Auren Hoffman’s recent article in Forbes, “What You Know Beats Who You Know,” makes the point,  in a world that is as connected as ours, where networks are transparent, and where information is transmitted with the click of a button, “what you know” is rapidly becoming more important than “who you know.”

In support of Hoffman’s perspective, today, there is greater access to people and to capital than ever before.  Our ability as a society to search for information and knowledge has never been greater.  This can be both a blessing and a curse, as we are faced on a daily basis with more information than we can actually process.  Managers are constantly faced with paralysis by analysis.  How then can business overcome this glut of information and its subsequent effect of  actually slowing down decision-making?

Prediction markets can be an integral part of this solution.  This is especially true when these powerful, knowledge aggregating tools are paired with specialized communities of experts.  As Hoffman states, experts are easy to find, but with a prediction market the knowledge of many is easily aggregated into a predictive answer.

For example, our Consensus Point client, YourEncore, is proving the importance of just such a community of experts with the recent launch of the YourEncore Oncology Market.  This prediction market, made up of PhDs and MDs, is providing life science companies with powerful intelligence around drug approvals, regulatory issues, and even new product development.

Prediction markets bring together the “what you know” and the “who you know” to provide more accurate information from the connectivity of experts.

Quirk’s recently re-published an article by Jim Nelem ­­­­written in the 1970’s, entitled Ten Common Market Research Mistakes.  It is interesting to note the mistakes market researchers were making in the 1970’s – when telephone surveys were considered technologically advanced forms of market research –are the same mistakes for market researchers to avoid today.  The list is below.

1. Lack of clearly defined marketing objectives.
2. Conducting “interesting” but useless research.
3. Letting questions do all the work.
4. Simplifying results out of context.
5. Under analyzing the research.
6. Over analyzing the report.
7. Using the wrong technique.
8. Selecting the wrong research firm.
9. Expecting research to provide all the answers.
10. Viewing research as an expense rather than an investment.

At Consensus Point, we have designed our Huunu for Research, prediction market platform, to address a number of these items on the top ten list. After we made our platform available to research companies, we answered a number of questions to put market researchers at ease with such a new way of thinking.

-        Objectives – Huunu helps the researcher achieve targeted, strategic objectives.  The way we ask questions and aggregate data results in concise questions and clear outcomes. Huunu is ideal for concept testing or any type of research where you are trying to sort through ideas.

-        Questions -  Huunu makes the questions count because respondents are not asked to give their opinions or reasons for their own actions.  Instead, they are asked to make judgments about the behaviors of others.  Research has shown that most people are far more adept at predicting what others will do than they are at predicting what they themselves will do.

-       Research Results – Huunu helps researchers avoid “analysis paralysis” because our social research tool provides clear quantitative data backed by rich verbatim comments.  Huunu produces a consensus score as well as spread charts that detail the amount of positive and negative sentiment, and produces further detail through demographic spread charts.  The spread analysis provides further insight into each concept and identifies any potential anomalies in trading behavior.

As the timelessness of this article clearly demonstrates, new technology does not solve all problems, but in the case of Huunu, our research market certainly solves many of them.

After attending ESOMAR Congress last week in Atlanta, meeting truly great people, and attending fascinating presentations and lectures, the Huunu team wanted to give out a few awards.

We Wish the Full Market Research Industry Had Been in the Room Award – One of the most forward looking presentations of the entire conference.  Shelley outlined the need to execute well on current technologies as well as continue to innovate, especially in social media.

“Socialised Research” by Shelley Zalis, Ipsos

Power of Crowds Award - Congrats to Heineken for making every person in the room thirsty!

“Designing the Club of Tomorrow” by Tom De Ruyck, Thomas Trach, Filip De Boeck, Henk Eising, and Caroline van Hoff

Best Moderator for Pulling Valuable Insight Out of a Feisty Group Award - Her probing questions significantly increased the value of an already fascinating discussion.

“A Conversation with the Executive Suite” Moderated by Diane Hessan of Communispace

Most Passionate Presenter Award - For lighting a fire under the audience.

Shelley  Zalis, Ipsos

Most Humorous Presentation Award - Leave it up to the folks in advertising to have the funniest presentation at a market research conference.

“The History of Men’s Underwear” by Dave McCaughan, McCann WorldGroup Japan

If you are interested in learning more about the Springboard bootcamp (the organization that we posted about last week), the following article should shed some light on this year’s program, http://pandodaily.com/2012/07/27/springboard-welcomes-new-accelerator-class-of-women-led-companies.

Our CEO, Linda, came back from Springboard and couldn’t say enough about what a wonderful experience the event had been.  She was impressed by both by the other participants as well as by the mentors.  “It is an honor to be chosen as one of the eleven women-led companies to be included in the Springboard accelerator program,” said Consensus Point CEO, Linda Rebrovick. “We will benefit greatly from the Springboard network of successful women entrepreneurs, investors and the other innovators in this year’s program.  We look forward to having their valuable guidance to grow our business of providing our prediction market technology, Huunu.”

Nashville, July 25, 2012, CONSENSUS POINT, a leading social prediction market company providing solutions for market research and market intelligence, has been announced as one of eleven seed- and growth-stage companies selected for Springboard’s 2012 Media/Tech community-driven accelerator program. For over a decade, Springboard has provided over 500 emerging growth businesses led by women with access to the human and financial capital needed to scale.

Selected from over 100 applicants globally by a Springboard committee of investors, seasoned entrepreneurs and industry experts, Consensus Point was invited to participate in an entrepreneur “Bootcamp” program held at Bloomberg in NYC and to meet with the members of Springboard’s recently announced Media/Tech Council.

Since 2000, Springboard has become a central player in the infrastructure that fosters women’s entrepreneurship with the goal of making direct connections for women entrepreneurs to sources of capital. “We’re bullish on the companies for this year’s accelerator program,” said Springboard Chairman Kay Koplovitz. “We are ready to put the full force of our ‘human capital’ to work for these promising innovators.”

Springboard’s accelerator program involves the active participation of industry leaders and hundreds of investors, accountants, lawyers and business development professionals in recruiting, qualifying and coaching emerging growth businesses led by women. Each company is assigned a “personal advisory board” that assists the companies in refining their presentations and facilitating connections to investors and business development opportunities.

If you would like more information about Consensus Point, you can find it at www.consensuspoint.com

Former LinkedIn advisor, Kelly Perdew, has joined the Consensus Point Board of Directors. Kelly’s wealth of experience in entrepreneurship, leadership, and technology will help Consensus Point as it positions itself to grow through the launch of its Huunu platform for the market research, consulting and media industries.

Linda Rebrovick, CEO of Consensus Point, said, “Kelly Perdew will be a tremendous Board member. His experience in gamification and in building online communities, his success building companies, and his expertise in business strategy make him an important asset to the Consensus Point team. Kelly’s past work across a wide variety of industries and his strength in analytics will ensure that we continue to offer our consulting, research, and media clients the most effective tools possible for predicting future events and market preferences. ”

Kelly is the co-founding CEO of TargetClose – a customer acquisition platform that leverages its proprietary technology and advanced analytics to engage customers with the most relevant digital experience. Prior to co-founding TargetClose, Kelly was CEO of Fastpoint Games, a venture-backed software development company that created live data–driven games for Fortune 500 brands. Kelly was previously President of ProElite.com, an online social network for combat sports enthusiasts. He was also a Manager at Deloitte Consulting in the Braxton Strategy Practice.

Currently, Kelly acts as a Board member or advisor for TroopSwap.com, Ustream, Scopely, Bitium, GatherGreen and was previously an advisor or board member for LinkedIn (LNKD), Pandora (P) and eteamz (ACTV). A graduate of West Point, with a JD from the UCLA School of Law, and an MBA from the Anderson School at UCLA, Kelly served in the US Army as a Military Intelligence Officer and Airborne Ranger.
“I am excited to be part of the Consensus Point team.” Kelly says, “I see real opportunity to grow the company in a number of sectors and know that my previous work in the tech industry with gamification and community building will allow me to add immense value. The tool itself is already extremely engaging and offers real-time data access to help companies gather insights more efficiently.”

If you would like more information about Consensus Point, you can find us at www.consensuspoint.com.

At the Consensus Point corporate offices, we’ve been in a flurry of activity for months planning and launching our new prediction market platform, Huunu.  Now the market research industry is taking note.  Huunu was featured in the June edition of Quirk’s in their Product and Service Update as a new tool that “brings social gaming techniques to consumer research.”

Using gaming elements such as a leader board and net worth scores, Huunu is more engaging for panelists, resulting in richer data and deeper understanding of the “why” behind their answers.  Panelists are rewarded based on their performance not just their participation which further separates the tool from traditional market research techniques.

If you are a subscriver of Quirk’s and would like to learn a bit more about what’s new in market research, go to www.quirks.com.  For more information about Consensus Point, you can find us www.consensuspoint.com.

We’d like to share a recent blog posting by our partners at Communispace, discussing their initial prediction market test using the Consensus Point Huunu platform. Communispace found Huunu to be not only engaging but highly accurate as well, matching the results of a much larger study that they had done.

Want to know more? Read the blog and download the white paper.