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CoNexus^® Applications

Organizations must now engage in continuous innovation-not continuous improvement-to be successful in these times of turbulent, unpredictable change. Methodologies for continuous innovation have been integrated into CoNexus® - a powerful proprietary computer-assisted technology that promotes innovative thinking, collaboration, and decision-making within groups.

There are three CoNexus® system applications:

• Strategist - For group strategic planning, reengineering, redesign, and decision-making.
  

• Customer CoNexion™ - For determining a customer's present and emerging needs.
  

• Meeting CoNexion™ - For basic group polling and prioritization of options.

Strategist

Strategist is a tool for implementing the powerful Creative Strategic Thinking process for groups interested in rethinking their future and in creating group collective decisions. Based on the "backwards from perfect" planning process used by Idea Sciences, it is the most powerful process for getting groups to see beyond traditional self-imposed limitations.

Strategist can be used for the following:

• Making strategic decisions and determining how and when to address the critical issues identified.

• Deciding on whether to proceed with a merger, acquisition, or joint venture.

• Designing a purpose and mission statement for your organization and clarifying your organization's values.

• Developing a strategic plan.

• Resolving conflicts.

• Identifying how to manage change in your organization.

• Identifying which departments need to work together.

Features of Strategist include the following:

• Demographics. Group members classify themselves according to definitions you design, allowing for powerful post-session analysis of subgroups and of market trends.
  
• Future Pull. Creative Strategic Thinking begins with a vision of what success will be like. The group creates its vision, purpose, and mission. Working backwards from this ideal, the group develops strategies-broad descriptions of what it did in the envisioning process to achieve success.
  
• Opportunity Discovery. Using the CoNexus keypads and analysis performed by Strategist, the group evaluates the relative importance and the current performance of the strategies it has developed. The result is a profile showing key areas of opportunity for further innovation as well as the most beneficial areas for allocation of resources.
  
• Evaluation of Functions. The contributions of functions within the organization to the strategic opportunities are displayed in a matrix, which the group uses to evaluate the functions. This ensures that the best plan is developed, connecting action to strategies.

Customer CoNexion

Customer CoNexion is a tool that involves customers in determining what products and services they really want. It does this by implementing the powerful Market PreSearch process. Unlike the more usual market research, which documents the past and attempts to predict trends and behaviors, market PreSearch looks ahead to a desired future and evaluates the strategies and actions that are needed to move toward that future.

Customer CoNexion differs from focus groups because when using Customer CoNexion™, customer responses are precisely quantified and interpreted according to rules that have stood the test of time. Customer CoNexion is a technology that allows companies and teams to become truly responsive to customer needs by asking what service or product would be ideal.

Customer CoNexion can be used for the following:

• Identifying the current and emerging needs of your customers.

• Determining systems requirements.

• Determining the ideal relationship between two entities working together.

• Determining how to create ideal products, services, or relationships.

Features of Customer CoNexion include the following:

• Demographics. Group members (customers) classify themselves according to definitions you design, allowing for powerful post-session analysis of subgroups and of market trends.
  
• Future Pull. By defining an ideal product, service, or relationship, customers are encouraged to express what they want without limits.
  
• Opportunity Discovery. Attributes of the ideal product, service, or relationship are evaluated and displayed on the powerful CoNexus Profile, identifying key opportunities for customer satisfaction.
  
• Evaluation of Alternatives. Alternatives in the same market as the ideal product, service, or relationship are evaluated in a matrix for the extent to which they satisfy each attribute identified during opportunity discovery. This assists you in identifying where your products, services, or relationships are weaker or stronger than those of the competition.

Meeting CoNexion

Meeting CoNexion is a general-purpose tool for group polling, data gathering, and prioritization of important information. With Meeting CoNexion, data from group members is collected and displayed instantly. People's positions can be discussed without confrontation.

With Meeting CoNexion, important questions within groups can be addressed:

• Do various subgroups differ on critical issues?
• What do any differences between the subgroups represent?
• What new information needs to be shared?
• How can we use this information to build better teams and create better solutions?

Features of Meeting CoNexion include the following:

• Group members can be surveyed. Using the CoNexus keypads, group members rate choices on issues. Choices can be rated on a scale of 1-2 up to 1-9.
  
• Items can be prioritized. The group members specify the relative difference between choices in terms of which items are most important and also in terms of the degree of importance. Meeting CoNexion prioritizes the input with its "shared weighting" capabilities.
  
• Profiles are generated. Profile diagrams can be constructed from any combination of prioritizations and surveys to provide a multidimensional view of complex issues.
  
• Results can be displayed in a variety of ways. Display choices include bar charts (2D or 3D), histograms, scatter diagrams, Cartesian plots, and pie charts.

Meeting Connection has been used for over a decade by organizations all over the world.

Meeting CoNexion is available as part of the CoNexus system, or it can be purchased separately.

Customer Comments on CoNexus

"It allows a team to use its creativity to open up the box of future possibilities. Exploring and bringing clarity to the rich diversity of ideas present in each of us, it allows a group to quickly come together around the prioritization of initiatives. I would highly recommend CoNexus to any group or organization wrestling with the realities of constant discontinuous change and seeking more effective ways of organizing itself in response to change." - Craig Schrotenboer, Vice President of Customer Service, Herman Miller, Inc.

"Our business strategy was enriched, embellished, and expanded after using CoNexus. The initial facilitation of the Strategic Process helped us . . . envision our strategy and move from pilot test to rapid growth." - Robert M. Elmore, Managing Partner, Arthur Andersen BSC

"Before using CoNexus, our strategic and tactical meetings were chaotic. They were difficult to facilitate and everyone's opinions were not heard. The result was often that the few who spoke most imposed their ideas on the group, making decisions which were unsuitable to the mission of the business. With CoNexus, we were successful in reaching a decision harmoniously, hearing everyone's position, and greatly increasing the feeling of participation and overall success." - Carlos Medina Turon, Coca Cola, Mexico

"Our growth has been astonishing. CoNexus has not only helped us create and prioritize our strategies and tactics for growth and change, but more importantly we can share information in a non-threatening way that builds real trust and support. This is a very natural process that we use on a continuing basis." - Jerry Marlar, President, Intermedics Orthopedics, Inc.