How do we create value?

Collect

seeing gold where others see rocks

  • The Happiness Walk Turned a decade of roadside interviews, recorded on foot across the country, into a map anyone can listen to.
  • What is a view? Eye-tracked the timeline to pin down the moment a post has actually been seen, giving a platform and its advertisers one definition of a view.
  • Search vs. surf Observed the same people searching and surfing in the lab to show which frame of mind leaves room for a sponsored idea.
  • Mic Check Automates dynamic surveys, globally, so a question asked on Monday has a weighted national answer by Tuesday.

Analyze

crunching numbers, with special techniques

  • SourceScout Traces a chatbot's claims back to the sources that support or contradict them. Two hackathon prizes.
  • Brokerage lead tracking Classifies every inbound lead and traces it to the broker who closed it, identifying top performers and giving the team a scoreboard worth chasing.
  • Inclusion Analytics Computer vision on who is on screen, matched to who is watching, so networks and advertisers could talk about representation with numbers.
  • microhappiness Models happiness for every neighborhood in America from public data, with the uncertainty stated up front.

Present

knowing your audience, providing utility

  • Penlight Puts the weighting in residents' hands: pick the metrics that matter to you and watch Chicago re-score live.
  • MAPPR Pools years of pilot tests into one picture so network executives can choose the shows that millions will watch.
  • One-click analytics at Known Turned recurring dashboards into a one-click job, returning a thousand analyst hours a year to Citi.
  • Paperboy Makes the research literature listenable, turning papers into faithful audio episodes and custom reviews.
Case studies

Impact Ventures analytics platform

A leading philanthropic venture fund · 2022

Of hundreds of startups tackling the world's biggest problems, which ones deserve capital first?

SourceScout

Media Party Chicago 2023 hackathon · 2023

When a chatbot tells you something, can it also tell you where that came from?

Vocational-rehabilitation chatbot

A state vocational-rehabilitation agency · 2023

Can a chatbot give people with disabilities accurate answers about the services they are entitled to, without making things up?

Brokerage lead tracking

The largest business brokerage in Texas · 2021 – present

Which of the hundreds of inbound buyer and seller leads each month are worth a broker's afternoon?

Measuring the smart speaker

Amazon · 2018

How do you measure a medium that has no screen?

What is a view?

Twitter · 2016

When a post scrolls past, has anyone actually seen it?

Search vs. surf

Pinterest · 2017

Is someone more open to a sponsored idea when they're looking for something, or when they're just looking?

The distraction study

Pandora · 2016

If nobody is looking at the screen, does an audio ad still land?

Branded podcasts

Spotify · 2019

Can a brand carry a whole podcast, and will listeners stay?

Virtual reality and the brand

NASA · The New York Times · 2016 – 2018

Does a few minutes in virtual reality change how someone feels about the brand that put them there?

Ad frequency on Crackle

Sony · Crackle · 2017

How many times can a streaming service show the same ad before it starts costing the advertiser?

MAPPR

CBS · Discovery · Amazon and other networks · 2013

Which pilots will a network's viewers actually love, and how does this one compare to every pilot that came before it?

One-click analytics at Known

Citi and a children's healthcare nonprofit · 2023 – 2025

How much of an analyst's week is rebuilding the same dashboard, and what could they do with that time back?

Nielsen Coding Club

Nielsen · 2016 – 2021

What happens when the people who run the research also know how to automate it?

Custom research

Google, Amazon, Apple, Walmart, NASA, Sony, Discovery, the World Economic Forum and more

What do you need to know before you decide?

Have a hard question? qm@zagwa.net