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  PTWin User Tips / WORKING WITH BLACK BEAR SYSTEMS 

	Fun with statistics Tales from the data mine Facts and figures about Black Bear, PTWin32, and our users	Tip #: 5.4.136
		Ver(s): PTWin32, V2, V1

Black Bear Systems is about to commence its 13^th year of providing software solutions to local governments. In honor of our triskaideka anniversary we would like to share some statistics garnered from our contacts with you, our client.

As of Fall 2002 PTWin32 is licensed for use in over 900 local governments across 49 states and Canada . Which state is missing? It’s Hawaii , where there are only 4 local governments.

Since 1991 we have fielded over 42 thousand questions from local governments. These questions came from nearly 16 thousand individuals in some 700 departments. The individuals held over 17 hundred job titles from Account Analyst to Zoning/Permit Officer. The top 5 titles are Building Official, Supervisor, Planning Director, Mayor, and Code Enforcement Officer.

First names run the gamut from Aaron to Zondra. The 5 most common first names are John, Robert, David, James, and Richard. The first female name doesn’t appear until 23^rd place. The 5 most common female names are Linda, Mary, Susan, Karen, and Nancy.

In all of these 16 thousand individuals not one has a middle initial that begins with the letter “U”. What’s up with that? The most popular middle initial is “J”, as in Homer J. Simpson, or Bullwinkle J. Moose.

The contacts come from 17 different forms of government ranging from cities, counties, and boroughs, to townships, parishes, and Native American jurisdictions. Not to mention state, provincial, regional, and foreign governments. We have found it necessary to contact embassies for translations in order to answer some questions.

There are about 25 thousand local governments in the United States . Over 700 of them have an address on Main Street . Center Street comes in second with 192.

Nearly a thousand governments have rural delivery addresses, and over a hundred have their mail sent to a “drawer”. Over 140 local governments in the United States have an address number of “1”. 

Those 42 thousand plus questions from local governments that have come into Black Bear Systems have been answered by 21 different staff members. Our busiest day with over 250 contacts was December 29, 1999 . Remember all the unnecessary Y2K hysteria? We do.

This newsletter, PTWinformation is in its 20^th issue. These issues contain over 140 user tips that total more than 50 thousand words. By comparison, the PTWin32 User Manual contains over 50 thousand words, and the PTWin32 Help File contains over 70 thousand words.

The PTWin32 web site at: blackbearsystems.com contains over 200 pages of information on Black Bear Systems and PTWin32 including an archive of user tips that have appeared in this newsletter. The web site contains nearly 250 graphic images and over 7 thousand hyperlinks. In total it contains over 100 thousand words.

If you wanted to print out everything that has been written for and about PTWin32 and Black Bear Systems, in 10 point font you would need nearly 7 thousand pieces of paper. 

Click here to see a glossary of PTWin32 terminology

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