We thought we’d give you an update on the Society for Location Analysis. Since our first meeting in 2002, we’ve continued to grow.
Some stats on the SLA here:
Membership growth since 2015
At the time of writing we have 499 subscribed members! Thank you all for supporting us over the years, some 200 of you have been with us from the start.
You might assume that growth would remain static this year; it’s certainly been challenging, but the opposite is true. We’ve seen a huge spike in new members and as you can see, it’s been growing since 2017.
Our online events have driven growth and we see a spike in new members each time we run an event on Zoom, but this isn’t happening without hard work.
We are trying to build our activity and engagement on Twitter and LinkedIn to attract new members in different target audiences e.g. Students, Data Scientists, Local Authorities, Education and our regular audience of location analysts in retail and property.
We are also trying to get our message out to your colleagues and friends. There are still loads of people who could be members but who have not joined.
At our last event alone we had over 60 delegates attend who are not members. These delegates won’t get access to the presentations and downloads and we’re working on persuading them to sign up!
Fun facts
The most popular names amongst our members are Andrew and James! We have 15 Andy and Andrews and 15 James’s respectively.
We also have 11 Matthews and 10 Martins!
And we have nine John, Jons and Jonathans! (Including our own Chairman Jonathan Reynolds!)
Meanwhile we have 12 x Katie, Kate, Cathy, Catherine and Kathryns!
Just six Sarahs and five Clare or Claires!
Regardless of your first name you are welcome at the SLA.
Social media groups
We now have 734 members in our SLA LinkedIn Group – This is the place for debate, engagement and interaction. We’d love to hear more from you guys. This group is request only so will only ever have like minded professionals in it. It’s a safe place to share topical news, ask for input and start debate.
We also have 249 followers on our LinkedIn Company page for the Society for Location Analysis where we share topical news, articles, news from our sponsors and event details.
We are also on Twitter sporadically but trying to raise our profile. If you’re on there, please follow us at @SocLocAnalysis on Twitter.
What can you do to help?
Help us spread the word by encouraging your GIS friends and colleagues to join. It’s free and only takes a few moments to sign up.
We recently shared our 10 reasons to join the SLA if they need persuading.
Spread the word guys! 2021 is gonna be a blast!