Challenge Participants!
 

Hey hey chickies!!

We have a brand new challenge system in the works for 2015, and we are pretty excited about the way it's shaping up! We would love to have a little input from our community because we're thinking about a number of ways to execute our new master plan and we'd love to have as many of you participating as possible in the New Year.

Soo if you'll take a little time to share what you'd like to see and would be most likely to participate in by answering our quick poll, we'd really appreciate it!

Thanks so much from our entire team behind the scenes!

Robin

I voted monthly but know that is a ton of work. I'd be game for the quarterly too!

I'm not sure what the current program would be classified as (monthly or quarterly), but I liked the weekly challenge with a steady earning toward the discount. I liked that each monthly built on the next one, so you never really 'erased' anything you had done. It was more like 'accumulating' or 'building' up. :)

Monthly with lots of options. It would also be nice if say, I earned a 20% in January, I could choose to roll it forward and combine it with another 20% in feb for a 30% coupon to spend.

Exciting-I can't wait to see what the new challenge system is!

I'm not sure I understand the monthly vs. quarterly. Are you talking about how often challenges would be posted/stay good for? If so, then I would like monthly with lots of options. Although I like getting the coupon, the real reason I do challenges is to stay motivated to get pages done instead of wasting time online. So quarterly challenges aren't motivating to me; there's not enough to keep me scrapping, and the coupon would be infrequent enough that I could just as easily wait for sales. Having options back would be wonderful, too!

One thing I'd love to see is a return to "mostly SSD product" or a specific percentage like 75%. I find 100% to be too limiting; I use a lot of non-SSD templates with my SSD kits.

I like the TOTB challenges very much, to be honest. However, I am excited with what you guys have in store for next year! :)

I did the challenges this summer to challenge myself and because I had the time to work on my creativity. I've had to prioritize during the school year and haven't been doing them as much, but getting the rewards was never my priority. The one time I won a free kit, I was thrilled. So I guess I don't care how often/what the rewards are, I just want challenges that really make me become a better scrapper.

I really liked the summer challenges where there were two choices so more choices make me happier. With the weekly ones only being one thing I felt a bit more limited. With the summer one I at least felt like one or the other I could make work. If I'm not inspired by the one the first week of the month, I just give up on the whole month.

Looking forward to seeing what's new in 2015!

I like the monthly thing. I participated more with this system then any other. I would love to see two choices though. That way you aren't limited to one option. I loved the whole 20% off one month and so on.

I voted lots of options because some of the challenges just do not inspire me and it's really hard for to scrap those.

Someone correct me if I'm wrong.

I think what she means by Quarterly is the challenges would come out every quarter, similar to the Shadowbox or the Olympics.

I prefer lots of options kind of like what SSD did in 2013 (Pinterest)

When I did have time which was rare due to university, I felt boxed in by the four challenges so never did them. If I knew I had more time to do them I could fit them into my schedule a bit better whether it is monthly or quarterly

I voted for the monthly challenges with lots of options too. I loved the old pinterest boards and the summer shadowbox challenges, I find with just the one challenge a week it is often not a challenge that calls to me, but when there are more options, there is always something that gets me scrapping!

I loved the think outside the box challenges and the system of how the get coupons.
Can't wait to see what you've come up with for the new year!

I want to join in more challenges again next year. I did all the time when it was the old format and stopped when it went to Pinterest but that was more because I had just had a demanding baby back then and didn't have time to go to Pinterest and then scrap!

I voted for monthly :)

I liked the weekly TOTB challenges this year, and I did like those (cumulative) 40% rewards, though that wasn't the only reason I participated. This year was the first time I'd done the challenges here so I don't really know how the system worked before to compare it with.

Of the options in the poll, I'd prefer monthly rather than quarterly. For me the biggest issue is time - one challenge a week/four per month is probably the most I'd have time for so if I needed to do more than 4 LOs/month for the max. rewards I may struggle to get there.

I would be unlikely to do a big scrap-a-thon type event again. I did somehow manage to complete 30 LOs for the Summer Shadowbox challenge (for the 50% discount, not the major prize) but that was hard and I was a bit over it by the end. Spreading it over a quarter would allow more time to participate but if it requires more than one or two LOs/week I would still find it hard to complete.

I'm more interested in being able to win something for free than collection points. With a very limited budget, I usually end up not using the discount anyway. I'd appreciate options too. There's no need for a ton of them but two or three to choose from would be great. Not sure if that would fit in with monthly or quarterly though.

I absolutely loved the way the Pinterest monthly challenge was done. I loved the fact there was endless options to keep me busy even if I didn't get much scrapping time back then as I'd of wanted, even now I still go back to the challenge book thingys when I'm having a bit of a creative block to give me a little push in the right direction to get more pages scrapped. Would really like to see that kind of thing again incorporated somehow.

More choices!

ooooh - exciting!! i really don't have a preference w/r/t the challenges - i'm just excited to PARTICIPATE!! 2015 is the year i get back into scrapping (and lose weight LOL!) :)

but i know how much work goes on behind the scenes - so a big THANK YOU in advance for all the work you chicas do :)

oh - and i voted for quarterly - just because i wanted to vote for something and figured that was similar to the TOTB challenges ... i am drawn to that bc it's so simple and not overwhelming. however - i can totally get excited about a monthly format too :)

love love love the monthly challemges........... haven't liked the way the ;ast 2 years were done

The way it is right now is perfect for me, easy to participate and with enough chance for discounts and prizes.

I like having lots of options, because some of the weekly challenges just haven't appealed, and I have quit scrapping pages that are just for challenges.

I used to love the monthly format, but time no longer allows me to do challenges, so if you occasionally throw in something from time to time to win a kit or GC, I'd be most pleased. :-)

I love challenge LO's cause it's usually something different from my everyday scrapping. It challenges me to think outside of the box, so the title has been appropriate too :P

I participated a ton in '12 & '13, but not at all in '14 because it didn't seem to fit what I was looking for. Would love to get back more to previous years' styles.

Exactly

The rewards don't really matter to me. I like a challenge that is easy to understand and that I don't have to go back and keep track of points etc. I end up not even logging that I did the challenge.

Completely, totally, absolutely, 100% agree with this! I honestly really enjoyed the TOTB challenge format, although I only completed about… three? LOL! Not being able to use a non-SSD template definitely had an impact on that.

I just love a good challenge - no matter what the participation prize/reward is, I can assure you, I'll forget to post in the tracking thread. :D

I vote quarterly. I just don't have enough time in the month to get them done which is why I don't participate. When I had younger kids and was home more often and it wasn't that hard. But as they got older, there was more "stuff" to do with them (softball, dance, etc.) and therefore not enough time for me. ;)

I have enjoyed the layouts that I created for this years TOTB but I did find some of the challenges limiting. I was hoping to have some that I could incorporate into Pocket scrapping. I plan to move forth with pocket scrapping again in 2015 because I love looking back at those layouts for the little stories that I would have totally forgotten. Maybe some kind of 3x4 or 4x6 pocket mini challenge in addition to the regular layout type challenges? I loved being able to create a card for the mustache challege with the random fact that I have never seen my hubby without a mustache it was just a random fact to throw in and add interest to the layout. Not something I would create a whole layout for.

I do find the 100% product very limiting. Even though most of my favorite designers are right here, I want to be motivated to use my stuff. I find the more I scrap, the more I want to buy new stuff.

I am a person who doesn't share my layouts to facebook or pintrest so having the option to post to the gallery is important to me.

I very much enjoy the challenges and whatever the changes are for 2015, I will be here trying to do them because it is a great motivator to me. Thank you for your hard work and asking for input.

I agree that the requirement for 100% SSD products is limiting. I often exclusively use SSD products. I do a lot of pocket scrapping and had a few layouts that I wanted to use for challenges this year but then realized that a stitch or a tiny 3x4 template wasn't from SSD. I liked the wording better in 2013. I think it was something like "mostly SSD products". For example, my title cards for PL are from Nettio so I wouldn't be able to use my PL layouts for challenges. (Unless of course a designer would want to create some new title cards for this year, PLEASE?!)

I'm really excited to see what you gals have cooked up for us this year!

I didn't even think of the 100% SSD products but I did find that way too limiting

Thanks so much for all of the suggestions and input ladies.

I did want to share the thinking behind the 100% product requirement for this year's system. In years past when there were 10 or even 20 layouts required per month to get a discount, we were happy to allow some outside products on pages created for our challenges because that was a lot of scrapping and we thought some flexibility was super important.

Since this year's challenges only required 4 layouts a month to get up to a 40% discount, we thought the 100% requirement was fair because doing 4 layouts to earn a discount here at SSD would be easy peasy.

We will definitely keep the product requirements in mind when creating the new system though, so thanks for sharing your thoughts!

i totally understand about the 100% ssd products for this year's totb but just like the others, i'd like more options for the challenge because sometimes the challenge not inspire me or not my cup of tea.

i also like the current system, where we can take a month off when we are busy but still accumulate the discount when we continue. :p

so far i enjoy the totb challenge, it's really out of the box and push me out of my zone and the sample pages from the Babes really amazing! :thumbup:

K. I'm really not surprised to find this thread here, and to find that the staff is re-thinking the challenge system here. I did notice myself that participation in those challenges has gone way down, which is why I was expecting changes to come. Comparing this year's challenges to previous challenges, I don't remember participation numbers ever being this low (at least in all the years that I have been here at SSD). That might have to do with an overall trend (people these days not being interested in doing challenges; I don't know, coz I don't follow other stores to have a point of reference here), but, really, it might simply have to do with the current challenge system here at SSD not appealing to a great number of people.

I for myself have done the challenges ever since I started out here at SSD. Esp. in the beginning they were a great inspiration for me to scrap and scrap. This year, I must say I scrapped less than ever since starting to digiscrap. It might possibly be a missing mojo (though I still enjoy doing CT layouts), but I think the lack of inspiration/motivation to scrap for challenges may have had a greater impact. While I did like only doing 4 layouts a month to earn points, the challenge in some ways was much greater because even though at the beginning of this year it was promised to keep the prompts so open/flexible that it would be easy to do them, often they were not. Many a times I felt, how am I ever going to scrap a page that meets the requirements of this challenge? (It was either impossible for me to take the kind of photo that was required for the challenge, or the technique was so specific that I did have to scrap a page specifically for this challenge, in order to not lose the month's reward points - meaning I didn't really scrap this page for myself.)
And since we're talking about reward points already: for me it was somewhat of a huge disappointment that rather than earning a monthly 40% off, now that was reduced to quarterly. Miss only one challenge, then you'd have to wait another whole month to earn the 40% (and at the end of the month you sometimes only had a couple of days to get that last layout in in time). (Though I must acknowledge that since September the staff was generous enough to allow a couple of bonus 40% for participants. But then again, these months there have been so many sales at SSD already that getting those extra 40% really didn't make that much of a difference.) Putting all of that together, I noticed that I ended up spending less money on products here at SSD than ever before (and there certainly isn't a lack of good products here, SSD is still my favorite digi store in the world!).

Having said all that, here are my preferences:
I definitely prefer greater choice and flexibility to fewer challenges a month. Seeing something like the old Pinterest challenges revived would be awesome. And to offer opportunities to earn 40% off each month. But hearing how others loved the idea of accumulating reward points over several months - maybe that could be worked into the system as well.

Whatever you ladies come up with, though, I'm SSD through and through and I don't think that's going to change any time soon! I just love this place too much!

I loved the format in 2012 and 2013. I did so many layouts with that challenge system, even if i didnt always get a discount. Ive really not participated at all in 2014.

here the same i don't know why but the new concept whas just not grabbing me