responses, Hillary Clinton doesn’t stand a chance. Although it’s too early in the survey to determine what the majority will do, it’s hard to ignore that she’s had 0 votes between Obama and McCain. While that proves to be somewhat interesting, I think it’s expected. Yet, I wonder about something different.

If you’re one of those people who don’t resonate with the any of the Presidential candidates, come election day, would you still vote? Let’s put it another way, if you’re a conservative Republican, but you don’t like John McCain, would you opt to not vote at all? What if you’re a democrat but you don’t like either Hillary or Obama, would you still vote or leave your voice out of the polls? Are you planning on voting against your affiliated “party?”

What would you do? Sound off here. I’ll report my findings early next week.

I’m curious about your knowledge and observance of Good Friday and Easter. Would you mind taking this survey?

www.eightquestions.info

Tagged by a friend, here are the guidelines:

1. Link to the person that tagged you.
2. Post the rules on your blog.
3. Share six non-important things/habits/quirks about yourself.
4. Tag six random people at the end of your post by linking to their blogs.
5. Let each random person know they have been tagged.

So, my quirks:

1. I’m not afraid to say “I love you” to my friends, even the guys
2. I actually enjoyed the movie Pride & Prejudice
3. I own a 1968 Mustang Fastback that my dad’s dad bought off the lot
4. While owning a business is enjoyable, I’m often more frustrated with what I can’t do, rather than what I can
5. I didn’t drink my first beer until I was 26 and even then, I didn’t like it (can’t say that now at 32)
6. I love to start books and not finish them

Tag, you’re it…
1. Ashbylane
2. AshbyChick
3. Think Shawn Think
4. Lori
5. DriftMiner
6. Wonki

My pastor, Dale Evrist, has declared that this year, our church would be focused on the understanding and implementation of the theme, “A New Day, A New Way” [podcast]. Really! A new day and a new way? What does this mean?

I’ve been around “church” for a long time and after awhile, it’s easy to hear a teaching like this and move on as if I already understand and know what’s being said (ahem, pride!). Fortunately, this series and theme, hasn’t fallen on deaf and prideful ears. I’m very, very, challenged by what I’m hearing and it’s causing a lot of questions, concerns and thought.

Today (Sunday), at the end of the church service, pastor Dale said something that has captured my attention all day. Simply put…

“You are not called to be served, but to serve.”

The weight of that comment came in the context in which it was presented. He offered this challenge. When you go to lunch today, you aren’t there to be served, but to serve your waiter/waitress. It doesn’t matter if they don’t serve you well. What matters is that you serve them well.

Has anyone else noticed that customer service is at an all-time low? My personal favorite is when I go through a drive-thru and not one word is said beyond what I owe. So, in those moments, I’m supposed to serve them! Folks, this isn’t going to be easy for me. Often times, the business owner in me is running over ways that their service could be improved. Apparently, I should be using that time to go over ways that I can improve my service to them. Jeez. Where do I start? I have a lot of habits that need to be changed. Honestly, my mind is resisting this change in thinking.

This methodology, approach, paradigm shift…whatever you want to call it, doesn’t stop here. Here’s a list of other areas it applies:

• Seek first to care, rather than be cared for
• Seek first to understand, than be understood
• Seek first to listen, rather than dominate the conversation
• Seek first to apologize, than to look for an apology
• Seek first to initiate conversation, than to be conversed with
• Seek first to plan dinner, than to expect that dinner is planned
• Seek first to be generous, than to expect generosity
• Seek first to learn, rather than to educate
• Seek first to ask, rather than be asked
• Seek first to give thanks, rather than complain

What is your “seek first?”

A couple of days ago, my wife and I were talking about our blogs. She posed a question I’m still unable to answer for myself. “What do i want my blog to be?”

I’ve realized that this blog has been a place of great intentions but very infrequent follow through. I struggle to find a reason why this happens.

So for the 3-4 of you who watch this thing (–oh! maybe this is an ego thing….ya know, the more people who read/commented the more I’d write–stupid ego), I pose two questions to you:

1. To you personally, what is the purpose of a blog?
2. What about this or other people’s blogs makes you read them?

I look forward to your replies. Maybe in them, I’ll find my purpose and motivation.

Kyle

Assumptions are always dangerous and are rarely accurate.