[Big News] Gov Wants YOUR Feedback, Win Prizes

Hello readers! Pretty cool announcement herein, so be sure to read till the end.

Today we're announcing a new project initiated by Shanghai's government. City News Service, in conjunction with the Shanghai Information Office and in partnership with various other government bureaus (we'll partner with different ones on different topics), is launching Shanghai Navigator Data, or SND. And the government wants YOUR insights and feedback.

So, what is it?

SND is a survey series we'll distribute once a month. Basically we'll send out surveys and invite people to participate. Each one usually runs 15 to 20 questions, so about 10 to 15 minutes. Some might take a bit longer... if you have more to share.

So, why do it?

WIN PRIZES: Well, there are two reasons. The first is that we'll be giving away pretty cool prizes each month. We're talking hotel stays, restaurant dinners, tickets to events around the city, that sort of thing. And it's not one prize. Every survey has one headline prize, three mid-tier prizes, and somewhere between six and ten smaller ones. We know a notepad isn't enough to excite folks on a Friday, so we'll keep a wide range across the value spectrum.

If you're a company reading this and would like to get your brand in front of people, reach out to us if you'd like to donate some prizes.

The second reason, and this is probably the one most folks should pay attention to: this is your chance to feed back directly to the government on what you think it's doing right, and where it can direct its resources to improve. Make your voice heard.

For some of you, this might hit home hard, particularly if your view of your home government is less than optimistic. Old China hands might have a different view given how much they've seen China develop over the years. So whether you've just arrived in Shanghai or you've been here for 30 years, we want your feedback.

Shanghai Aims to Be an International City, But Also, a City of the Future

Do you have cool ideas from your home country that Shanghai could adopt? Do the survey. Did you grow up watching Star Trek: The Next Generation and dream of ways to move toward a post-scarcity society? Do the survey. Have you ever been in line at Bank of China and had a fantastic idea your local public hospital could implement to make visits that much smoother? Do the survey. Do you have an abandoned building in your neighborhood and thought "man, that would be an amazing space to use for xxx"? Do the survey!

How will the surveys be structured?

The surveys will consist of 15 to 20 questions: some multiple choice, some single selection, and some open-ended. Each one is built around a particular theme. Our first survey is centered on healthcare in the city, in partnership with the Shanghai Municipal Health Commission as well as a few public and international hospitals.

We'll also include one open-ended input box where you can share feedback or ideas about anything, even if it's unrelated to the survey topic that month. We recognize that sometimes great ideas come like a flash of lightning, so we'll always leave a space open to share.

What happens with your responses?

Short version: your answers become findings, and findings are what leave this building. Never you.

City News Service collates and synthesizes the responses into aggregate results, and shares those with the Shanghai Information Office and the relevant partner bureaus. We'll also publish a public summary of every survey on CNS, so everyone who took part gets to see what the city said. For commercial entities who want to go deeper, full reports will be available for purchase.

Here's what that means in practice, and we want to be specific about it:

• Everything is reported in aggregate. Percentages, patterns, and themes. Not individuals.
• We won't report a finding based on a group too small to be anonymous. Our floor is 30 respondents. Slice the data any thinner than that and we don't publish it.
• Your data stays in China. We're using onshore survey tools, and responses from China-based participants don't leave the country.
• Raw responses never leave CNS. Buyers get findings. Nobody gets a respondent list.

Longer term, we're building a more robust data and analysis system that takes information out of separate silos and combines it into larger, more useful datasets, all of it anonymized and consented. CNS has evolved a lot over the years, and data is something we've become genuinely interested in: how it can inform decision-making, and how it can improve quality of life in the city (and on our platforms, frankly).

Can I do the survey anonymously?

Yes. If you choose to, you can take any SND survey with zero personally identifiable information attached. Just skip the contact fields and submit.

Two exceptions, both entirely your call:

If you want to be eligible for prizes, we need some way to reach you if you win. Your contact details are stored separately from your answers and used for the draw and nothing else.

If you're open to talking further, there's a tick box where you can let City News Service follow up with you about your ideas. Some of the best material we've ever run started as a throwaway line in someone's feedback. Entirely voluntary, and nothing happens without you ticking it.

How are prize winners selected?

We'll be reserving a portion of the prizes to completely random lucky draws, while other prizes will be reserved for those who give particularly good feedback in the free-form answer fields.

Entry is free either way. No purchase, no obligation, and we'll publish the draw rules with each survey.

One final note:

Expats participating in government initiatives isn't new, especially in Shanghai. Typically though, it's been the folks who've been here a lonnng time, built up the connections, and speak the language. What's genuinely cool about this one is that it opens the feedback doors to people who landed last month, and to those whose Chinese doesn't get much past ni hao shuai ge.

We're announcing this today, so you can start thinking of your Shanghai wish lists now.

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Next Friday at noon, we're launching the first-ever Shanghai Navigator Survey Data, focused on healthcare in Shanghai.[LINK / QR TO BE ADDED]

See you then. Bring your ideas.