The WHY of using THE SURVEY to do attitude surveys in your organization. If you could do one thing that would make a big difference in the bottom-line profitability of your business it would be to conduct attitude feedback surveys with your employees, customers and prospective clients. Please take the time to read through the following text in this file and the others on the menu. It will take you through the process you would go through to Create a questionnaire, Enter the data, and do the Reports (all with annotated text and example screens instead of a live program). When you finish, if you would like to see the actual programs on your PC, call us and we'll get them into your hands on a no-risk basis. In addition to the traditional "death & taxes" that are such a universal part of our lives, we now should add "SURVEYS". They are becoming pervasive throughout government and industry. Especially in a retail environment, many of the traditional advertising and promotional devices are just a "shot in the dark" without some kind of feedback. Was it word of mouth or an expensive TV ad that prompted the customer to come into the store? Even traditionally non-profit organizations and government agencies who depend on public support are realizing the importance of finding out what people think about the job they are doing. Total Quality Management has been recently much cited as the key ingredient in a company's attempt to be responsive to their customer's needs. The obvious major component of that effort has to be feedback - again we are talking about the ability to do effective surveys. Although the personal computer has done much to help in word processing and spreadsheet analysis, there has been a general tardiness in providing the necessary modern tools and computer resources to the marketing role. Part of this is because people feel they have to hire an "Expert" to conduct an opinion survey. Then they spend valuable time explaining their business to this outsider, and wait for the expensive "report" to appear on their desk. (Please, this is not an argument against using consultants. Hire them to advise you on the areas you feel weak in.) But you know your business best, you have the PC on your desk; we are going to supply you with the "expertise" to do your own opinion surveying/marketing research. It is called THE SURVEY - an Opinion Research Tool for the Personal Computer and it was created by the Cybernetic Solutions Company. You may have already tried to use a general purpose program like a spreadsheet, or database, or statistics program but got bogged down trying to write programming statements to control the formatting. We did several years worth of consulting and analysis for companies who do opinion research for a living. We examined the operational problems associated with the whole process of creating questionnaires, doing data entry, and extracting the results for analysis. All the best ideas and time saving concepts were incorporated into the final programs. They are easy enough to use that you can turn them over to your secretary; yet powerful enough to satisfy the needs of a professional marketing research organization. You need the right tool. THE SURVEY An Opinion Research Tool for the Personal Computer THE SURVEY product was written specifically to take advantage of the power of the IBM Personal Computer and its clones running DOS; and incorporates the solutions to operational difficulties that most people encounter when doing the opinion surveying process. THE SURVEY is 10 years old and has been sold to county and city governments, major hospitals, banks, hotels, food store marketing departments, advertising agencies, radio stations, and personnel departments in high-tech companies. Even some professional surveying organizations use THE SURVEY software to do their work. Generally THE SURVEY program is useful to the Marketing or Public Relations arm of an organization. It can be used to do marketing research on Products, evaluate how the Services the organization provides are viewed, or generally get feedback from People. In addition, the product is useful to a PERSONNEL or HUMAN RESOURCES department to gather employee opinions about the agency policies and practices, or to evaluate training seminars. Having received feedback from the people who will be directly affected, management decisions can be made which target the goods or services of the organization in a more efficient way; that generally hits the bottom line in real dollars saved. THE SURVEY has extensive documentation with it covering each step in the surveying process. This including a tutorial that demonstrates the setup, data entry and reporting process on a keystroke by keystroke basis. In addition, a special section on practical surveying suggestions covers such topics as philosophy of surveys, when to use written questionnaires versus telephone surveys, population size, writing non-biased questions, and how to analyze the results. The format is 8 1/2 x 11 inches so your notes and sample surveys can be included in the 3 ring binder. Comments from current users include: "This is the most complete and professional package for doing opinion research that I have seen in my 15 years in the surveying business." "THE SURVEY makes the whole process understandable to a normal manager - I don't need a PHD in statistics to understand the reports. The problems it uncovered really hit the financial bottom line of our agency. " Marketing Channels: The product has been marketed directly by the company and through Value Added Resellers who find the product a natural addition to other products they market. Often it is included with advertising or consulting service contracts that help the client with the writing or analysis portion of the opinion surveying process; although the product is easy enough to understand and use on its own merits. Since the data entry process is often conducted on multiple machines, a limited use site license is provided to allow a single department or group to use the product rather than a single CPU. The retail price is $495 making it easy to buy; multiple copies of the program used in a larger company setting can be obtained at a discount. About the Cybernetic Solutions Company: Cybernetics is a greek word meaning "the person who steers the ship". In practical terms, it has to do with analyzing a complex organizational system, and then using computers and other feedback mechanisms to control the organization so that it meets the objectives set for it. Mr. Kent Francis, creator of THE SURVEY, did his Cybernetics training at San Jose State University in California in the area of Decision Support Systems. After 25 years of working for IBM and Control Data as an applications programmer and a marketing executive, Mr. Francis founded the Cybernetic Solutions Company. They are developing products which use the principles of Cybernetics and artificial intelligence to model and solve complex business problems. The company is located in Salt Lake City - the software capitol of the world. Hopefully, you now have a general overview of who we are, and why we are offering you this valuable tool to do surveys. For information about acquiring the product phone 1(800)359-3386 or 1(801)568-1190 or write CYBERNETIC SOLUTIONS COMPANY at 3479 West 7480 South, Salt Lake City, UTAH 84084 or send e-mail to RKFrancis@AOL.com or 74477.1533@compuserve.com or cyberman@xmission.com or fax to 1(801)568-7899 Now, return to the Menu to view the next topics: (<- left arrow) This will give you more indepth information about the Setup, Data Entry, & Report Detail options of THE SURVEY program (also cost & ordering info).