There’s also variable wifi and service quality to think of. I don’t think iNat is a particularly heavy app to download but if you’ve got spotty wi fi and 20 people trying to download it at once it’ll be painful.
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Yes, I have definitely had 100 people all trying to download iNat at once wreck wifi service for everyone. Always best to ask people to download first!
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I was invited to a local event to see if I could be of any help to new iNat users. In fact, very few people attended the event and there wasn’t really any need for me.
Except for one person. As I made my way to the event area, I randomly encountered an older gent (I’m older, too) just coming from there. He was excited to tell me they were ‘doing this thing’ over there (pointing). He said they’d helped him download an app but, now that the app had been closed, he had no idea what the app was or how to find it on his phone.
Ah, I can help with that. I dug around till I found the bird logo and showed him what the logo looked like and he was able to reopen the app.
Never assume any kind of ability when it come to tech issues.
This was the second ‘bioblitz’ I had attended in my area that turned out to be - not a comprehensive assessment of plant and wildlife in an area - but an event just to engage with visitors. At the first event, the leaders of the event were so eager to engage random people walking by (because very few people deliberately attended the event) that they were almost literally stalking people. Kids would be pulling on their mom’s arms as someone was trying to convince that mom to pull out their phone, download an app, learn how to use it, and then make some observations.
In my opinion, nothing would turn people off more. At least in my state where polite stand-offishness is the norm.
I think a lot of the advice given here is great. Above all, you want every step to have an fairly easy achievable success rate to keep people engaged. It might work to find pair up people or have one experienced iNatter for every 2-4 people. And then let the more experienced observer perhaps search out the first few observations for the group so they get a feel for what they’re looking for. They can walk people through the observation process and talk about what details are needed to get an ID. And tricks for getting things in focus.
After you’ve done an event with beginners, you could ask if anyone would enjoy more events that bank on the beginner skills they’ve developed and get a bit more comprehensive in what they’re observing.
And I guess one last thought. I came to iNat because I thought it would help me identify something. When I realized where the info was coming from, I thought ‘I can do that’. And I started uploading the things I was already observing.
Help people understand what iNat can do for them in some way. Or what it does for other people (as covered by the iNat blog every month). Why does this data matter and how could it matter to the person standing in front of you?
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There is another post - somewhere on the Forum. If you have some signs made. BRIEF text, with a few pictures, QR code to scan, make a project for the zoo. If the spark of interest is there, that will remind them in future. And catch new people for next year.
Thank you - I knew someone would take the bait, and find the link for us. And that discussion on the thread is also relevant.
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This one?
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Thanks to the both of you!! Great idea, we have a new building opening with bulletin boards that would be a perfect home for posters such as this. How exciting!!!
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Please, don’t forget people like me, who just use a phone for making calls or writing messages and tell them, that iNat is also a website. I don’t think I would have ever gotten into it if it were just an app.
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Hi Susanne!
That’s a great point! Thanks for bringing it up. I do let people know of both, since the (standard) app doesn’t have as many amazing features and is a bit more clunky to use, I feel.
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I would have them consider the “rules” along the way so they start out looking for the difference between wild and everything else and the meaning of wild vs. escaped vs cultivated. A zoo is a great location because there are so many things flying, growing, and crawling that are not part of the exhibits. Wildness matters in iNat. And 2 views of each minimum - adults like to learn good habits from the start.
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3 please.
If they are being taught to consider ONE pretty picture is not enough for an iNat ID.
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