About The Intelligent Project
The Intelligent Project, LLC is a new kind of research and advisory-based knowledge services firm. In partnership with the Purdue University Energy Center at Discovery Park, principals David Steele and Peter Shaw founded this firm to provide clients with access to thought leadership in the area of smart grid customer strategy.
Smart Grid Customer Strategy
For smart grid programs to succeed, energy service providers must create measurable customer value by engaging customers as participants in new, smart grid processes. The Intelligent Project believes that the industry’s smart grid customer strategy requires focused innovation, fueled by customer-focused research and access to thought leaders in various customer experience disciplines. This is the research, facilitation and advisory role that The Intelligent Project serves in the smart grid industry.
The IP Vision
The Intelligent Project is unique in the industry. IP’s vision and passion is to combine subscription-based research and analysis and specialized consulting services with the most rewarding executive peer interactions available in the industry. Through our research and peer forums, executives become part of a highly-visible program dedicated to defining the industry’s benchmark for the smart grid customer experience—based on evolving customer needs and technical and financial requirements.
Expressions of IP’s commitment to this vision of a new kind of knowledge services firm include:
- Academic Affiliations. Academic credentials are critical tools for engaging in the highly politicized arena that is the smart grid. Accordingly, The Intelligent Project has developed global partnerships with university-based researchers who provide leveraged, highly-credible research and analysis of trends impacting the direction of smart grid and customer-focused business strategy.
- Public Policy Expertise. The smart grid will not develop without a new alignment between regulators, politicians, and industry. The Intelligent Project plays a key role in aligning stakeholder understanding of how customers win under smart grid programs. The The Intelligent Project management team, which includes former regulators and senior industry executives, convenes confidential forums for industry executives to interact with leading policy makers, regulators and opinion leaders.
- Peer Interactions. The Intelligent Project sets an industry standard for professionally run, engaging client forums. You will never experience “death by PowerPoint” at an IP Forum. We feature professional meeting facilitators, graphic artists who capture strategic ideas and action items on wall-sized murals, and research briefings. The experience we offer our clients when we convene for roundtable sessions surpasses that available anywhere else. The Intelligent Project creates highly differentiated peer interactions where industry executives debate policy and strategy and interact with thought leaders from industries known for technology and customer experience innovation.
- Customer Voice. The Intelligent Project is passionate about the energy user’s experience. More than any research services in the industry, The Intelligent Project elevates the customer dimension of the smart grid to its rightful, strategic priority: smart grid programs must engage customers and involve them as partners in the energy supply chain—on the customer’s terms. Understanding customers “where they live” is essential in this quest. To this end, IP conducts syndicated, voice-of-the-customer research exploring the connections between customer expectations, behavior, education needs and strategies for improving engagement.
- Multimedia Content. The Intelligent Project believes in the power of multimedia as a tool for education and engagement. The Intelligent Project partners with videographers and full-service, post-production studios to produce video montages of customer interviews revealing the diversity of customer needs and perceptions as relates to information and services. This content, available to clients by subscription, serves both the market research and stakeholder education agendas of energy service providers.
The Intelligent Project strives to be a different kind of knowledge services firm at a time when the energy services industry is facing unprecedented pressure to change “business as usual.” The Intelligent Project provides clients with a set of research services, learning venues and customer engagement tools designed to help industry executives access thought leadership, air out ideas with experts in related fields, and demonstrate to stakeholders their commitment to achieving smart grid customer leadership.
