NEWS16 July 2010
US— Patrick Comer, a former business development executive at Ipsos-owned OTX, has launched a company selling a new technology platform designed to automate the project management process between research agencies and external sample vendors and data collection firms.
The company, Jackson Square Group (JSG), launched this week in New Orleans with a seed funding from Voodoo Ventures, a local supporter of new businesses.
Voodoo’s financing will fund the continued development of JSG’s technology platform, which has been built to integrate with data collection software packages and the software used by panel companies to make it easier for research agencies to manage projects – particularly those that rely on multiple sample sources.
“Typically, a researcher running a multi-country survey is going to have to work with four or five different sample vendors and manually manage all the details of the project with each of those vendors,” said Comer. “Our technology is a project management overlay that automates all that: for instance, ensuring that quotas are met, managing the consistent sample mix per wave, automating changes in quota or survey state.”
Besides its work with panel companies, Comer said the platform can also integrate other types of sample sources, such as social networking and affiliate networks.
Comer spent the past five years working at OTX, overhauling its sample acquisition and routing technology and building up the sample services group before its merger with the RSX programming and hosting unit, which he went on to lead.
Prior to that he was founder and vice president of operations at Sample Czar.
He is supported at JSG by Voodoo Ventures founder Chris Schultz, who sits on the board of directors, and Paul Stouse, CFO of Capital Investment Management, who is a board observer.