What's the point of giving feedback, anyway? Will my comments actually change anything? 

If you've interacted with the Tobacco Control Evaluation Center at any point, you've undoubtedly received requests for feedback— whether on a training, a webinar, or how satisfied you were with our technical assistance.

If your inbox looks anything like ours, these surveys can feel like a chore. Who has five minutes to spare these days? And what does it matter, it's just another auto-generated form that no one will read the responses to... right? 

Well, at least in this case, we can promise you that the folks on the other end are listening.

As evaluation (and research) associates, we're obsessed with data! One of our favorite sayings at TCEC is, "What gets measured gets changed." And that includes our services— the webinars we hold, and the resources we create. We're constantly improving our offerings based on what YOU tell us your projects need!

(Fun fact: When we have a lot of satisfaction data to analyze, the TCEC team loves to get together for a data party and talk about how we can improve! And yes, we do serve cake.)

Here are just a few examples of things we've done recently that were directly caused by user feedback:

• When a partner needed ideas for dissemination, they reached out to our Help Desk. Danielle and Andersen went a step further and created the Disseminating and Sharing Evaluation Results webinar, and a brand-new table of resources!
• After getting many requests for more in-depth help with Final Evaluation Reports, Jorge and Sarah developed two FER Clinic workshops for report writers to get direct help on specific report sections, and offer peer feedback to one another.
• Users told us the Tell Your Story guidelines were overwhelming for first-time FER writers, so we made a simple pre-writing worksheet to help you organize your ideas before starting your FER! Catherine also took user feedback and created open FER Q&A sessions, which she then turned into a whole FAQ page.
• In response to user feedback, Robin revamped TCEC's Data Collection Instrument database, with all-new Question Banks and Instrument ESSENTIALS to help guide your instrument development!

So the next time you receive a survey from TCEC (or any other statewide TA provider!), just know that there are real people reading— and acting on— your ideas!

Need help with evaluation, or have some ideas for a new resource? Email us anytime at tcecTA@phmail.ucdavis.edu, or reach out to a member of our team directly.

At TCEC, we're always here to help. Don't be afraid to tell us how you really feel!