At this point I have collected my data from the restaurants in the French Quarter. Between the hours of 6 and 8 on Saturday April 4, I was able to collect data from 10 restaurants: Landry's, Hard Rock Cafe, Jax Brewery, Masperos, Tujague's, Envie, Margaritaville, Frank's, The Corner, and Bubba Gump. While some restaurants were easier to enter, others had lines out of the door. For those that I could actually step foot into, I asked the hostess for help. I explained my project to him/her, and in turn asked if they could give me the number of people per table and did simple addition to find the total. For the ones that had lines out of the door, or in which I was unable to communicate with a worker, I guesstimated. I counted by twos or fives, depending on how crowded the establishment seemed to be. By looking at my data, you can tell which ones I was able to get an exact number and which were estimated to the best of my ability. Although I did have to somewhat guess at a few, I think the numbers were reasonable enough to be close to the actual number, therefore while it will have some effect on the graphing of my data, it will not be as sever as it could have been. It will in fact contribute some error to my final project, one that I wish could have been avoided.
Now that I am near to completing my data collection, I will begin to use Excel and/or Minitab data analysis programs) to analyze and graph my data.
Data Collection Update.
Data Progress.
Data collection--stress central. With a project such as mine, the data collection process is quite tedious and requires much thought. After much consideration, I decided not to pre-make a list of restaurants, but rather to visit the French Quarter, Kenner, and Metairie and collect data from as many restaurants as humanly possible in the time allotted. My plan is to enter each restaurant and estimate to the best of my ability the amount of patrons in the establishment. If this seems to be difficult, I will attempt to ask the hostess the number of people at each table and add up the total. The next task, which is almost more difficult than the first, is deciding what to do with the data after I have collected it. In the beginning, I had decided to only produce a scatter plot to display my data, but then realized that this would not work because that is used to show correlation--something that is not necessary with this activity. I then decided to make a box plot of each set of data to show the five number summary of each, just to give an overview of the data. I also decided to make an o-give (describes the probability distribution of real valued random variables) and histograms (graphical display of tabulated frequencies) for each data set. By performing each of these displays, I am giving my audience a chance to see the data in different settings--one in which they see the pattern of number of customers in each restaurant, and the probability of each number. By viewing the box plots of the data, it can be shown which setting receives more business, which can be helpful in many ways (refer to previous blog entry entitled "How is this useful?") I would really like helpful feedback on my process, both pre and post data collection. So please, tell me what you think!!
Changes!
This week I had to make some changes to my project. I found that the direction in which my project was heading was not going to work. It was way more feasible to compare and contrast the business levels between restaurants in the French Quarter and those restaurants located in surrounding cities such as Kenner and Metairie. Also, I decided not to limit myself to a certain number of restaurants-- I decided to visit as many as possible in a given time. By doing this, I am giving myself a wider range of data. It will also help me show a better correlation between the business levels. I am actually more excited about this project layout because I think people will care more about the comparison between the business levels in different areas as opposed to the comparison between the different cuisines.
How Is This Useful?
The data that I will be collecting may not seem important at first glance, but if you really think about it, it can be quite helpful. One of the most important reasons for this is the economic situation. In tough times as these, entrepreneurs are very skeptical when it comes to opening a business. By carrying out my project, I can possibly display the areas that are best for business. For example, if my data shows that there is a significant increase in the amount of business from Kenner to the French Quarter, then an aspiring restaurant owner would be more likely inclined to opening a restaurant in the Quarter. The same works if more business is shown in the smaller cities. Also, it may not be scientifically or mathematically proven that restaurants with more business are actually better in quality, but some may see it this way. Therefore, whichever area of New Orleans my data shows receives more business, that displays that I choose may supply these establishments with even more business. The data can build up the hype around each restaurant and make people that are natives to the areas, and even tourists even more interested in visiting them.
My data can also be useful to the restaurants themselves. I will provide my results to all restaurants involved, showing the differences in the amount of business between the different establishments and different areas of New Orleans. By seeing that restaurants in other areas may receive more business than they do will, of course, not make them want to move their location, but will most likely take this into consideration. They can reevaluate their establishment and make the proper changes to increase business.
While my data may not be as vital as some, it is vital in the business aspect. It can help people who are struggling entrepreneurs or already struggling business owners.
Help me!
Help me! As you all know, I’m doing my project on the amount of business traditional restaurants in the French Quarter receive in comparison to those that are considered untraditional—but I don’t know any good restaurants in that area! I have a few ideas but any suggestions would be great. Remember, what I have in mind as traditional would be as a restaurant that serves food that is considered unique to New Orleans, i.e po-boys, seafood, jambalaya, etc. Untraditional restaurants would be ones that serve food that isn’t considered unique to this area, such as Chinese, Mexican, or Italian. Please, please, please give me some ideas!
Altering my Toolbox.
This week I focused on improving my data analysis toolbox. I needed to be more descriptive and outline basically every small detail of my project. When I composed my first draft, I wasn’t exactly sure how I was going to go about collecting my data. Not only that, but I wasn’t sure how I was going to measure or analyze it. I figured out that using an arbitrary rating scale wouldn’t be appropriate because it could introduce some bias. By asking a restaurant manager to rate his/her amount of business, or anything about his business at all, they are automatically going to want to rate their business high on the scale. Knowing this, I started to think that maybe I could set qualifications to each rating, such as “1: business flow is low at this time” or “5: business flow is moderate at this time”. To eliminate the chance of this happening at all, I had to find another way to measure the amount of business the restaurants had. My next approach was to pre pick the restaurants, and the time at which I would visit, and go in and count the number of patrons as closely as possible. I decided to visit the chosen restaurants within the same time frame for three days of one week. I will go and count the number of patrons between the hours of 4 and 6 pm on most likely Monday, Wednesday, and Friday of the week of March 21. All restaurants are projected to be located in the French Quarter, making the setting both efficient for data collection and keeping some set norm to the atmosphere of the project. I’m still struggling to get everything in the toolbox that is needed. I know that it must be almost a script for how I will carry out my experiment.
How to Blog.
As with almost anything, there is a right way and a wrong way to do something. When blogging, the line between right and wrong, or hot and wack, is very thin. One image or color scheme too many, and your blog can become tacky and obnoxious, causing readers to abandon your site. On the other hand, eye catching images, flowing colors, and interesting topics will keep the readers coming and your blog with have more hits than you can keep up with. When being graded on our blog, I think our teacher should be looking for images that are both attention grabbing and somewhat relevant to the entry and/or topic. Also, I think that she should be looking for a user friendly, easily navigated blog. No one wants to visit a site that they cannot figure out how to work it. The layout of the blog should be appealing and somewhat mellow, you don't want to pick a layout that is bright, obnoxious, and gives the reader a headache as they explore your blog entries. When reading our entries, I think that our teacher should be looking for fluency, as well as our ability to stay on topic and get our point across. She should also pay attention to length; make sure that we don't get to wordy, yet still meet our quota. My opinion of a moderately "hot" blog is blanchetblog.net. This blogger has a user friendly blog that is easily navigated and seems to be updated on a timely basis. Not only does she have information that is relevant to what is going on within her classroom, which seems to be the basis of the blog, she has updates about things in her life, giving the blog a friendly atmosphere. The user uses entertainment to teach her students and gives them a reliable site to obtain content from their classes. Your blog should be a place where you can display information, either research based, entertainment, or just about yourself, in a way that reflects who you are as an individual.