Archive for July, 2010

We are seeing an un-mistakable ripple effect as more end users latch on to the concepts promulgated by P and G and Microsoft. They have been watching from the sidelines waiting to see if the aggressive posture of these larger research buyers has caused a back lash. So far, the panel community has caved in and no back lash is evident. This is, of course encouraging to the smaller end users who don’t want to be “picked off” by a panel company boycott.

If the goal was to get the attention of the industry, then they did! They chose a supplier, who was for the most part, a competitor of just about everyone. Market Tools is a sample provider and a full service company. Thus, panel providers did not feel safe having them at the quality helm. Strangely, this had a huge effect. It opened the door for Relevant View to release a suite of products and for us to gain traction. In addition, in a defensive posture, the panel companies are showing an increased tendency to adopt some of our new measures being proposed.

Quality is becoming word three…after price and speed. The move is on. We see more and more end users anxious to adopt standards that will give them the quality that they need. Much of this sudden interest comes from the Microsoft and P & G pushes behind Market Tools. We won’t comment here about those efforts other than to say that it took courage for Microsoft to go out on a limb. The impact has been that the RFP’s going out reflect Market Tools (and our) standards.
When the big end users talk, we listen, and that is what is rippling through the industry today.

Bull. If you can’t discuss your methodology, than you might as well just admit that it isn’t much more than words. Read any scientific paper in a reviewed journal; they give excruciating details about methods. In fact, one of the tenets of science is that a result be replicable. Simply put, you cannot replicate something you cannot describe. If you are willing to share your research with the industry, then you ought to share the nuts and bolts of that technology along with it. We should all be on the same page, sharing our research and our technology, so that together as an industry, we can seek solutions.

When you talk the talk, you’ve gotta walk the walk. If you don’t, then we will see through you. That should be put to music. It’s kind of the “quality theme song”. Many of us have learned just how to put out the rhetoric without substance behind it.
Take the word “blending”. There are those that speak of quality blends and scientific blends but provide no details: black box voodoo. Isn’t there a law called the truth in labeling act? We should all be putting up a white paper on our websites that clearly describes how we concoct our magic blend. If we don’t, then they are just witches’ brews.