After dozens of hours of research, I conceptualized a construct based off of the first three habits in Covey’s work: Be Proactive (H1), Begin with the End in Mind (H2), and Put First Things First. Covey calls the combination of these habits The Private Victory (PV), representing a growth in maturity, and the transition from dependence to independence. While I would have liked to have taken the study further by including all seven habits, doing so would have been impossible under to assignment’s time constraints.

Because all of my participants were college students, I chose to determine if the habits could predict effectiveness in a scholastic setting. I validated the PV construct against the Student Readiness Inventory (SRI). The SRI, is a multi-factor assessment designed to predict student performance. A total of 230 student participants from Rollins College took part my study, a significant proportion of the college’s approximately 1,800 Arts & Sciences students.

In my opinion, the study was quite successful. I’m extremely proud of what I accomplished, and believe that its results provide valuable insight into how to improve one’s personal effectiveness. In particular, academic success is highly related to goal-orientation, self-confidence, and commitment. The entire paper is embedded below, and is also available for download on SlideShare.

The Private Victory and the Student Readiness Inventory: Three Habits of Student Effectiveness by Sean Weigold Ferguson is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 3.0 United States License.

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A New Study on Stephen R. Covey’s 7 Habits of Highly Effective People

was brought to you by WellonTop Internet Research

I embarked upon my study of online competitive intelligence tools in late June of 2009. My muse for this project was a study by SEOmoz comparing the website analytics of 25 Internet marketing blogs with estimates made by intelligence tools such as Compete Site Profile and Alex Site Information. SEOmoz’s conclusion was that:

Based on the evidence we’ve gathered here, it’s safe to say that no external metric, traffic prediction service or ranking system available on the web today provides any accuracy when compared with real numbers.

I found the study exciting, but the results surprising and somewhat counterintuitive. Because research thrills me, I began pondering ways I could replicate their results with a larger and more diverse sample. I immediately saw an opportunity in a relative newcomer to the competitive intelligence industry: Quantcast.

Competitive Intelligence

Companies such as Quantcast that offer web analytics, competitive intelligence, and/or market research services generally gather information from one or more of  sources:

• Panels of Internet users
• Aggregate ISP data
• On-site direct measurement

Each of these methods has strengths and weaknesses. The current trend in the world of competitive intelligence is  to eschew relying on a single data source. Instead, companies are choosing to integrate two or more. Hypothetically, this allows them to compensate for the weaknesses of a single method.

Quantcast

Quantcast could be considered the pioneer of direct measurement in the competitive intelligence industry. Quantcast even compensates for the major weakness of direct measurement by employing cookie corrected audience data, taking into account …numerous factors including the frequency of visitation and the respective balance between work and home access to build a translation of cookies to people that is unique to each digital media property.

The Study

I began this study with the assumption that directly measured traffic data from Quantified websites are 100% accurate. I now know that reaching 100% accuracy with web analytics is virtually impossible. However, it is likely that a metric such as page views, which is not dependent on tracking cookies or JavaScript is as close to canon as is possible under current technological constraints.

Under this assumption, I have compared Quantcast’s direct measurements of websites to monthly traffic estimates given by services such as Alexa, Compete, and Google Ad Planner. Since June, I have conducted several pretests using smaller samples, culminating in the current analysis of more than 1,350 root domains. My correlations have remained fairly consistent regardless of sample size and month of data collection.

Further Exploration

I have gathered data on my sample from many other sources including search engines, social media services, and miscellaneous third-party tools. These additional variables give insight into the factors that mediate intelligence tool estimates. They also present the opportunity to conduct future analyses by identifying the factors that correlate with website traffic and user engagement.

I will be posting the results of my research this month, mediated only by the pace at which I can write about and display them. I strongly encourage you to leave questions and requests as comments on this post. I will make sure to address them in my analyses.

Special Thanks

I would like to thank Aaron Prebluda of Compete.com, and Danny Dover of SEOmoz for their support and patience. I truly appreciate your aid and advocacy. I am confident that you will find it was well worth your time.

How You Can Help

Interested in contributing to this study? I would greatly appreciate your taking my survey on the topic. It should take you less than a minute to complete. Make sure to send this post to your friends too. Thanks!

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Researching the Validity of Online Competitive Intelligence Tools – Introduction

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Based on my review of the literature, the most often cited tools for estimating website traffic are:

• Alexa Site Information
• Compete Site Profile
• comScore Media Matrix
• Google Ad Planner
• Hitwise Competitive Intelligence
• Nielsen NetRatings
• Quantcast Planner

If you are familiar with at least one of these tools, I would love to have your input. The survey below is very short; essentially one question. If you donate just one minute of your time to fill it out, I will greatly appreciate it and promise that you will receive a copy of the results.

I would like to collect a couple of hundred responses in order to report statistically significant results. If you know someone who might be interested in the topic, please point them in this direction. The easiest way to help is by simply retweeting this post, or sharing it your favorite social network.

Take the Survey

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Website Traffic – Are Competitive Intelligence Tools Accurate? (Survey)

was brought to you by WellonTop Internet Research