USA Training (www.usatraining.com), one of our longest-standing clients, celebrated their 30th anniversary this year. Statco is honored to have provided our services to them for 15 of those years! Congratulations to USA Training for their success, we look forward to our continued partnership in the years to come!

The University of California-San Francisco (www.ucsf.edu) and The University of Texas-Austin (www.utexas.edu) have expanded their use of Statco’s survey data-capture services in 2011. This year our survey processing for government and university research organizations grew substantially! Statco has provided data-capture solutions for researchers for over 50 years and we understand the goals of these clients. Our services allow our clients to meet their grant reporting and delivery requirements on-time and under budget!

This year we welcome Academy Sports + Outdoors (www.academy.com) and Whole Foods Market (www.wholefoods.com) to our growing list of clients. They will benefit from our accurate data-capture and timely processing of their customer contact information, which allows them the ability to establish communication with their customers quicker.

This fall students across the country raised millions of dollars for school sponsored programs through a unique fundraising program — selling ready to bake cookie dough. Statco was very pleased to provide the data processing support needed to process orders from students for Otis Spunkmeyer’s cookie dough and other products.

Statco provided support in preparing and reviewing the order forms for data entry, order processing, document scanning, producing statistical reports and information for student awards. With all this, school event sponsors were able to access and receive order reports to help them easily pick up the student’s orders on distribution day. Also, sponsors received statistical report documents through an on-line document management system.

Between September and November the program covered 450+ elementary, middle, high school fundraising events for various PTA, PTO, athletic, music and service organizations.  Over 58,000 students participated in these school sponsored events and they raised over $2.8 million for their organization’s projects.

Statco processed all order forms within 24 hours of receipt and delivered product order transaction files to Otis Spunkmeyer’s supply chain system electronically - the same day. Both sales forces for the school sponsors and Otis Spunkmeyer received order form images, detailed and summary statistical reports in 48 hours via a web-based document management system.

Otis Spunkmeyer and Statco are excited about the results of the fall 2010 fundraising event season for all the participating schools and students. We anticipate continued success for the Spring and Fall 2011 seasons. For more information on how your service organization can benefit from Otis Spunkmeyer products visit their fundraising page. If you like to see how Statco might help solve some data processing requirements of your company, please see our web site.

and how we can differentiate between them…

Some of the most fulfilling moments at the office for me are conversations I have with people about their data processing projects. Even after 22 years of talking with clients and prospects, I still enjoy giving advice and solving their challenges through lively discussions. Many times I receive calls from prospects which start out like this…

Prospect:   “Hi – I have a need for data – capture,  err.. data – entry ,,ummm data –conver-well…   if I describe what I have, can you help me with what service I need?

Me: “Why of course, I would be happy to help you!”

Prospect: ” I have this paper form and it has a bunch of handwritten information that I want in a database.”

Me: “Terrific, let’s talk about your project and see which data processes and technology might best suit your data capture and conversion project”

The terms Data Capture, Data Entry, Data Conversion and Data Collection are used interchangeably and basically address the same result – transfer information from one media form to another. However, we often associate different processes and technology with different terms.

The following are not meant to be absolute definitions of these terms, just a way to think about the term and the related technology and processes behind them:

· Data Capture – a device reads information from one media form and transports it to another media form. Examples are bar code reader, paper scanners using OCR (optical character recognition) technology transferring text information to data files.

· Data Entry – the manual typing information from one media form to another. Examples are people looking at a paper document or scanned image of a document and typing the text into a data file.

· Data Collection – is the process of gathering information and delivering to a media form. It is similar to Data Capture, but often has a manual process to it since marking or handwriting text onto a form or recording device might be part of the information transport process.

The terms Media Conversion and Data Conversion are also often used interchangeably, which can be confusing.

· Usually, Media Conversion is the process of converting information files directly from one media form to another without interpolation or conversion of the information inside the file being transferred. Some examples are converting VCR tape video files to DVD disk files OR using a hardware technology and software processes to read diskettes and transfer data files to CD-Rom disks.

· While, Data Conversion refers to the process used to read information from the media and when applying a set of rules interprets and changes or replaces the information. Examples are converting a date from August 13, 2009 to 08/13/2009 or 2009/08/13 or a name from “Joseph E. Jones” to “Jones, Joseph E.”

Understanding these terms in more detail may help you when describing your next “data” processing project.

Wondering if peak period sourcing can help your company complete projects in a timely manner? Check out STATCO President Bill Krautter’s blog on the topic.

For many years and to most of our clients and customers in 1959 – 2008 we looked like this: and starting on March 23, 2009 we will look a little updated.. No too bad for a 50 year-old!