Tuesday, January 22, 2008

Horse Kicked One Last Time


So I've beaten this dead horse quite enough, but I got interested today in our Christmas card mailing list and started pulling some stats. Some I found interesting. Bear in mind that we really don't try to send a ton of cards - we just happen to have moved a lot. Churn reduces the number a lot as well. As an example, we currently only send 12 cards to Sweden though we certainly consider more than 12 Swedes to be good friends after the time we spent there. Here are some stats on the list.

Countries represented - 7
States in the US represented - 25
Most common states - Utah (107), Texas (54) and Idaho (46)
Most common country outside of US - Sweden (12)
Most common first names - Greg, John (6 each)
Most common last name - Wright (5)

I was tripped to see we send cards to 50% of the states in the US. Bschool is probably the #1 reason, more than our tendency to relocate. Also interesting that Wright was more popular than Graham or Hadfield. I guess that's what happens when you have a small family or lots of daughters changing their names as they are married. And no, I didn't send myself six cards.

You didn't want to know any of this, but it was a nice break over lunch to play with pivots.

4 comments:

amanda jane said...

you are such a geek, and we all enjoy that about you so much. really!

Gayle said...

Interesting! I had actually counted the states and countries when we worked on the cards just cuz I was curious. The names were a surprise for sure. Love this stuff you come up with!

Unknown said...

John, I find it amusing that while I am home packing and teaching school you are working on christmas card analysis. Hmmm, something is a little wrong with this picture :)

John said...

There's no question that there's something wrong with this picture. Many, many things in fact. I'm just grateful you're not French because I'm not sure I could deal with a strike.