Mike,
As you pointed out a few of us travelled to Calgary early this week to meet with the management of NSI. Over the past few days, we have been working on our notes, and have been planning to review some of the comments with Peter Hunt before posting them. We wanted to ensure that we accurately captured what was discussed.
Well, the company now has put out this "Roadmap" which is a pretty good overview of our discussion. There obviously are some areas where we spent more time on, and we got into some good discussion about the possible outcomes of their actions.
I still believe that it is wise to confirm the accuracy of our notes before putting out some additional comments.
Suffice to say, it was a good meeting and it was refreshing to have the company open up and answer many of our questions. I promise that we will be able to add more to this discussion soon. I also look forward to Peter Hunt's contribution to the increase of information flow on this company's progress. And they seem to be making some progress!
Crazy Canuk
___________
The Net Shepherd ``RoadMap'... President & CEO Don Sandford charts the way forward for Net Shepherd Inc.
1. Charts the way forward for the commercial application and marketing of
Net Shepherd's unique Internet Community and proprietary technology.
2. Sets out milestones of activity by which progress can be judged.
THE KEY POINTS
- Members of Net Shepherd's Internet Community are a Virtual Workforce,
that can be deployed on commercially viable applications in a number of
fields, including Business Intelligence, Market Research, Customer
Relations and Knowledge Management.
- Net Shepherd will either launch new companies offering these services
and take them to IPOs, or license applications of their technology to
other companies.
- To enable this, Net Shepherd will set a new US operation in Silicon
Valley, which can license its technology platform into new businesses
and which can also set up an acquisition company which can develop new
business applications of the Net Shepherd Community and take them to
IPOs.
- As a part of this, Net Shepherd will set up an on-line Business
Information company.
- In the Customer Relations and Knowledge Management areas, further
developments of the Answers.com model will be forthcoming in the next
couple of months. The nature of these developments was outlined in our
14 June Announcement on ``The Commercialization of the Answers.com
website'.
- Net Shepherd is also setting up an Internet Strategy Architecture
consulting and software service that can combine virtual communities,
legacy computing systems and I-business together into a cohesive,
profitable Internet business process for its customers.
- We still intend to obtain a NASDAQ listing for Net Shepherd.
Further details follow:
In a Statement released today, President and CEO Don Sandford said:
``There's been a lot of talk about the concept of communities on the
Internet. Several organizations claim to have large ``communities', many of
which are simply mailing lists. Net Shepherd's Community is unique in that
it:
- Undertakes economically viable work by deploying its virtual workforce,
both across the Internet and - potentially - within corporate
Intranets.
- Has in place quality management processes and tools that ensure the
work is of a highly professional standard.
- Provides an engaging ``Community Experience', which builds a real
community, expanding the number of people with unique expertise and
their ability to undertake economically viable activities.
We have discovered that Net Shepherd's Internet Community is highly
productive and that it can operate at much lower cost and faster speeds than
traditional methods of working.
This utterly transforms the economics of the collection and assessment of
on-line and off-line information, which is an increasingly valuable resource
in this Information Age:
1. In the field of Business Intelligence, our work with Dun & Bradstreet
has proved that it is possible to collect highly accurate information
on companies at a fraction of the cost of traditional methods. We can
now reveal that the productivity and low cost base of the Community is
such that in an initial pilot, 200,000 pieces of information were
collected from corporate websites in only three days. This was
achieved at a tenth of the cost and in a tenth of the time of using
traditional methods. The result also had a quality level equal or
better than information collected by traditional methods.
2. The collection of opinions from statistically representative samples
of the Community enables high quality Market Research information
questions to be collected in minutes rather than days or weeks: this
equates to a fraction of the time and a fraction of the cost of the
traditional methods of research. Equally important, the rapidity of
both the Community's response and the analysis of that response mean
that follow-on questions can be asked almost instantly and a
``real-time' conversation can be developed with a sample of a
company's market. This transforms the nature of market research,
making it possible for companies to use techniques which simply
couldn't be done before.
In an era of intensifying competition and shortening product
lifecycles, this low cost, easily customizable, high quality and fast
technology gives a very significant competitive advantage to
companies, which can now conduct strategic market research in real
time across the Net.
3. With the growth of e-commerce, companies' Customer Relations across
the Internet are becoming increasingly important. Within companies
and supply chains, the competitive advantages that flow from good
Knowledge Management mean that the effective use of Intranets and
Extranets to capture and share expertise is also becoming more
important.
In both these areas, Community members can answer questions that have
been asked across the Net. In addition to the quality measures used
in other applications, new ``Domain Expert' identification software
will ensure that questions are steered to the most appropriate,
trained members of the Community.
Organizations offering such ``answers' facility across the Net have
traditionally relied on search engines. These often give
unsatisfactory, ``context-free' results. The use of the Community
gives a ``Human-Assisted Search', which uses the power of computers,
but takes account of context and therefore gives a more relevant
answer of higher quality.
The existence of the Net Shepherd Internet Community gives us a platform,
from which we can launch ``lighthouse' companies: Net Shepherd's services of
Net-enabled Market Research, Business Intelligence, and the ``answers'
facilities for Customer Relations and Knowledge Management. These
``lighthouse' concepts can be applied to almost every commercial sector in
existence.
In some cases, we will launch new companies, offering these
``lighthouse' services and create value for Net Shepherd's shareholders by
taking them to Initial Public Offerings. In other cases, we will create
revenue by licensing particular applications of these ideas to other
companies.
In the coming weeks, you can therefore expect to see announcements from
Net Shepherd covering the following:
- The establishment of a new US operation in Silicon Valley, which can
license our technology platform into businesses and which can set up an
acquisition company which can develop ``lighthouse' companies,
applying the Net Shepherd platform and taking them to IPOs.
- The setting up of a Community-Centric on-line Business Information
company. The strategy is to utilize a `Net enabled distributed
workforce to collect web-based and other information of commercial
value.
- In the Customer Relations and Knowledge Management areas, further
developments of the Answers.com model, as outlined in our 14 June
Announcement (hyperlink) on the Commercialization of the Answers.com
website.
- In our traditional work of assessing the suitability of website
material, further news on our relationship with ClickChoice.com and the
work that we are doing with Alta Vista.
These commercial applications of the Net Shepherd Community are not the
only new revenue opportunities that we are pursuing. As use of the Internet
increasingly enters the commercial mainstream around the world, there is a
growing market of meeting companies' needs for an integrated approach to
mitigating the threats and realizing the opportunities that the Internet
brings. In many cases, this may involve the Net Shepherd Community. We are
developing special tools to enable us to provide an Internet Strategy
Architecture service that can combine virtual communities, legacy computing
systems and I-commerce together into a cohesive, profitable business process
for our customers. This will be launched within the next couple of months.
``We expect to issue further announcements on these developments
shortly', concluded Sandford. ``You will really be able to see the progress
that we are making in the context of this Roadmap.'
Background Notes:
Net Shepherd helps companies that want to transform the way they do
business and create new opportunities using the Internet. It is a leading
provider of virtual community solutions to provide the gathering of
information and the management of work at the speed of the Internet. Net
Shepherd's Internet Community Management System provides all the tools,
processes and infrastructure required to build and manage proactive,
productive virtual communities.
Net Shepherd can also help organizations to develop a complete strategy
for the threats and opportunities that the Internet brings. Their Internet
Strategy Architects can combine virtual communities, legacy computing systems
and I-commerce together into a cohesive business process.
To learn about potential partnership opportunities with Net Shepherd, or
any one of Net Shepherd's business solutions, Internet technologies, and
systems integration services for the `Net, contact Don Sandford, Chief
Executive Officer (403.205.6677) or visit our Web site at
netshepherd.com.
Headquartered in Calgary, Alberta and operating globally in cyberspace,
Net Shepherd Inc. is traded on The Alberta Stock Exchange under the symbol
WEB.
``THE ALBERTA STOCK EXCHANGE HAS NEITHER APPROVED NOR DISAPPROVED THE
INFORMATION CONTAINED HEREIN.'
For further information: Don Sandford, President & CEO, Net Shepherd
Inc., Calgary, Alberta, (403) 205-6677, Peter Hunt, Vice-President,
Corporate Affairs, Net Shepherd Inc., (403) 804-5312, E-mail:
peter.hunt@netshepherd.com |
