Case Study: The Power of Community Building, ChangeWave Alliance

Introduction

Euclid's community building tools enable its clients to establish, build, and leverage communities and their collective knowledge. Using ClearVantage, you can effortlessly create online applications, analyze member profiles, survey community members, manage message boards, host virtual "invite-only" events, facilitate communication between members and perform many more community building and harvesting functions.

This Case Study illustrates the power of Internet-based communities.

Building an Internet-based Community Intelligence Network

The power of real-time, independently provided and unbiased intelligence information- whether used for business intelligence, investing intelligence, or philanthropic causes- is only now beginning to be understood.

Think, for example, if you could have instant access to a worldwide network of experts-segmented by area of expertise-with which you could easily and securely communicate, gather and analyze responses and ideas, and instantly convert data and information into "actable" intelligence on a daily basis.

In the past, the cost and complexity of building such intelligence networks made it impossible to realize even for large-scale organizations. Today, Euclid's community intelligence building tools are being used to create the most unique internet-based intelligence networks in the world.

The information that follows shows how a worldwide networked community has been organized to harness the power of real-time "actable" intelligence, and how top quality community building tools can be successfully coupled with advanced community mobilization strategies to guarantee maximum participation in the intelligence network.

The Power of Community Intelligence Networks: The ChangeWave Alliance

There is a huge market for real-time, independent, business intelligence information for use by consumers and organizations.

Euclid's ClearVantage community building tools have been used by ChangeWave Investment Resources to build the "ChangeWave Alliance," a unique investment intelligence network composed of 3,000 highly qualified, credentialed business executives and technology professionals representing over 20 different industry sectors worldwide.

ChangeWave surveys its Alliance members on a range of business and investment research and intelligence topics, collects feedback from them electronically, interprets and reconciles the information in a cohesive manner and converts the information into meaningful reports and investment advice.

Building the ChangeWave Alliance: A Case Study

A human-based intelligence network is only as good as its participants-and how well participants' skills and knowledge are classified.

As an example, Euclid's community intelligence building tools have been used to automate all aspects of the ChangeWave Alliance's worldwide community intelligence network, including its membership application and accreditation process.

The Application Process. Potential members (the application is based on an invite-only model, automated by ClearVantage) fill out an Online Application Profile that includes their resume and the choosing of a series of keywords that identify their role and expertise in the economy. The applicant's skills and professional area(s) of expertise are necessary to target and engage them in a variety of ways so as to enhance the overall quality of investment information gathered.

Applications are reviewed online by ChangeWave staff and approved or disapproved based upon the applicants' profile (since its inception, less than 50% of the overall applicants to the Alliance have subsequently been admitted as members).

Making the Grade. Approved members of the Alliance consist of senior technology and business executives in leading companies of select industries-credentialed professionals who spend their everyday lives working on the frontline of technological change. Nearly three out of five members (58%) have advanced graduate degrees (e.g., Masters or Ph.D.) and 94% have at least a 4-year bachelor's degree.

Gathering Intelligence Information

The Alliance gathers intelligence in both a proactive and reactive mode.

Proactive mode. The Alliance sends targeted email "Quick Questions" on specific business and investment intelligence issues to members that have expertise in the relevant areas. Quick Question surveys may be open ended or multiple choice. Surveys are sent via an email link that members click on to respond. Where normal survey techniques result in response rates of 2%, the Alliance's targeted question model consistently achieves response rates of 25%-50% among members.

Reactive mode. Alliance members also submit observations on changes and opportunities occurring in companies, technologies, and industry sectors within their areas of expertise by using the Alliance's online "Intelligence Submission" and "Hot Ticket" forms. Such Alliance member observations often result in follow-up proactive surveying of other Alliance members in order to reinforce or dispute the submitted intelligence findings.

Members also participate via the Alliance's ongoing series of quarterly macro-economic surveys (which measure the impact of corporate sales, inventory, and order cancellations across 20 economic sectors) and their series of weekly Roundtable discussions on key business and investment intelligence topics.

In sum, each month the Alliance receives business and intelligence information from over 1,000 different Alliance members on a full range of technology issues, companies, and economy- wide transformations. Reports are produced on the results of these Quarterly Surveys and Roundtables, which are then distributed via email to both Alliance members and paid subscribers.

Analyzing Intelligence

A key competitive advantage for the Alliance's in-house researchers is their ability to instantly quantify and qualify information in real-time as it is submitted from the field. Where other approaches require weeks or months to distribute surveys and determine results, this process is now accomplished in minutes using Euclid's analytical software.

For example, if a key investment event occurs, a survey can be instantly formulated by the Alliance and distributed to subject area experts, then analyzed using Euclid's integrated reports tool, and the final results acted upon using Euclid's advanced membership communication features. For very urgent matters that require the input of specific individual members, the software makes it easy to setup telephone-based conference calls or create secure online virtual meetings.

Submitted intelligence can be automatically cross-referenced against the submitter's profile to provide weighted results based upon level of expertise. The ability to cross-reference also allows analysis to be performed across an unlimited number of demographic variables. For example, the results from many ChangeWave questions are tallied by the respondent's industry or sector to determine relative differences between different industries or sectors.

In addition to surveying its members on a proactive basis, the researchers at the Alliance also monitor the intelligence being submitted using ClearVantage's tickler system that can automatically route intelligence by subject area to the appropriate Alliance researcher.

Providing Feedback to Alliance Members

Getting members to participate is key to the success of the Alliance. So is weeding out participants that submit poor intelligence. The techniques that the Alliance utilizes to gather intelligence makes it easy and fun to participate. It only takes a few minutes at most to participate in a targeted survey, and members get to see the results almost instantly, providing them real-time investable and business intelligence for their own investment and business needs.

To identify the best members and weed out the bad, the Alliance cross-references submitted intelligence against actual outcomes and "Rates" members' participation based upon a 4.0 semi-annual grading system. This further refines the ability to gain valuable intelligence from the field. For example, surveys or roundtables can be directed to "experts in B2B market places that have a cumulative GPA of 3.0 or greater."

Effectively Utilizing Intelligence

Intelligence is only useful if it is properly acted upon. To take action, you must have confidence in the questions being asked, the people responding, and the tools used to perform the analysis. Below are some examples of how the Alliance, utilizing Euclid's tools, has effectively utilized intelligence to increase value for its customers.

• In January of 2001 the Alliance surveyed its members to determine which industry sectors would be performing better or worse over the near future. The survey showed that two sectors, Data Storage and ASP's, were expecting a disproportionate slowdown compared to other sectors. ChangeWave issued a "sell" on all data storage and ASP companies in its portfolio
• In April 2001, the Alliance conducted its 2nd Quarter Economic Survey, which signaled continued weakness across the New Economy and kept ChangeWave in ballast stocks (stocks that do well in slowing economic times).
• The 2nd Quarter Economic Survey also showed increasing weakness across the market but continued strength in "Biotech/Genomic" company sales. In the next 60 days, the Ishares BioTech Index jumped by 67%.

The Alliance is the world's most unique and successful Community-Based Intelligence Gathering Network. Early on, the Alliance appeared to be an unachievable dream for ChangeWave Investment Resources. Working with Euclid, though, the foundation for the Alliance was built and implemented in only a few short weeks.

The applications for Internet-based Intelligence Networks are manifold and the opportunities presented by a global networked "electronic brain" of experts are enormous. Euclid's Internet-based community intelligence software, coupled with advanced community mobilization techniques has made this all possible.

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