The Advanced Strategy Center, in conjunction with our founding Partner, Douglas Griffen, have developed a series of important business-to-business relationships with strategic research firms, software vendors, and consulting organizations that help us co-market, support or leverage our Advanced Strategy Lab series of offerings.  In some cases these are formal business partner relationships and in some cases these are informal arrangements that have developed in the course of the delivery of common engagements.  We greatly value these business partners and relationships and the Center will continue to look for ways of supporting a variety of customer organizations that share a common interest in high impact electronic brainstorming tools and techniques.  Current Advanced Strategy Center business partners and relationships are listed below, including a description of the organization, how it utilizes our ASL offerings, and their contact information including website link:

ASC partner, Wirthlin Worldwide, was recently acquired by Harris Interactive Inc. (www.harrisinteractive.com), the 15th largest and fastest-growing market research firm in the world, is a Rochester, N.Y.-based global research company that blends premier strategic consulting with innovative and efficient methods of investigation, analysis and application. Known for The Harris Poll® and for pioneering Internet-based research methods, Harris Interactive conducts proprietary and public research to help its clients achieve clear, material and enduring results.  Harris is a partner with ASC Founder Douglas Griffen in the ongoing development of the Advanced Strategy Lab and uses this technique widely in their research and consulting sessions.  While many of Harris’s sessions are held at client and research locations across the country, a number of executive level and research level sessions are held annually here at the Advanced Strategy Center at Pinnacle Peak.  Harris employs a disciplined process known as Strategic Equity Management (SEM) in helping its clients build brands, manage crisis situations, strengthen customer satisfaction, improve employee loyalty, enhance their internet presence and develop new products.  For further information on Harris Interactive, please visit their website at www.harrisinteractive.com or call their headquarters located in Rochester at 877.919.4765.

GroupSystems Corporation, the world’s leader in team collaborative thinking software, reshapes how organizations collaborate and make decisions – from live meetings to anywhere in the world at anytime. GroupSystems (formerly known as Ventana Corporation) transforms traditional team collaboration into efficient, productive events by offering an effective means of accelerating any problem-solving and decision-making process.  The Advanced Strategy Center features their current set of MeetingRoom and WorkGroup Edition tools, and we also use this software in our mobile laptops labs as well.  Originally known as Ventana Corporation, GroupSystems.com was the outgrowth of a major research project with IBM and the University of Arizona in the early 1990’s.  Our Center is used for education and training of the product, and members of our Center facilitation staff are certified instructors and facilitators in the use of the tools.  For further information on GroupSystems.com, please visit their website at www.groupsystems.com, or call their headquarters in Broomfield, CO at 800.368.6338.

QUMA Learning is a Mesa, Arizona based consultancy that helps organizations leverage their employee resources and intellectual assets through an approach called The Ownership Spirit.  The Ownership spirit is a comprehensive organizational model that links the overall vision of an organization to every individual in that organization.  Through leadership sessions and computer based training and tools, QUMA Learning has worked with a variety of Fortune 500 government, educational and commercial organizations to help ignite the human spirit in those organizations.  On a number of occasions, QUMA Learning has used the Advanced Strategy Center to help develop the organization vision and strategies of their clients, and then used their own proprietary tools to then better connect the full organization.  For further information on QUMA Learning, please visit their website at www.quma.net, or call their headquarters location in Mesa at  480.545.8311.

Mission Facilitators International
For 14 years MFI has been developing and delivering training, consulting and coaching services for Fortune 500 companies.  Their proven track record in leadership development is focused on everyone within a company (not just those with the title of “leader”) who impacts company strategy and/or deals directly with customers.  MFI combines consulting, training and individualized coaching competencies to create total leadership development solutions that help organizations achieve its mission and become more efficient and profitable.  For more information, visit www.missionfacilitators.com or call Dean Newlund  at 623-444-2164.

WestGroup Research is an Arizona based full service research company headquartered in Phoenix with over 40 years of experience in providing market research services for Valley clients.  WestGroup provides recruiting services, focus group facilities, analytical tools and a wide variety of customer research methods.  Because of their high interest in advanced research methods, including collaborative tools and techniques, WestGroup now offers its clients the ability to use our Advanced Strategy Center for larger strategy and focus group sessions.  Additionally, WestGroup can also support its clients with smaller Advanced Strategy Lab sessions using our software at their facilities in Phoenix.  For further information on WestGroup Research, please visit their website at www.westgroupresearch.com, or call their headquarters location in Phoenix at 602.707.0050.

WebIQ is a provider of internet-based online collaborative tools and is based in Silver Springs, Maryland.  The Advanced Strategy Center now uses the WebIQ toolset in conducting Internet based sessions in an approach we call the Advanced Strategy Lab Online.  WebIQ employs a browser-based system that enables virtually anyone with internet access to participate in facilitated collaborative sessions.  A unique aspect of the Advanced Strategy Center is the idea of a ‘blended’ session where we may have a set of in person participants, say a 10 member strategy team at the Center, and also have remote members of the team simultaneously connected to the session, along with a parallel voice call.  Members of our Center have developed significant skills in facilitating online sessions, and also can provide WebIQ training.  For further information on WebIQ, please visit their website at www.webiq.net, or call their headquarters location in Silver Springs at 301.587.9096.

GoalMakers, with offices in Scottsdale, Seattle and Salem, coaches succesful entrepreneurs to define and accomplish their goals. GoalMakers works on-site with the CEO and management team to transition from the "do it my way" style of the past to the "let's make our goals together" goal achievement style of the future. They focus on your goals from the start, personally participating on-site and coaching your team throughout the implementation process. GoalMakers can coach you to continually grow beyond your current set of management skills and acheive your goals in an exciting and rewarding work environment. GoalMakers has used the Advanced Strategy Center for client strategic planning sessions that provided them with the baseline plan necessary for coaching and implementation with their client. For additional information about GoalMakers please visit their website at www.goalmakers.com or contact John Cioffi at 425.222.9333.

RANA International Inc. has been a federally incorporated 100% Canadian owned company since 1993. It has international affiliations, offering integrated organizational and management development services in Canada and abroad. They are a matrix of some twenty full time principals and affiliated consultants, all of whom have extensive experience as process consultants and organization development experts in government, industry, and the NGO sectors. The majority of RANA associates are Fellows or Honored Fellows of the Canadian Institute for Conflict Resolution, are Certified Professional Facilitators accredited by the International Association of Facilitators, and are well-versed in all aspects of developing an organization's management and delivery processes. For more information on RANA, visit their website at www.ranaprocess.com or contact Paul Dobson at 613.284.0776.  For more information on the training programs being offered jointly by RANA and the Advanced Strategy Center, click here.