I am curious red. Where are the Canadians?

“Use statistics as a drunken man uses lamp posts, for support rather than illumination.”
Andrew Lang

If you’re expecting a thorough and incisive exploration of quantitative data mixed with qualitative projections all built upon a foundation of exhaustive exploration of empirical evidence and statistics - STOP.

Move on. There's nothing to see here folks. 

This is more an expression of curiosity and perhaps the launch of a very polite campaign to paint beBee a touch more red.

As well all know, beBee has experienced encouraging growth in North America. According to the most recent information I could glom onto, in just a few months membership has grown to almost 150,000 Bees from the U.S. Clearly @John White has been doing something more than relaxing on the back porch in Colorado.

At the same time, membership in Canada totals about 1,900.

Brace yourselves. Here comes my foray into statistical analysis. By my reckoning, beBee has achieved a penetration rate of .046% in the USA. The corresponding number in Canada is .005%.

According to statista.com active social network penetration as of January 2016 in the U.S.A. is 59% while in Canada the number is 58%. I think even the statisticians could say we could call that a tie. (BTW: South Korea leads the pack on this front at 78% and according to what I can see there isn’t a single Bee nesting in SK. Maybe that’s where the real growth opportunity lies?)

But back to Canada - land of wired-in lumberjacks, hard-wired igloos, and hot-spot dogsleds.

Clearly, the membership numbers on beBee are predominantly created by European penetration and Spanish/Portugese-speaking communities. Spain ranks #1 and Brazil #2.

Tres hurras enardecedor para España.

Três mobilizador vivas para o Brasil.

All of that is swell and from the perspective that a rising tide floats all boats, who cares where membership comes from?

I do.

It may be just my parochial perspective perched up here above the 49th parallel, but there seems to be a disproportionate number of quality contributors, ambassadors, and mega-active Bees up here. I don’t mean disproportionate in the sense of inappropriate. I mean it in the sense of - WHY?

OK. Our country is well known for the exportation of lots of famous talents: Lorne Michaels, Jane Jacobs, Frank Gehry, Leonard Cohen, Seth Rogen, Rachel McAdams, Joni MItchell, Ryan Gosling, Norma Shearer, Donald & Kiefer Sutherland, Neil Young, Morley Safer, Elizabeth Arden, Paul Anka, Margaret Atwood, Elizabeth Stern, Walter Huston, Peter Jennings, Art Linkletter, Jim Murray, Errol Flynn, and Alice Munro.

Notice, that list doesn’t contain a single hockey player!

What about stuff that was invented here that no one knows about? Stuff such as:

peanut butter; the Wonderbra; Trivial Pursuit, the odometer; the rotary snowplow (OK, that’s probably not a big surprise!); the egg carton; the walkie-talkie; the foghorn (Phil Friedman); and insulin.

We’re good. OK?

We’re inventive, eh?

We’re so goddamn polite it hurts and if that offends you then I am sorry. We’re really good at that too.

Anyway, what we’re apparently not so good at is getting membership up in Canada. Granted, it’s hard to get anything up as winter approaches here in Canuckistan but here’s an appeal:

Fellow Canadians - there’s about 1,900 of us buzzing about here. If each of us just got two more to come to the hive we’d get Canadian representation up to 5,700. That’d be up to .015% penetration. Woo hoo!

Ah hell, let’s just see what we can do.

I’d love to see beBee coloured with just a tad more of Maple Leaf red.

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