As with terrorist networks, many publishers and technology companies are dealing with rapidly shifting client behaviors, with lots of asymmetrical behavior that's difficult to analyze using tradional research methods. In traditional research, one formulates a hypothesis to test using quantitative or qualitative research techniques. In quantative studies, for example, someone interviews subjects and then filters down the results into a cohesive picture. In quantitative research, a questionnaire asks specific questions that requires people to respond to specific possible responses. These are both good techniques if you want to filter out a lot of possible answers that may not be your focus. But as good as that can be, many of the opportunities and threats that our clients face lie beyond this type of pre-determined focus.

An analogy as to why this is important was used in our client presentation today. We asked the people in the room to look at a short video of six people passing basketballs to one another, three wearing white shirts and three wearing black shirts, and to count the number of times that the people with white shirts passed the ball to one another. There was some disagreement on how many times the white shirted people passed the ball, but surprisingly several people missed another key input - a person in a black gorilla suit walked in and out of the scene during the passing. In other words, our ability to filter and to concentrate on specific goal not only may not give us exact anwers but may also ignore or focus on interesting phenomena that could be potentially important or a actually just a distraction.

Narrative research addresses this key gap in human perceptions in interpreting information about markets by enabling people to tell and to code unbiased stories about how they use or make decisions relating to products and services and then have them passed through software that relates their responses to key themes. When patterns emerge from this process, research sponsors can then refer to the original, unbiased stories and find new ways to analyze them. Instead of being "locked in" to specific biases or ideas that formed the information, you can refer back to the original unbiased stories and find new ways to interpret them individually or in aggregate. When you get enough stories to draw statistically significant conclusions, the result is an extremely powerful database that can answer different questions again and again over time on a very cost-effective basis. If you add more stories over time to that database, the results can be even more powerful, as you can begin to track changes in perceptions that you would not have been able to detect if you had had to form a specific idea ahead of time for testing via traditional research.

The net result for "New Rules" subscribers will be a rich, reusable resource of hundreds of stories from executives and implementers in enterprises telling how they use and make decisions on obtaining information services that they use to perform their jobs. In today's volatile economy, being able to hear unbiased stories from these complex and shifting decision makers and to analyze them quickly and effectively can be a critical factor in responding to the many changes in organizations that are compelling new and accelerated approaches to buying and implementing enterprise information services. Combined with the on-site workshops what we will be conducting for the core research subscribers I expect that "New Rules" will be the core element of many company's strategy planning efforts this year. I encourage you to investigate our prospectus and to see if you're ready to take advantage of this ground-breaking approach to market research that can power the marketing of your information products and services.

One key addition that you may have noticed is Stuart Weinstein, who, as our Business Development specialist, is helping Shore to focus on expanding our range of services available to you. First task on deck for Stuart: the marketing of our New Rules of Engagement subscription research service. Stuart Weinstein is a veteran of enterprise content sales with a long track record of success in the information industry.

In addition to helping Shore with its own business development efforts, Stuart is available to help your business engineer more robust sales and customer retention programs. Perhaps that will mean fresh thinking about cross selling, or a push to develop a VAR strategy to reach new clients. Perhaps your current sales personnel need to be realigned. Stuart can analyze your current sales infrastructure and then help you to design a new or enhanced model that will help you turn more prospects into customers, and then keep them as customers for the long haul.

Along with the rest of our team, Stuart believes in the comprehensive and holistic approach to marketing and selling information services that other Shore team members use to help our clients to accelerate their success. Stuart's "bona fides" include more than 17 years experience in sales, consistently exceeding quotas and developing a reputation as an expert in database marketing. He has built and managed sales teams, with full P&L responsibility, for some of the biggest names in the content industry. And he has designed powerful customer acquisition, cross-selling and retention strategies.

Before embarking on his consulting life, for example, Stuart held a senior sales position with Round1 Private Capital Marketplace, Inc., in New York City, where he sold market data to venture capital firms with substantial assets under management. He also served as an integral member of a management team that established product development priorities, features, functions and pricing strategy.

An earlier position was with Datamonitor, Inc., also in New York, where Stuart was the senior manager in the financial services sector. He built the sales team, managed territories and developed commission and bonus plans.

Prior to that post, Stuart spent a number of years at Thomson (now Thomson Reuters) units Gale Group and Intelligence Data. Among other assignments, he was responsible for managing major accounts. In one year, he exceeded quota by more than 200%.

In his off hours, Stuart is an avid and competitive sailor in his hometown of Fairfield, Connecticut. Indeed, on many evenings during the warm weather months, Stuart’s is the last of the boats on Long Island Sound to return to harbor as darkness falls.

Does your company need a new perspective on its sales efforts, and then a realistic, workable game plan to make it happen? Give Stuart a call. Welcome aboard!