I've just been reading some AMAZING statistics produced by
Gunter and Amazon.com
They are very eye opening. Here's a few samples...
1. 64% of people who buy a book NEVER even open it
2. 57% of people who buy software NEVER use it
3. 42% of people who buy music only listen to it ONCE
4. 79% of people who start to read a book NEVER finish it
5. 83% of people who start to use new software NEVER use it
again (the main reason being insufficient knowledge about
and training on the application)6. 94% of people NEVER read the software users manual (no
surprise there)What does all this mean to us?
Simply put it means that statistically only 7% of people who
buy software (especially software as complex as Photoshop)
will ever learn to use it.Or put another way...
"Statistically there is a 93% probability you will NEVER
learn Photoshop"
My wife and I had two bookstores in a previous incarnation. We were a dealer for LDS (Mormon) books, besides carrying a full line of paperbacks and limited hardback fiction and nonfiction. One result was immediately apparent: women bought most of the church books to give to their husbands, hoping, I am sure, their husbands would shape up. But few husbands ever read the books, from their own accounts, and I'm sure most of them made few self improvements. Thus, buying books for gifts is problematic unless you know the recipient is a devoted reader since the temptation is always great, two years later, to ask, "Did you read that book I gave you in 1997?" To which, the answer is, "Well, I started on it [i.e., I looked at the title page], but haven't quite got around to finishing it." All of this discussion confirms the message ringing in my ears all my life from an elementary school teacher: "Dwight starts lots of things but he rarely ever finishes anything." So there you have it.
