Motivating vessels and overcoming hesitation

Depending on a vessel’s ownership, motivations to participate in CSB may be vastly different. Based on the authors’ collective experiences, this section outlines the common motivations observed among several types of participants. While not exhaustive, these examples are intended to illustrate patterns that may help guide outreach to similar audiences.

There are several common motivations that seem to apply across many crowds and spaces. For example, lower-cost solutions and solutions that offer increased ease-of-function appeal to many crowds. Vessels may be more willing to contribute if participation in CSB costs them less financially and/or if their participation requires relatively little contribution of time or knowledge. Currently, CSB is being widely promoted by the Nippon Foundation-GEBCO Seabed2030 Project and by organizations like the International SeaKeepers Society, which can both provide YDVR loggers to participants free of charge. Alternatively, companies such as Orange Force Marine offer higher-tech options where CSB data are remotely retrieved from loggers, motion-corrected, and automatically relayed to global initiatives on behalf of and with the user’s consent. The hands-off nature of these loggers makes them an attractive solution to many vessels. In addition to this, many vessels are motivated by being able to visualize their data online (i.e., a data portal map), receiving their data in a usable format after the data have been processed (i.e., tidal corrections), and by understanding the outcomes that can or have been achieved because of their participation. Meaningful case studies, both globally and locally, often act as drivers to participate.

The concerns and challenges of different crowds will vary as much as their motivations will. One classic example of a crowd is the yachting community. This community is often motivated by seeing impactful use-cases, but can have a unique need for privacy. Within this community, it is common to get requests either for data anonymity or for delayed transmission to the IHO DCDB so that near-real-time vessel tracking is not occurring. Another great example of a crowd is a fishing community. Fishers may not want their fishing spots to be made public knowledge, so providing an option for anonymous data submission could help assuage concerns about revealing fishing locations to competitors.

Working to accommodate the unique needs of your own crowd is an important step in overcoming hesitation within that community. Hosting a stakeholder meeting is a great way to gather information about what motivates and what causes concerns within your crowd. For templatesexamples of stakeholder meetings,meeting agendas, see the “Templates”Templates section at the end of this document.section.