IntelliSys Corporation

Introduction

You are the IT Director in IntelliSys Corporation, a computer software company. Your company has been working on a promising and potentially lucrative research project. The end product of this project is a software package called InfoScan.

InfoScan is an automated information mining system targeted at major firms interested in gathering business intelligence from online sources. It scans and monitors the Internet for information, which is then organized according to reliability, impact, relevance and other custom criteria. With advanced information management capabilities designed to prevent information overload, it is capable of effectively serving the external information needs of firms. These needs can range from environmental scanning to reputation surveys to rumor control.

While working on InfoScan, a rival computer software company issues a press release regarding iSearch, designed to perform the same core function of InfoScan. However, there is significant evidence that iSearch contains several advanced features absent from InfoScan. It is originally projected that both products will have an equal share of the total market.

Decision

At present, your company has already spent 50% of the budget for this project and the development of InfoScan is 50% completed. You are keen to know the latest assessment of your product market share. Hence, your company has engaged a professional consultation firm to do the study as they are more objective. They have recently completed their assessment and reported their results.

(Different subjects then receive different manipulations)

Manipulations from Draft #1 (October)

Positive feedback, positive framing manipulation
InfoScan is estimated to capture 75% of the marketshare

Negative feedback, positive framing manipulation
InfoScan is estimated to capture 25% of the marketshare

Positive feedback, negative framing manipulation
InfoScan is estimated to fail to capture 25% of the marketshare

Negative feedback, negative framing manipulation
InfoScan is estimated to fail to capture 75% of the marketshare

Manipulations from Draft #472,391 (December)

F-----g feedback, f-----g framing manipulation
F-----g InfoF-----gScan is f-----g estimated to f-----g capture f-----g of the f-----g marketf-----gshare. I don't give a f-----g f--- anymore. F---. F-----g f---!!!

Manipulations from Actual Experiment (January)

Positive feedback, positive framing manipulation
InfoScan is estimated to capture 75% of the marketshare

Negative feedback, positive framing manipulation
InfoScan is estimated to capture 25% of the marketshare

Positive feedback, negative framing manipulation
InfoScan is estimated to fail to capture 25% of the marketshare

Negative feedback, negative framing manipulation
InfoScan is estimated to fail to capture 75% of the marketshare

Manipulations à la Hwang Woo-suk

_______ feedback, ________ framing manipulation
InfoScan is estimated to _______ ______ of the marketshare
(Note: Randomly insert words later... I'll My researchers will fake everything later. Remember to buy stamps for submission to top rated academic journal.)

Filed under: Humour