CHICAGO INNOVATION AWARDS

2D2C, Inc.

SafePlug Electrical Outlet

SafePlug receptacles prevent fires and shocks, reduce energy consumption, protect expensive electronics and appliances, and connect “dumb” appliances to a smart grid. These innovative products deliver 2-way data exchange between electrical outlets and appliances for measurement of electrical power and for control of appliances at a cost of only pennies to the appliance. The outlets are also designed to prevent electrical hazards including house fires, child shocks and electronics damage. SafePlug receptacles continuously monitor your electrical system, 24 hours a day, and disconnect electricity upon detection of a dangerous condition.

Each year approximately 70,000 severe, household, electrically-induced fires occur in the United States claiming more than one life every day. In addition to these tragic losses, these fires cause more than 2,400 injuries and destroy about $2 billion in residential property. The risk of electrical shock also poses a serious home hazard. Nearly one person every other day dies from electrocution and five more each day visit an emergency room due to home electrical shock injuries.

Facilitating communication between a Smart Grid electrical system and any appliance plugged into any outlet in the home or office makes SafePlug a key component in reducing energy consumption and decreasing carbon emissions. A step beyond standard home automation control is achieved by controlling the appliances not the outlet or switch providing greater control of the electrical use and overall control of appliances.

3DInternet

3DInternet

3DInternet has created a virtual world technology called Hyper-Reality; used by businesses and consumers on their computers. 3DInternet creates high quality immersive graphic and customized content, to allow their clients the ability to show their products and ideas on the internet and over a wide variety of platforms. Leading the way globally, we provide a broad range of services that include: 3D Training Simulators, 3D GIS (Ayris), 3DShopping.com, Studio Productions, Project Management & Life Cycle, 3D Design & Marketing, Virtual Tours and 3D application simulations.....and soon to be released to the public, a brand new 3D Collaboration tool (networking or conferencing using avatars) along with other types of 3D visualizations.

Abbott Nutrition, division of Abbott

Abbott's Similac® SimplePac™ package

Abbott's Similac® SimplePac™ package represents our most significant redesign of infant formula powder containers, both in form and function. No other baby formula offers this convenient package. Similac SimplePac is a baby formula container that parents can grip, flip and scoop to make bottle prep easier and cleaner.

Since 1959, when the Similac brand introduced its first powder formula, U.S. baby formulas have been packaged in cans. Multi-use infant formula powder packaging has been substantially unchanged for over 50 years. Abbott is the first company to replace the industry standard infant formula round can with Similac SimplePac, an easy-to-use container.

Round cans adequately protect formula, but are difficult to handle at feeding times when moms are juggling baby and bottle preparation. Also, the scoop often becomes buried within the can and must be dug out. Finally, the scoop’s mismatched geometry with the package bottom prevents easy removal of remaining powder.

The Similac team conducted extensive research with more than 1,600 moms to understand how to make formula preparation easier. Based on the feedback from this research, the Similac brand redesigned the standard baby formula can packaging into a convenient and mom-friendly package that offers a simplified approach to bottle-preparation time.

Features in the Similac SimplePac that are unmet in other powder infant formula packaging include:

-One-hand grip is easy to grab and hold.

-Hinged lid flips open and closes with ease and stays on the container, preventing it from being misplaced.

-Scoop in the lid is easy to find for mess-free preparation – no more digging through formula powder.

-Wide opening makes scooping out formula easier, while the rectangular shape makes home storage more convenient.

-Custom rounded corners exactly match the scoop to help moms and dads get every last bit of formula.

-Peel-back label opens for Spanish translation and additional information.

Abbott Nutrition initially launched the Similac SimplePac container for Similac Advance and Similac Advance EarlyShield™ infant formula and has expanded the packaging to the Similac® Isomil® Advance®, Similac Sensitive™, Similac® Organic, Similac® Go & Grow™ milk-based and soy-based powder formulas.

We are offering powered infant formulas in the Similac SimplePac container to retailers at the same per ounce price as its existing formulas. This provides additional value because the innovative features – like the one-hand grip, hinged lid, wide opening and scoop in the lid – make feeding time easier for parents. In addition, the rectangular container saves 33 percent more retail shelf space than the can design.

ACCO Brands Corporation

GBC eBinder 200

Why is the new GBC eBinder 200 from ACCO Brands so innovative? The new machine is the first of its kind to provide the automated, in-line punching and binding of printed documents that allows users to produce lay-flat, bound documents as easy as printing them. Users can now print and bind their materials all from the convenience of their desktop computer.

Beyond the groundbreaking solution it provides to end users, the eBinder 200 is an impressive piece of innovation on three levels: the engineering of the machine itself to solve an unmet consumer need, the creation of groundbreaking binding fasteners, and the level of collaboration between ACCO Brands and outside partners to develop the system.

As a result, the GBC eBinder 200 is set to revolutionize the mechanical binding of printed documents at digital printers and copy centers across the country because it satisfies most all criteria of the Chicago Innovation Awards. Those include: a recently introduced product, creating a new category of business, elevating consumer expectations, solving an unmet consumer need, and receiving market support and financial success.

Advanced Diamond Technologies, Inc.

UNCD® Wafers

Advanced Diamond Technology rearranges the carbon atoms found in natural gas in order to form smooth diamond films. Before ADT came up with this technology, diamond films were rough and suitable only for abrasive applications such as cutting tools. Now, the smooth ADT films can be used to make diamond-coated silicon wafers that can be used for MEMS (microscopic electro-mechanical systems) and circuit applications. The unique properties of diamond along with the fine and consistent qualities of UNCD allow for new applications of diamond. The value provided by diamond compared with other materials is in the functional properties. It allows higher-performance technology, whether it be in industrial pumps or resonators for telecommunications devices. Rather than offering cost savings to the customer, ADT offers an advantage in terms of sheer technological superiority.

Aircell

Gogo Inflight Internet service

Gogo®, powered by Aircell, turns a commercial airplane into a Wi-Fi hotspot with true inflight Internet access. Passengers with Wi-Fi enabled devices, such as laptops, smartphones and PDAs, can surf the Web, check e-mail, instant message, access a corporate VPN and more. For more information about Gogo, please visit http://www.gogoinflight.com.

Art Institute

Modern Wing

The Art Institute of Chicago is a world-renowned art museum housing one of the largest permanent collections in the United States. An encyclopedic museum, the Art Institute collects, preserves, and displays works in every medium from all cultures and historical periods as well as hosts special exhibitions. With a collection of more than 260,000 art works and artifacts, the museum has particularly strong holdings in Impressionist and Post-Impressionist painting, early 20th century European painting and sculpture, contemporary art, Japanese prints, and photography. The museum just completed the largest expansion in its 130-year history, the internationally acclaimed Modern Wing designed by Renzo Piano. The Modern Wing features the latest in green museum technology and 264,000 square feet dedicated to modern and contemporary art, photography, architecture and design, and new museum education facilities.

ArtistData

ArtistData

ArtistData is a Chicago-based online publishing platform that enables musicians to efficiently reach fans across multiple consumer touch points through innovative syndication technology. Since launching the platform in June 2008 and with minimal paid promotion, ArtistData has attracted over 9,300 artists and 900 music organizations. Industry trade magazine Music Connection recently named ArtistData one of the four most helpful career management web sites and listed it alongside more established, venture funded companies. Several years ago, ArtistData’s founder identified one of the biggest pain points for artists: updating a myriad of web sites. Today, unsigned, independent, and major artists (including Jewel, Yanni, Ray Lamontagne) use ArtistData as the preferred way to publish to social networks like MySpace and Facebook, concert databases like Jambase and Eventful, Twitter, as well as notify local publications about upcoming concerts and generate professional tour documents. ArtistData’s post once, publish everywhere product has made nearly a million updates to its network on its users behalf in the first year alone.

Athena Security

Athena FirePAC

Athena Security has captured the science of firewall behavior through the mathematical analysis of device configurations. Consequently, vulnerabilities, non-compliances and errors in the rule bases of these devices can now be quickly revealed and corrected without going through long cycles of test-repair-test.

This innovation has allowed Athena to bring to market products to solve some of the most difficult problems faced by both small and large enterprise customers:

- How do I know whether any dangerous services are allowed in my network

- How do I pass mandated audits

- How do I convert from one type of firewall to a different one without breaking something

The second innovation is in the business model – we have found a way to deliver enterprise class functionality in a shrink wrap fashion through the internet. So any customer can download and try out the value proposition before buying the product. Solarwinds is the market leader in this type of approach and our products complement their offerings.

Baxter International Inc.

Baxter International’s HYLENEX recombinant (hyaluronidase human injection) for pediatric rehydrati

HYLENEX is an innovative approach to rehydrating infants and young children suffering from mild to moderate dehydration. It is the first and only purified preparation of the enzyme, hyaluronidase, which breaks down hyaluronic acid, a space-filling gel that exists in the tissue beneath the skin.

HYLENEX safely allows fluids and medications to be administered under the skin (subcutaneously) rather than through a vein (IV). IV therapy, which traditionally has been used for rehydration, is rated as one of the leading causes of pain for hospitalized children, since it can take multiple needle sticks to find a vein for treatment initiation and cause subsequent trauma and discomfort for patients, parents and clinicians.

HYLENEX temporarily makes the tissue beneath the skin more permeable (capable of being passed through) and able to absorb fluid, allowing fluids to be absorbed more readily into the blood vessels. It has been shown to be quick, simple and relatively painless. In addition, research has shown that parents whose children receive HYLENEX for rehydration are highly satisfied with the results, report their experience is better than IV administration and would opt for the alternative approach in the future.

CaptainU

CaptainU Recruiting Software

CaptainU is a web platform that is transforming the collegiate sports recruiting process for high school athletes and college coaches. CaptainU flattens the world of collegiate sports recruiting by giving millions of high school athletes an opportunity to connect with college coaches, market themselves and succeed in the collegiate sports recruiting process.

CaptainU launched in 2008 and 91% of our class of 2009 athletes have signed with a college team.

CaptainU uses unique proprietary scheduling technology to create a personalized recruiting strategy for each athlete. The focus of this strategy is an innovative 5-step personal branding campaign that teaches high school athletes how to captivate the attention of college coaches.

Prior to CaptainU, athletes stumbled through the recruiting process with little guidance, let alone software to implement a clear strategy.

Cars.com

Mobile Dealer Sites

In early 2008 Cars.com saw an opportunity to offer its dealer customers exposure to a growing mobile audience through mobile optimized websites. These sites are based on the technology that went into the development of Cars.com’s own mobile site, which was launched in 2007. Mobile DealerSites were launched in early 2009. The product boils a dealer’s main site down to its essential parts for use on any internet capable phone or PDA: New & used inventory listings, address and mapping to the dealership, payment calculator, contact form, and click-to-call 800 numbers that map to the dealer’s new and used department numbers.

Unlike most of our competitors whose mobile offering consists of iPhone (and similar device) sites, Cars.com Mobile DealerSites are designed to work on all mobile devices that can browse the internet. MDS load quickly, give consumers the information they need no matter where they are, and give dealers the representation they need to be successful on the mobile web.

Chicago Anytime Assistants

Chicago Anytime Assistants personal assistant services

Chicago Anytime Assistants is a personal assistant services for the busy Chicagoan. We provide a team of qualified assistants to take care of our customers’ pesky everyday tasks and errands that chip away at their valuable free time. I started this business after years in the advertising industry when I would find myself stuck in the office after midnight and wondering how I would ever find time to take care of my personal errands. And while there were some concierge and virtual assistant services out there, they were limited in that they could only offer appointment booking or handle tasks that could be done on a computer or phone. I created the flexible, anytime-you-need-it personal assistant category to be able to provide a breadth of services that no one else was providing. Being able to dispatch a team of capable assistants that can handle any job or errand “on foot” and navigate through the city was an unmet need that I addressed.

Chicago Climate Exchange

Cap-and-trade system for greenhouse gas emissions and world's leading environmental futures exchange

Chicago Climate Exchange (CCX) operates North America’s only cap and trade system for all six greenhouse gases, with global affiliates and projects worldwide. CCX Members – including Chicago area entities such as Abbott, Baxter, the City of Chicago, and Motorola – are leaders in greenhouse gas management and represent all sectors of the global economy, as well as public sector innovators. Reductions achieved through CCX are the only reductions made in North America through a legally binding compliance regime, providing independent, third party verification. The founder and Chairman of CCX is economist and financial innovator Dr. Richard L. Sandor, who was named a Hero of the Planet by Time Magazine in 2002 for founding CCX, and in 2007 as the "father of carbon trading."

CCX emitting Members make a voluntary but legally binding commitment to meet annual greenhouse gas emission reduction targets. Those who reduce below the targets have surplus allowances to sell or bank; those who emit above the targets comply by purchasing CCX Carbon Financial Instrument® (CFI®) contracts.

The Chicago Climate Futures Exchange (CCFE) is a Commodity Futures Trading Commission regulated market which offers standardized and cleared futures contracts on emission allowances and other environmental products. CCFE is the leading futures exchange for mandatory environmental markets in the U.S. and the main price reference for sulfur dioxide (regulated by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency) and carbon in the Regional Greenhouse Gas Initiative.

Chicago Crime Scene Cleanup, LLP

Biohazard & Crime Scene Cleaning

We assist family members and property managers with getting a home back in shape after a tragedy strikes. We feel they should not have to deal with the cleanup as it is dangerous, as well as emotionally devistating. In addition, we have a contract with the Department of Justice to remove Meth Labs in three states and properly dispose of the waste generated.

Chicago Fire Department

'The H.E.R.O.-Pipe'

Product Name: The HERO Pipe
(Highrise Emergency Response Offensive Pipe)
Michael Wielgat

The HERO Pipe is a new apparatus that's specially designed to fight high-rise fires more safely and more effectively than conventional methods. This innovative tool enables fire fighters to battle a blaze from the floor below the fire, keeping them at a safe distance from the fire's most dangerous areas, where temperatures can reach 2,000 degrees Fahrenheit. Even in chemical or biological incidents, the HERO Pipe can be used to apply neutralizing agents safely in normal temperatures from the floor below while in protective chemical gear which could not be used in fire conditions. And in most cases, the HERO Pipe fights larger highrise fires more effectively than with hand-held hoses.

HERO Pipe inventor Lt. Michael Wielgat, a Chicago fire fighter since 1988, has helped combat some of downtown Chicago's most difficult high-rise fires. The Cook County Building fire of 2003 and the LaSalle Bank Building fire of 2004 also helped lead him to develop this more effective, revolutionary instrument. It enhances the safety of his brother firemen and that of the Chicago citizens he has sworn to protect.

Chicago and other cities worldwide can finally level the playing field against high-rise fires with the HERO Pipe.

website address: http://theheropipe.com

Cohesive Flexible Technologies.

Cohesive Flexible Technologies.

Cohesive Flexible Technologies company offers crowd-sourced software in a new and innovative way. Much as Dell revolutionized build-to-order PCs, Cohesive Flexible Technologies has done the same with software. In other words, you choose an platform and then order whatever extra programs you want on top of it, CFT builds it for you, and then you download it directly from the website. Their tech breakthrough is software that builds a base image of a server and reformats it into a chosen virtualization configuration without first building a physical server. Its customers are businesses, not individuals, and it often configures the custom software on a cloud computer where it does the assigned tasks. Their "Elastic Server Platform" is a online service for custom configuration and assembling of application stacks (Elastic Servers) and making them available in a variety of virtualization-ready formats. It also provides a download directory of the stacks you have built, as well as stacks published by other users. It provides a dashboard view which highlights the most popular components as well as an overall view of community activity. Additionally the platform allows any individual, team or company to be a software component provider through importing their software offerings into the platform. Also, any individual, team or company can distribute or sell their finished servers through Elastic Server Sites which allow their customers to customize and download servers in virtualization and cloud-ready formats.

Coin That Phrase, LLC

Coin That Phrase.com

Coin That Phrase (live beta up now at cointhatphrase.com) is a service that brings together social media, crowdsourced intellectual property, and merchandising. It's a means by which users may register and own phrases which can then be affixed to merchandise (coffee cups, tees, etc.) and sold, with Coin That Phrase providing manufacture, fulfillment and shared revenue.

Its central innovation is to provide a new means to capitalize naturally occurring social media user behavior. The shared phrase, in-joke or slogan becomes tangible product at Coin That Phrase, which supports, solidifies and capitalizes the natural spread of memes and identity models on the modern web.

"Coin That Phrase is an exploration in content ownership," says Coin That Phrase CEO Noel Burkman. "Traditional mechanisms to value content using mediation through advertising are becoming less and less valid. Further, sites are realizing they can't depend on advertising revenue indefinitely. What CTP does is show the way to post-advertising models for revenue generation and to a new mechanism for content valuation."

comScore, Inc.

eROI: comScore’s Solution for Measuring the Effectiveness of Online Advertising

Although online advertising has grown to be a $24 billion annual business, it still represents less than 10% of advertising spending across all U.S. media. This is very concerning to online businesses because consumers spend more than 25% of their media usage time online today and this means that the Internet is not getting its fair share of ad spending. It also means that marketers are likely spending more than necessary to promote their brands by failing to capitalize on the efficiencies presented by the Internet. If marketers could be convinced that online marketing was a more cost-effective alternative, this could be very helpful to the U.S. economy.

To prove to traditional advertisers that they should move more dollars from traditional media to the Internet, websites and advertisers needed proof that online advertising campaigns are able to cost-effectively build sales for the advertised brands -- both online and at retail. This was especially important for the $1 trillion consumer packaged goods industry, whose products are bought mainly at supermarkets. The industry needed specific proof that their use of online advertising was capable of moving products off of retail shelves in a cost-effective manner.

Enter comScore, co-founded by Gian Fulgoni, a 2008 inductee into the Chicago Entrepreneurship Hall Of Fame and winner of the 2008 Ernst & Young Technology Entrepreneur of the Year award.

comScore built a sophisticated solution. First comScore recruited a panel of 2 million people who have given comScore explicit permission to download its patented software application to their computers. This unique technology allows comScore to understand everything that each panel member does on the Internet, including what online ads they receive and what products they buy online. comScore then forged relationships with some of the country’s largest supermarket retailers, allowing comScore to match the name and addresses of the comScore panel with retailers’ loyalty card databases that contain detailed data on the products that the card holders bought in the supermarkets. This effectively created a ”single source” datamart containing each matched panelist’s online exposure to online ad campaigns and their purchasing of the advertised products at the retail stores

By comparing an ad-exposed group of panelists (i.e. consumers who saw the ad online) with a non-exposed control group (i.e. consumers who did not see the ad online) and examining their retail buying, comScore is able to precisely quantify a lift in in-store sales among consumers exposed to the ad.

An example of this capability is the proprietary database matching that comScore uses in partnership with the Kroger supermarket chain and dunnhumbyUSA, a leading consumer insight company. Through the use of eROI, comScore has been able to prove that online advertising for CPG products can have a substantial positive impact in terms of increasing in-stores sales for the advertised brands, while also demonstrating that online campaigns can be more cost effective than the use of traditional media such as television.

Construction Safety Software Corporation

Construction Safety Supervisor

The service is a web-based application that gives contractors the ability to predict and prevent accidental job related injuries. This technology uses the input (and experience) of every employee in a company to help contractors prevent accidental (on the job) injuries. This is the only web-based application specifically designed for the construction industry. Project safety is critical to the success or failure of any construction project.

Coskata Inc.

Coskata’s feedstock flexible ethanol production process

Coskata is pioneering an innovative approach to ethanol production using a variety of input material including biomass, agricultural and municipal wastes, as well as other carbonaceous material. The company utilizes a hybrid thermo-biological process leveraging proprietary microorganisms and patented bioreactor designs to yield one of the most efficient, flexible, and sustainable means of ethanol production available today. The company will sustainably produce feedstock flexible ethanol from non-food, renewable resources that will reduce ghg emissions by as much as 80-90% (Argonne National Laboratory). Feedstock flexible ethanol from Coskata has the ability to reduce dependence on foreign sources of oil, address food-for-fuel concerns, and create green infrastructure and jobs to fuel economic growth and environmental sustainability. Coskata is currently producing ethanol at the pilot scale at its headquarters in Warrenville, Ill. Later this year, the company will produce ethanol at its semi-commercial plant located in Madison, PA. Commercial scale production is anticipated in 2012. visit www.coskata.com for more information.

crowdSPRING

crowdSPRING (http://crowdspring.com)

crowdSPRING is a community-driven marketplace for creative services, bringing the power of crowdsourcing to creative challenges worldwide. Whether you need a new logo, website, marketing materials or other creative content, you simply post what you need, when you need it and how much you'd like to pay. Once posted, creatives from around the world will work on your project and you'll begin to receive actual work - not bids or proposals - to review. And, as the entries come in, you'll be able to review, sort, rate, give feedback and collaborate with creatives until you find "the one".

For creatives, crowdSPRING offers powerful tools to showcase their talents on a worldwide stage. In addition to allowing anyone, anywhere to reach a global audience for their creativity, crowdSPRING also offers powerful community tools such as public profiles, private messaging, portfolios, and creative community forums.

Simply put, creative people want to be creative. The explosion of so-called ‘user generated content’ - from Threadless and iStockPhoto to YouTube or even blogs - is proof positive that people are looking for outlets for their creative talent, whether it's graphic design, photography, video or copywriting. crowdSPRING is empowering this underground, underdog creative community and giving them yet another outlet for their creativity.

crowdSPRING was founded on three core principles: offer Buyers choice, give creatives a level playing field, and protect intellectual property for all. Our model takes the risk out of buying creative services by offering buyer's choice up front. We empower an untapped worldwide creative community and level the playing field by allowing creatives to compete solely on the basis of their talent. And we protect the intellectual property of all by offering completely free, customized written legal agreements for every transaction - something that no other site in the world has done.

Doejo Interactive Media & Texthog

Texthog

Texthog is a super simple service to track your budgets and manage your expenses online. We believe that the easiest way to keep track of what you spend, is to record it in real-time. For each transaction, you send in the amount via email or text and it parses the information, tracks and categorizes it. Since you are tracking the expenses while they are happening, you can understand what you are spending your money on more easily. You can also determine where your money has gone and how to adjust your budget.

Dotomi, Inc.

Adtopia

Dotomi can provide extremely focused and relevant advertising online. There has never been such a relevant way to advertise. Yair Goldfinger, the inventor of instant chat, took it a step further by applying the concept to online advertising. Now businesses can communicate on a one-to-one level with consumers. People around the world (not just Chicago) will benefit from personalized media delivered by Dotomi.

Dr. Robert Lim

The Lim Procedure

Over the past 14 years, Dr. Robert Lim (team physician for US Soccer Federation and team podiatrist for MLS Chicago Fire) has developed and successfully performed his new and unique surgical procedure for lateral ankle instability (ankle sprains) that will revolutionize the way in which ankle sprains will be treated. Traditionally ankle sprains are treated conservatively with 3–6 months of rest and immobilization; however, this does not necessarily result in the healing of the ATF ligament. Current surgical procedures are usually viewed as a last option due to a questionable success rate, and an extensive recovery usually of at least 6-8 months with no guarantee that the patient will return to pre-injury status. The Lim Procedure has a 100% success rate and has a recovery time of as little as 4 weeks.

The most common traditional surgical procedures performed for chronic lateral ankle instability include the Evans (1953), Brostrom (1966), and the Chrisman & Snook (1969). Since then, all three procedures have undergone slight modifications but nothing that has improved the recovery time. The recovery for the above mentioned procedures includes weeks of being in a cast, extensive physical therapy, and a recovery time of 6-8 months or longer. The end result for the former surgical procedures varied widely with outcomes ranging from success to failure and in some cases left patients in more pain than before the surgery. The Lim Procedure has patients returning to ambulation within 1 week and full athletic training within 4 weeks with little to no pain.

The US Census Bureau reports that there are one million ankle injuries annually and of those 85% are ankle sprains. That is equivalent to 1 in every 272 people in the United States alone who will suffer from this medical condition. Additionally, The Clinics in Podiatric Medicine and Surgery Journal, reports that ankle sprains represent 45% of sports related injuries. The Lim Procedure would improve the quality of life for the general population and will have a huge impact on the sports industry by saving the careers of countless athletes.

To learn more about The Lim Procedure or to view the media coverage, please visit http://www.drrobertlim.com or visit our professional page on Facebook, Dr. Robert Lim, Foot and Ankle Surgeon .

EveryBlock

EveryBlock.com

EveryBlock is a new experiment in online journalism, offering a news feed for every city block in 15 cities. Enter any address, neighborhood or ZIP code in those cities, and the site shows you recent public records, news articles and other Web content that’s geographically relevant to you. To our knowledge, it’s the most granular approach to local news ever attempted.

GeeYee Inc.

GeeYee Opinion Observer

GeeYee provides a solution that empowers individuals and organizations to more efficiently learn, discover, communicate, and derive insights from the vast amount of constantly changing social media.  

 

How does GeeYee impact you?  Let's say you want to buy a cell phone with the longest talk time.  How would you go about gathering as many opinions on the Internet as possible on the battery lives of all cell phones in the marketplace?  

 

Let’s take Healthcare Reform as another example.  How would you go about discovering all of the controversial issues being discussed online and the agreements and disagreements associated with each issue?  And then keep up with this every day?

 

With GeeYee's innovative solution, it is now possible to efficiently gather such knowledge to the questions above and, for that matter, any subject discussed on the Internet.  

 

Available only to enterprises at this time, GeeYee's Opinion Observer Social Media Listening Platform provides accurate, big picture insights on social media that you otherwise have to pay a premium price to obtain in the form of snapshot reports from consultancy-oriented social media firms like Nielsen Buzzmetrics and Umbria while eliminating the overwhelming labor associated with using social media monitoring services such as Radian6, SM2, and Google Analytics in which you have to find any insights yourself.

 

Benefits of GeeYee's Opinion Observer Social Media Listening Platform include the following:

 

• Significantly greater meaning and directional insight on trends, crises, and entire industries are derived when you go beyond measuring sentiment of unstructured data on the Internet at the brand or product level.

• Substantially more opinions and insights are picked up from millions of daily comments on the Internet when more advanced technology than that of keyword-based search is applied.

• Visualization of unstructured data is tremendously enhanced when you can quantify opinions in aggregate based on positive, negative, and neutral scores on a per feature or per issue basis for one subject or product or many subjects or products (with no limit to the number of comparisons that can be made). The outcome of this computer-generated process is quick directional insights that can lead to further hypothesis testing if not action.

• GeeYee's unique Discovery Process allows firms to identify what is being said and "how" consumers are talking about issues or features in social media that firms already have in mind AND/OR discover new features and issues that firms haven’t thought of or simply couldn’t imagine (especially if there’s a crisis or emerging trend).

 

Green Planet Bottling

Green Planet brand bottled water

Green Planet Bottling, LLC. has launched environmentally friendly bottled water in bottles made from plants, not oil. We have a unique brand positioning as an environmental brand in a category under intense scrutiny for being disruptive to the environment. Our product is carving a new segment in the bottled water industry: green or environmentally friendly, sustainable bottled water.

 

40 million petroleum (PET) bottles are thrown away every day.  Landfills are over-flowing.  Oil is being used at rates and prices that are pushing our planet to the brink.  Plastics are being ingested/consumed at an ever-increasing rate and the term leeching has permanently entered into our collective consciences.  Every truckload of water shipped from a plant uses 600 gallons of crude oil; every 2.5 cases of water sitting in your warehouse, your office or your pantry took a gallon of crude oil to make. The dominant material to make bottles out of in the beverage industry is PET – which comes from a finite resource, which inherently increases our dependence on foreign oil, emits a tremendous amount of carbon in its production process and has very few end of life options. It is all bad!

 

Enter Green Planet whose mission is to help businesses and consumers make a positive and sustainable difference and impact in the world and in their lives.  Green Planet is committed to creating products that everyone feels good about using. We believe that consumers should not have to compromise their health or the health of the planet when choosing a bottled beverage.  This led to us creating our vision of becoming the premier bottler of waters/beverages in organic, sustainable packaging.

 

Simply stated, Green Planet realized that bottle water was not going away and that there had to be a better way than buying and throwing away tens of millions of bottles every single day.  So, we created a bottle that is made of renewable resources, is Greenhouse gas/carbon neutral, does not leach chemicals into the water, is fully compostable and provides 100% recyclable bottles, ultimately reducing our dependency on oil and providing a guilt-free and safer choice to traditional PET bottles.

 

Green Planet is the environmentally friendly brand that allows you to quench your thirst and your desire to help the environment.

Groupon

Groupon

Groupon is a Chicago-based deal-a-day website that delivers tremendous savings to consumers and high levels of extra business to featured companies. Launched as an extension of collective action website The Point in November 2008, the service has attracted hundreds of thousands of subscribers and has breathed life into local economies by generating new customers for businesses of all types and sizes.

What sets Groupon apart is that it leverages the concept of collective buying power to negotiate great deals for consumers while guaranteeing businesses a minimum number of customers. Consumers only get the featured deal if a minimum number of people join – that is, if the deal reaches a “tipping point.”

Groupon now serves nine other markets – Boston, New York City, Washington DC, San Francisco, Atlanta, Los Angeles, Dallas, San Diego and Seattle – with plans to be in a total of more than 25 cities by year’s end.

Groupon has been featured in numerous national and local media outlets as an innovative company that is helping consumers and businesses better cope with the reality of the current economic environment.

Beyond helping consumers save on life’s essentials, Groupon also encourages subscribers to explore new products, services and activities in their cities. Groupon has offered discounts to local restaurants, hair salons, spas, theatres, gyms, tours – even acupuncture, hypnotherapy, deprivation tanks and psychics. Offers span across all types of local businesses and we pride ourselves on offering an eclectic mix. National accounts include Zipcar and Britesmile.

Some examples of featured deals:

• $11 for Wendella Architectural Tour (normally $22) (6,000 Groupons sold – sold out!)

• $10 for $25 at Manny's Deli (2,000 Groupons sold - sold out!)

• $35 for Zipcar membership and $50 credit (normally $125) (420 Groupons sold)

• $50 for $125 at Denim Lounge (1,269 Groupons sold)

• $5 for $15 at Dinkel’s Bakery (3,984 Groupons sold)

• $95 for Golf for Two at Ruffled Feathers (Up to $190 Value) (764 Groupons sold)

• Choice of Three Services at Soothe Your Senses Day Spa—Only $33 Per Service (738 Groupons sold)