A New Opportunity

With some slight pokes and a prod or two from our online marketing, the volume of inquiries has grown over the last 6 months. What does that mean? Well, we think our experience of online community and software development provide an opportunity to do something rather special in the marketing research and customer insights space. That something begins with a new product called Recollective.

Ramius is first and foremost a social software company. Our focus from day 1 has been to build exceptional online communities and enterprise social networks. Over the course of the past decade or so, we've amassed a wealth of experience of how to apply this kind of technology and have achieved some amazing business results. Our team has built social networks for organizations ranging from high-tech software behemoths to federal government agencies. We've implemented and managed global partner and customer networks for some of the world's largest companies and at the same time created small collaborative workspaces for startups and local not-for-profit organizations. As you can imagine, it has always been a challenge to determine how to best promote our software and services. After all, online communities can be applied to an extremely broad range of markets and potential customers. However, at Ramius, that situation is now beginning to change. In the last eighteen months, we've both witnessed and been a party to a shift in the way our software is being used. More frequently, we are working with marketing research organizations to build online communities in which they can engage customers and conduct research. Sometimes that's ongoing communities with thousands of people that blur the line between research and marketing. Just as frequently, it's a short-term insight community for a specific qualitative research project. With some slight pokes and a prod or two from our online marketing, the volume of inquiries has grown over the last 6 months. What does that mean? Well, we think our experience of online community and software development provide an opportunity to do something rather special in the marketing research and customer insights space. That something begins with a new product called Recollective.

We're not abandoning enterprise social networks or corporate online communities. They remain core to what we do but, given our experiences over the past eighteen months, it would be foolish to ignore the growing interest in online solutions for marketing research and insights. Of course, we're far from being experts in the world of qualitative research. What we bring to the table is deep and varied experience as developers of engaging social software. As Recollective has been designed and built over the last year, we've been lucky enough to work with some great research agency partners that have helped and inspired us on this path. In fact, we are seeking more partners to work with for Recollective because one thing we know for sure - we can achieve much more by working together. There are some very exciting times ahead at Ramius for our existing and new customers and our future partners. We hope you will continue to read our blog as we evolve and grow into this space and perhaps share the opportunity with us.

Steve Thompson
COO

Let's research happy together