DAN NEELY - I am Networked Insights' founder and CEO. With over 10 years of management, operational and entrepreneurial experience with technology, manufacturing and services companies, I have expertise in customer intelligence and experience with the challenges companies face in gathering relevant, real-time insights about their customers.

New Market Research vs. Old Man Nielsen

March 13, 2009

Today I leave to head to SXSW. About four months ago Hugh Forrest at SXSW called me and told me we had been selected to speak at the interactive conference. We were ecstatic here at Networked Insights, but had no idea how big it was that we had accomplished this. I am told by a number of my friends and colleagues that this was quite an accomplishment given that this was out first time submitting. One of my friends, Penelope Trunk (@penelopetrunk), asked how we did it… Hugh told me it was our title. So, on Monday March 16th at 3:30 in room 10 we will have the battle royal, Neely versus Nielsen with some added flare from Chief Troublemaker Dave McClure (@davemcclure) and Marketing Oracle Jim Schroer.

After thinking about the title we submitted, Old Man Nielsen Vs. New Market Research, and how it was selected, I started thinking about a topic we talk about quite frequently, RELEVANCE. Companies need to figure out how they stay relevant in a customer-controlled world: spraying your message is no longer enough. Spraying your message is like being a vendor and crashing a table of conference attendees who were talking about Madison WI and their love of it and you start talking about your offering. (A real story I will share sometime of a vendor who did just this.) At Networked Insights we constantly strive to help our customers stay relevant: giving companies relevant messages (language) for their advertising, PR, and product materials; telling them where to use this relevant message; and telling them the location of the relevant people they should share this message with. As our new homepage (www.networkedinsights.com) states, “We tell you the 5 things you should be doing not the 50 things you could be doing.” We were selected by SXSW because we were relevant in our message. How are you staying relevant? Are you still relevant?

Come and join us Monday March 16th at 3:30 in room 10 and join the battle royal and learn more about staying relevant.