Yesterday, 463 Communications and Zogby International officially joined forces in a joint venture aptly called Zogby463. Here's the deal from the official press release and here is what Andrew Noyes at the National Journal Tech Daily Dose had to say about the launch...
463 Communications, the Washington PR firm that represents Cisco Systems, VeriSign, the Consumer Electronics Association and other technology clients has formally joined with polling firm Zogby International to form Zogby463 -- an initiative that will track public opinions on a variety of topics pertaining to technology and the economy. The companies have been collaborating since 2005 on a range of strategic communications and opinion research projects for clients including the Tech CEO Council, Symantec, Skype, Dell, and IBM. "At the heart of every successful strategy is insightful data," 463 CEO Tom Galvin said. The joint venture will offer what Galvin called "evidence-based communications" that guide strategy decisions and drive and define policy debates.
To launch their partnership, 463 and Zogby hosted a Monday luncheon with remarks about U.S. innovation by former Republican National Committee Chairman Ed Gillespie, longtime tech lobbyist Chris Caine, and Democratic campaign veteran turned Silicon Valley entrepreneur Donnie Fowler. Caine, who recently started his own consulting firm after working for IBM, warned there is a "deep under-appreciation" in the United States about how extensively and rapidly the world is changing. "I don't think we've focused enough in the executive branch and legislative branch in being the most welcoming environment" for a new generation of global citizens, he said. Fowler noted the majority of venture capitalist money still comes from the United States and this country continues to offer the best universities and graduate programs in the world.
We thought that the release of polling data was only appropriate with this launch. Here's what some in the media have picked up on...
From the Wall Street Journal...
Nearly one in three adults believe that if the Internet shut down for three days, it would have a “dramatic impact” on their lives, according to a new high-technology opinion poll of 3,030 adults. The poll, from Zogby International and 463 Communications, also found that 50% of adults think that America should “focus on high-tech and jobs in the service industry” rather than traditional jobs in manufacturing.
About seven in 10 U.S. residents believe the next great technology entrepreneur will come from somewhere else, according to a new poll.
Asked where the next Bill Gates will come from, 29 percent of respondents in a new Zogby International poll said the U.S., while 28 percent said India, 15 percent said China and 11 percent said Japan. But the poll, released Monday, also found 67 percent of U.S. residents saying they believe the economic, educational and societal conditions still exist in the U.S. for another entrepreneur like the Microsoft founder to emerge...
...The respondents of the Zogby poll, however, seemed to question U.S. lawmakers' understanding of technology. Asked whether the average 10-year-old or a member of Congress knew more about the Internet, 83 percent went with the 10-year-old, and only 9 percent sided with the lawmakers....
...The Zogby poll asked U.S. residents to predict when the U.S. would come out of the current recession. Thirty-two percent said the U.S. would be the first major economy out of the recession, while 43 percent said the U.S. could come out of it at the same time as the rest of the world does, and 14 percent said the U.S. would come out after other major economies.
Nearly six in 10 respondents believe internet video sites like YouTube required some form of regulation, but the group split almost evenly on whether that system should be more like the Federal Communications Commission’s regulation of broadcast television, or the self-imposed rating system devised by the Motion Picture Association of America. Just over 30 percent said they believed any regulation of internet video would be unconstitutional.
Broken down along party lines, 34 percent of Republicans oppose any kind of regulation, while 36 percent of Democrats prefer the voluntary ratings used by the film industry. Self-identified independents are even more strongly against regulation, with 41 percent opposing any ratings at all. But independents supporting content ratings are fairly evenly divided, with 29% favoring the movie system and 25% favoring the television system.
There is lots more interesting data to come...
