Last week, Corona launched the beta version of Co-Strategy, a digital collaboratory designed exclusively for nonprofit agency executives to think and act strategically. We celebrated this milestone with a special breakfast and invited a few dozen nonprofit agency executives to participate in our beta test of the platform.

Click here to learn more about Co-Strategy. Stay tuned for pictures of the launch event and more on Co-Strategy this summer.

Here’s our original Radiance Blog post from May 7, 2008:

“Welcome to Radiance, a blog brought to you by Corona Research [now Corona Insights]. This is a blog that speaks about more than just market research and strategy.  Within this corner of the blogosphere, innovations in research will be discussed, poor methods will be condemned, and – if nothing else – some great trivia conveyed. Radiance provides the crème de la crème of insight and a few useless (but still thought-provoking) facts about the world around you.  We hope you enjoy reading and don’t hesitate to offer up your comments – we’ll look forward to hearing from you.”

After revisiting our original vision, we like to think that it still holds true today.  We’ll keep doing what we’re doing but, in the meantime, is there anything our followers would like us to tackle in a future blog?

Holly Russo celebrated her 5-year anniversary on April 1^st (no fooling).  With that accomplishment we’re proud to say that seven of our total 11 staff have been with Corona for five years or longer.  We’re proud of that track record and even prouder of our Team Corona.  Congrats Holly!  You join Beth, Matt, Dave, Leo, Kevin and I in this merry band.

Here’s a graph from ESPN.com that I found interesting for today:

Nationwide, we see that ESPN.com users overwhelmingly feel that the University of Kentucky is the #1 seed most likely to win the national title.  With over 93,000 completed surveys across the country, we can probably assume that more people in your office pool are picking Kentucky than any other team.  That is, unless you live in North Carolina, Michigan, or New York.

Survey respondents in those three states—which are home to the other three #1 seeds—selected their home team as the one they thought would win it all.  Do they have a bias?  Sure, they’re cheering for their team to win!

This is perhaps an oversimplified way of showing how survey responses can vary by audience and how their responses can become swayed.  What’s important to note here, though, is that it’s not always this easy to spot these types of differences in survey responses.  Sometimes, little nuggets of information and even key points are overlooked.  That’s where having a team like Corona (no pun intended) on your side can come in handy.

As Meredith mentioned in a previous post, stay tuned for some stats from Corona’s March Madness office pool, and good luck to all!  Predictions are more than welcome in our “Comments” section.

Today is March 14, or 3/14 (for those who need us to spell it out). The mathematical constant of pi, roughly equivalent to 3.14, is “the ratio of any Euclidean circle’s circumference to its diameter.” Pi is irrational, transcendental, and a wonderful reason to celebrate.

How does one celebrate Pi Day? There are more than 3.14 ways…

Accessorize with pi

Sing or rap about pi

Take the pi day challenge

Beat the world record for reciting pi

Or simply eat some delicious pi(e)

Corona is leaping over to 1580 Lincoln Street and a new zip code on this leap day.  Movers have been packing up the old Welton Street office all morning and heading a few blocks over to the new Lincoln Street space.

If you’re trying to reach us today or tomorrow via phone or email we may be a little slow responding as phones and servers are being moved, but rest assured we will respond as soon as possible.

Our new address:

1580 Lincoln Street.  Suite 600, Denver, CO 80203

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A few photos from today below.  We’ll get photos of the new place up in a few weeks once the final touches are in place.  Stop by and take a look!

As a consultant, I strive to do more than advise, provide expertise or facilitate decision making.  I want to inspire my customers to believe they can do and be more than they are today.  Not only do I intend to provoke an emotional response – I want to inspire action.  I aim to engage their collective heads and hearts.

During last Friday’s Social Venture Partners Denver Workshop on Next Era Nonprofits I was thrilled to hear a Denver Foundation Vice President share that the Colorado Nonprofit Association was inspired by my strategic consulting.  I facilitated a conversation at their annual strategy retreat about foresights for the sector.   My goal?  To stimulate thinking about the Association’s future possibilities.  After all, this is the most dynamic period of change the sector has seen in 20 to 30 years.  What can and should it mean to lead an association in this next era and model the way forward?

Thank you to everyone who attended Friday’s workshop. You keep me inspired to share our insights with the community and take our work to the next level.

Honing in more specifically on our business sector customers and fans, our new Insights for Strategic Marketing page is a clear and concise representation of how we use data-driven insights via market research and consulting to inform all stages of strategic and tactical marketing. Our collective experience and background has fueled our thinking in this area and tells us that “an ounce of strategy is worth a pound of execution.” It’s sort like the old adage, “Measure twice, cut once.” Make sure you’re doing things right in the beginning, and you won’t end up wasting your resources.

We know from our experiences working with hundreds of clients that it’s critical for them to fully understand current and/or potential target markets along with consumer or business needs for a particular product offering(s)…before spending the big bucks on marketing campaigns.

So, check out our framework, and start thinking about how to take first things first. We’re talking about big decisions you’ll be able to make, enlightened with information, like determining marketing goals based on a thorough assessment of internal and external environments; identifying market segmentations and selecting target markets based on criteria that is directly related to those marketing goals; and establishing a positioning platform and value proposition that will resonate with the selected target markets and differentiate from competitor offerings.

It doesn’t have to be a guessing game. Armed with information, you’ll have the “ready-aim” part down. All that remains after that is to fire away with your marketing execution…and shoot down your less-informed competitors.

As an incentive for people to take the survey, Corona offered the opportunity to enter into a $500 sweepstakes drawing.  We recently selected the winner at random, and we would like to officially congratulate Amy A. of Valencia, California.  Amy competed in the Santa Clarita Marathon on November 6^th and had this to say about winning the prize:

• “The 2011 Santa Clarita Marathon was my 5th… and most difficult.  It may be Southern California, but it was only 42 degrees with a steady rain!  Though I run for the personal satisfaction it gives me, this $500 makes that tough race even more worth it!”

Congratulations, again, to Amy for winning the prize, and we’d like to thank all of the race directors around the country who helped make this survey a success.  For more information about the Corona Insights Race Survey and Rating System, click here.

Each consulting engagement provides a forum for me to hone my associative thinking skills – an opportunity to make connections across ideas and customers – and to see patterns.  I did just that in 2008 when I designed a new, synergistic service delivery model for Rebuilding Together Metro Denver while consulting on their strategic business plan.  RTMD was part of Rose Community Foundation’s 3-year BOOST initiative.

Little did I know at the time that I was on the forefront of a movement – to name and claim the nonprofit business model.  After my ah ha with Rebuilding Together, I found myself continually going back to that initial idea and fleshing it out.  I read, chatted, learned, and absorbed what I could on this nonprofit business model notion.  Then, ta da (and two years in the skunk works), the Synergistic Business Model^™ framework was born.

Foresight – Perception of the significance and nature of events before they have occurred. Sometimes foresight is easier to see after it has occurred.

If you’re looking for consultants to bring foresights to you, give Team Corona a call.