<p> [E-business]</p><p>Case Study: IntellectExchange.com </p><p>Hed: Experts for Hire</p><p>Deck: Like the big guys, small companies can now find high-end expertise for their business solutions.</p><p>Summary: Businesses can connect with a pool of experts via the Web to find cost- effective answers for a variety of projects. Experts also have the opportunity to market their knowledge to businesses worldwide.</p><p>Pull quote: "The Web site was formed as a vehicle to marry the business community and the expert community, which was largely academic." -- Joseph Cortes, CFO, IntellectExchange.com</p><p>Movers and shakers often attribute their success to surrounding themselves with folks who know more than they do about key areas of their business. But what do you do if you’re a small company that can’t afford a resident expert or a pricey consulting firm?</p><p>A company called IntellectExchange.com may have some answers.</p><p>Founded in 1999 by Internet consultant William Spencer and former math professor Charles Hsu, the company is an online marketplace that provides businesses with access to knowledgeable experts in many fields including engineering, science, business and information technology. Based in Bedford, Mass., the company started with a boost of $3.2 million dollars in angel funding and expects its revenues to exceed $1 million in 2001. </p><p>Hsu, who taught at Stanford and UC-Berkeley, recognized that the academic community was a resource that had historically been under-utilized by the business world, particularly small to medium-sized businesses. "The Web site was formed as a vehicle to marry the business community and the expert community, which was largely academic," says IntellectExchange CFO Joseph Cortes.</p><p>Knowledge Linked to Success The company provides knowledge solutions in two ways -- by matching projects to qualified experts on its Web site and through a Corporate Expertise Exchange, a system designed for medium-to-large corporations that enables businesses to find expertise among its own employees. The Corporate Exchange connects to the public Web site if a match is not found internally.</p><p>IntellectExchange also provides companies with client advisory services and will oversee any activity that requires information resources. For instance, if a client inputs the type of expert he's looking for, within a few days' time he is provided with a list of internal and external experts, along with reports and studies pulled from IntellectExchange's knowledge center that will help him discover various ways to tackle his specific problem. These resources are free of charge; clients must pay only when engaging the services of experts.</p><p>Projects can cost as little as $400, although IntellectExchange jobs range from $1,000 to $2,000 and up for more in-depth projects. An accounting dilemma might cost as little as $400, but a time-consuming project costs much more.</p><p>For example, Dr. Guang Zhu is an associate professor in the Department of Biochemistry at the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. Zhu is responsible for carrying out competitive researches and wanted to conduct a particular experiment for biological NMR studies. Although he understood the general principles involved in his experiment, he needed detailed parameters that only a specialist could provide. Through IntellectExchange, he was able to connect with a scientist from Harvard University. By exchanging a series of e-mails, Dr. Zhu was soon convinced that he had the right expert for the job. They negotiated a price of $3,000 and he has since been successfully working on the experiment and expects to have the results soon. He was pleased that he could connect with a specialist without having to either travel to the United States or else arrange to fly the expert in to Hong Kong." This kind of learning process is much more economical," Zhu says.</p><p>Benefits for Experts and Users Cortes explains that the company works with two sets of customers: Users with specific technology or business problems, and experts with the knowledge, information and expertise to solve them. IntellectExchange has almost 3,000 registered experts as well as a proprietary database that can access 800,000 categorized experts worldwide. This vast resource of experts represents a worldwide list of academics, scientists, engineers and other specialists at the top of their professions.</p><p>The company seeks to recruit and maintain the most qualified professionals in its expert pool, and throughout the last four to six months has dropped a quarter of them in an effort to maintain the highest standards possible "We recruit, qualify and verify the experts very carefully," says Cortes. At Intellect Exchange, "you're not getting hearsay, you're getting experts who have built their careers learning and investing in their own human capital to be very well versed in a particular field."</p><p>New experts create an in-depth profile which is painstakingly checked and verified by the IntellectExchange staff, aided by a team of interns who help process and verify the accuracy of the information given. The experts are then ranked according to their background, training, body of work and years of experience in a particular field. IntellectExchange also seeks out and recruits experts from a host of industries and academic fields -- from advertising to biopharmaceutical to something as obscure as tin mining. Many experts will take on projects not just for monetary compensation, but for the opportunity to come up with innovative solutions to sometimes difficult and complex problems. </p><p>Using IntellectExchange doesn't take a rocket science expert: Businesses searching for experts simply log on to the IntellectExchange Web site and fill out a form that details the specific needs of their project. They can choose to make it public and allow experts to submit proposals, or keep it confidential and contact one or more experts. Then they are notified by e-mail when an expert responds and can choose whoever is the best match for the project. Payment is made to IntellectExchange, which keeps 15 percent of the experts' fees. Users can also rate experts, and those who receive a poor rating will be dropped from the IntellectExchange expert pool.</p><p>Project Meets Expert Michael McDonough, an English professor at Alfred University in N.Y., is an IntellectExchange expert who, in addition to his long academic career, spent years working at an advertising company where he developed expertise in direct mail marketing. He helped an owner of a small Internet company define his marketing strategy for a direct mail campaign, rewrote his marketing pieces, and directed him to resources he could use to develop future campaigns in order to become more self- sufficient. </p><p>The project had a successful outcome, largely because the client was able to clearly define the parameters of the job from the outset. The two were able to agree upon a set price, and the job was completed within about six days. McDonough figures he earned roughly $25 an hour in consulting fees, and based the quote on his sense of the nature of the job and this particular client's limited finances. With a fulltime teaching career, McDonough's work with IntellectExchange provides some extra income and the opportunity to work on a variety of interesting and short-term projects. </p><p>Although experts and users can agree on any pricing, expert hourly fees are typically higher, generally in the $200 an hour range. </p><p>Experts have the option of accepting or declining projects. McDonough recounts the experience he had with one businessman who seemed unable to define his goals clearly during the negotiation process. The man kept adding tasks that were not part of the original project's guidelines. "I just got a very bad feeling about it," says McDonough. "It afforded me the opportunity to say, 'Look, I don't think we're a good fit. I'm not interested in this project.'" He believes that initial communications between the expert and user is an opportunity for both parties to determine whether a good working relationship can occur or not. Although IntellectExchange is struggling to keep up with demand for its services, Cortes recognizes that in many ways it is a little ahead of its time. Businesses are naturally reluctant to invest money in acquiring help from an expert they barely know. Cortes' goal is to develop the IntellectExchange brand name by providing high-end expertise. Eventually, he hopes that when a company needs information such as a research study, they will naturally turn to IntellectExchange first as their knowledge source. The integration of the intranet product with the Web site will continue to be a selling point for corporations looking for viable solutions to a wide range of problems.</p><p>IntellectExchange often draws from its own pool of experts to find cost-effective answers to it own business challenges. Cortes says that the company has used experts for public relations issues, marketing ideas and help with accounting systems. "As a growing company, we're not going to have an internal expert for everything we need, so we post projects on the site," he says. "We're a big customer of our own product."</p><p>At a Glance Name: IntellectExchange.com URL: www.intellectexchange.com Location: Bedford, Mass. Founders: William Spencer and Charles Hsu Founded: September 1999 Industry: E-business Employees: 15 Revenues: $1 million dollars for 2000</p><p>Related Links: <a href="http://www.intellectexchange.com">IntellectExchange.com</a> <a href="http://boston.bcentral.com/boston/stories/2000/11/20/smallb1.html>Boston Business Journal</a> <a href="http://www.epronet.com/corporate/corporate_home/index.asp>ePronet.com</a></p><p>SOURCES:</p><p>Joseph Cortes CFO IntellectExchange.com 54 Middlesex Turnpike Bedford, MA 011730 Phone: 781-276-4691 email: [email protected]</p><p>Megan Barkume Director of Marketing IntellectExchange.com 54 Middlesex Turnpike Bedford, MA 011730 Phone: 781-276-4686 Fax: 781-276-4689 email: [email protected]</p><p>Dr. Guang ZHU, Associate Professor Dept. of Biochemistry The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology Clear water Bay, Kowloon, Hong Kong Fax 852-2358-1552 phone 852-2358-8705 email: [email protected]</p><p>Professor Michael McDonough Alfred University English Department 1 Saxon Dr. Alfred NY 14802 Phone: 607-871-2286 email: [email protected]</p>