Consensus Point, revolutionizing market research by providing social predictive analytics, is pleased to announce Edward Gil has joined the company to lead sales and marketing.  Mr. Gil brings over 30 years of experience in sales, marketing and development of analytics and business intelligence tools to support Consensus Point’s strategic growth and development.

“Ed’s business intelligence and data warehousing experience and expertise will help Consensus Point capitalize on the exciting opportunities for prediction markets.  His insight and leadership positions at IBM, SAS, and Teradata enable us to expand our business with market research, expert network and consulting organizations working across multiple industries,” said Linda Rebrovick, Consensus Point CEO.  “We are so fortunate Ed also brings experience as a co-founder and leader of a business intelligence software and services company.”

Mr. Gil has more than 20 years of technology, media, and information management experience.  Most recently, he led IBM’s worldwide business analytics & optimization and solution development in media and entertainment.  Prior to IBM, Mr. Gil served as the senior strategist for Teradata in media, specializing in data warehousing and business intelligence and also consulted for Aster Data, helping to launch its Big Data Analytics Appliance for media clients.  Mr. Gil has sold predictive analytics software for SAS Institute and also co-founded and led Sagemetrics, a provider of enterprise-level business intelligence and data mining services for large media clients such as Discovery Channel, Forbes, Paramount, and The Washington Post.

Mr Gil holds a bachelors of science from The Georgetown University School of Foreign Service, Washington, D.C. and also studied at Oxford University, England and The Universidad de Madrid Complutense, Spain.

Consensus Point will be showcased as one of ten of the most innovative companies currently transforming the information industry at the Software & Information Industry Association (SIIA) ”Information Industry Summit 2013: Breakthrough” event in New York. Consensus Point was chosen by SIIA judges to present in their “2013 Previews Competition” and will be the only software company with a prediction market platform.   SIIA is the principal trade association for software and digital content industries.

Linda Rebrovick, Consensus Point CEO, will present on January 30. “We are pleased to be recognized by the SIIA as one of the most innovative companies in the software and digital content industries in 2013.  Our proven techniques to efficiently aggregate reliable predictions from a community, combined with innovative new market research approaches, are the key to our success.” states Linda.

Consensus Point strives to transform and improve the predictive information landscape for decision makers. The ever increasing complexity of today’s markets creates a demand for simple and accurate indicators as to where consumer demands will be on the horizon. The company’s significant experience and expertise using prediction markets to extract corporate information has been equally successful in its application to consumer market research and digital content.

Our very own CEO, Linda Rebrovick recently spoke at a monthly “Women’s Entrepreneur Coffee” held at the Nashville-based Entrepreneur Center.  This informative series was created to discuss the formation and launch of high-growth women-led businesses.  Linda focused on her career:  From Intrapreneur to Entrepreneur.  She shared her business experience and valuable business resources to a group of over 30 of Nashville’s women entrepreneurs and business leaders.

Linda specifically spoke about Golden Seeds and Springboard, two exceptional global organizations providing support to women worldwide as well as to our own Consensus Point. Golden Seeds, an investment firm, maintains a dedication to delivering above market returns through the empowerment of women entrepreneurs and the people who invest in them.  Its angel network consisting of 250 men and women is the fourth largest in the US and was the third most active in terms of deals done in 2011.  Linda works closely with Golden Seeds and is honored to have Golden Seeds member, Sandra Kresch, as a member of our Board.  Golden Seeds has provided significant business expertise and a unique network.

Springboard is a company which helps women “build big businesses starting small.”  Linda recently completed one of their popular programs, a bootcamp for start-up and early stage businesses.  Over 500 women-led companies have gone through Springboard’s accelerator programs.  These women have raised more than $5.6 billion in financing, have created tens of thousands of new jobs, and generate billions of dollars in annually in revenues.  More than 80% of Springboard companies are still in business, including 10 IPOs and many that are now the technology engines of publicly traded companies.

With Forbes choosing Nashville as the eighth best city for growth in the US and the fifth most affordable city, the EC has been busier than ever.  These coffees are only one of the great resources they provide.  For information on the next coffee, go to http://entrepreneurcenter.com.

The Ticker, a stock market game sponsored by Gannett and powered by Huunu, correctly chose Johnny Manziel days before the announcement.  On Sunday, December 2, we placed questions to predict the top five candidates and an ‘other’ category to capture any dark horse candidates. Trading for Manziel almost immediately starting pushing his probability of winning upwards and never looked back.

By Tuesday, he was well over 70% likely to win according to our market.  With precision and speed, our market was able to produce accurate results.

For the second year running, not only did we accurately choose Johnny Manziel but we ranked the positions.  We brought the proven science of our prediction market algorithm to this online community and got it right.

Top media outlets are a-buzz about prediction market’s speed, precision and un-matched election results.  Media outlets like Bloomberg, MSN and Reuters are all taking note and singing the praises of prediction markets — pointing out that while traditional polls portrayed the presidential race as a toss-up, next-generation prediction market platforms consistently forecasted a decisive victory for Obama well in advance of the election.  Huunu also accurately reported the outcomes for the House, and Senate, with speed and precision.

In our partnership with Gannett Media, Southeast Group, Huunu was used to engage a diverse community consisting of several hundred, who were asked questions, “Will Barack Obama win Ohio?” and “Will the Republicans control the House after the 2012 Election?”  The community predicted with a 96% certainty that Republicans would control the House of Representatives after the 2012 Election and a 68% certainty that Obama would win Ohio.  The predictions were earlier and more consistent, even maintaining odds over 60% for an Obama Presidential win for the entire two-month period leading up to Election Day.

Linda Rebrovick, our CEO commented on the results, “Prediction markets are redefining this industry, and the election results provided a showcase for the power of Huunu.  Whether it’s an election or a targeted business initiative, Huunu provides valuable intelligence in a cost efficient manner.” With similar efficiency, prediction markets have proven high-value in many other fields, including market research and business intelligence, among others.

The power of Huunu is differentiated by an unmatched ability to engage communities, which ultimately leads to better information.

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

Consensus Point is featured in a new book about supply chain forecasting as a CBF or consensus-based forecasting tool.  The book, Supply Chain Forecasting Software by Shaun Snapp, as part of its effort to explain the important aspects of supply chain forecasting, details how prediction markets can be an integral part of the supply chain forecasting process.

If you are interested in learning more about Consensus Point or how it can help your business with supply chain forecasting, find us on the web at www.consensuspoint.com.

As we continue to use Huunu to work with Gannett on their prediction market game, The Ticker, continues to deliver incredible levels of predictive accuracy.  Session 1 results from The Ticker were impressive to say the least, Ticker players were accurate 78% of the time across a variety of topics such as news, sports, and entertainment.  When we isolated to sporting events, we found that the aggregated wisdom of the crowd accurately predicted results 81% of the time.

Even more impressively, the types of questions being asked in The Ticker varied.  Players were asked to invest in point differentials as well as finishing order, and they did so with impressive accuracy as well.  Notably, players predicted that the point spread of the USA Basketball team’s game versus Argentina would be 26.28 points; the actual point differential was 26 points.  Similarly, when the USA played France, Ticker players predicted that the point differential would be 24.75 points; again, the actual point differential was 27 points.  The market didn’t do as well when the USA obliterated Nigeria, but we’ll take the blame for that one.  We didn’t actually give them the opportunity to guess correctly as we never foresaw that the actual point differential would go above 60 points.  Not to worry, we don’t think anyone else saw that one coming either.

And Huunu and the crowd have done an amazing job predicting finishing orders as well. In a recent NASCAR race, Ticker players correctly guessed the finishing order of four drivers before the race had begun.  These results are very reminiscent of the Heisman results that Huunu produced in December of 2011 when the Football Futures market predicted the correct finishing order of the players days before the final votes were tallied.

We aren’t the only ones have noticed the high accuracy levels that prediction markets can produce in the sports arena.  Spann and Skiera devoted an entire paper to the idea in the Journal of Forecasting. You can find the paper here. (Martin Spann and Bernd Skiera (2009) Sports forecasting: a comparison of the forecast accuracy of prediction markets, betting odds and tipsters, Journal of Forecasting, 28(1), 55-72 (doi).  The paper compares the accuracy of prediction markets, tipsters (experts), and betting odds both random and choosing home team advantage. Spann and Skiera conclude that prediction markets and betting odds (especially when choosing the home team) are best at predicting. Tipsters finish a distant third, proving what we knew from our years of experience, the crowd does know better.

Want to know more about Huunu for Research and Huunu for Media? Visit us on the web at www.consensuspoint.com