Consulting, Technology, Outsourcing & Business Glossary

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• .htaccess

  Hypertext access file, a file that allows you to manage web server configuration.

• 404 ("page Not Found" Error)

  An HTTP status code. It means that the server could not find the web page requested by the browser.

• Tag

  An element that indicates the header in an HTML document. The content of this element will not be displayed in a browser.

• A Priori Segmentation

  Market segmentation that involves segmenting markets on the basis of assumptions, custom or hunches.

• Accessibility

  The ability for users and search engines to access and comprehend content.

• Accuracy

  The ability of a measurement to match the actual value of the quantity.

• Acquisition

  The establishment of control in one business entity by another, often with the assistance of private equity. Third party acquisition is a common Exit Mechanism for private equity funds.

• Action Devices

  Action Devices is a direct marketing technique creating involvement by the respondent through the physical use of an involvement device. These devices are tokens or stamps that are used with the marketing material.

• Ad Blocker

  Ad blockers prevent an Internet browser from displaying online advertisements.

• Ad Tracking Research

  A study of tracking an advertisement over time. The performance of the advertisement is reported by the study throughout the duration.

• Affiliate Marketing

  A revenue sharing advertising between two websites. The website will display advertisement of the other website. Internet traffic from the affiliate site will be driven to the other website.

• Affinity Marketing

  Targeting consumers on the basis of their buying patterns.

• Agent

  A market intermediary that assists in the structuring of a private equity transaction.

• Angel

  A wealthy individual who invests in entrepreneurial firms. Although angels perform many of the same functions as venture capitalists, they invest their own capital rather than that of institutional or other individual investors.

• Anthropomorphic

  A method of research requiring respondents to assign human like characteristics to inanimate objects.

• API

  Application Programming Interface allows users to get a data feed directly into their own sites, providing continually updated, streaming data — text, images, video — for display. For example, Facebook‘s API might allow you to display photos from the site on your blog. When sites like Twitter and Facebook “open up” their APIs, it means that developers can build applications that build new functionality on top of the underlying service.

• App

  An app is simply an application that performs a specific function on your computer or handheld device. Apps run the gamut from Web browsers and games to specialized programs like digital recorders, online chat or music players. app is popularized in the general lexicon by the iPhone

• Applied Research

  Purpose of the research is to discover results that can be applied to the current need.

• ASCII Language

  Abbreviation for American Standard Code for Information Exchange. A character encoding centered on the English alphabet.

• Asterisk Bills

  A law preventing telephone interviewers or telemarketing calling the number of subscribers requesting not to be contacted.

• Astroturfing

  Astroturfing is a fake grassroots campaign that seeks to create the impression of legitimate buzz or interest in a product, service or idea. Often this movement is motivated by a payment or gift to the writer of a post or comment or may be written under a pseudonym.

• Asynchronous Research

  The method by which the respondent records their response on their own time. The response is not prompted by a event or question.

• At-Home Testing

  The conusumer is allowed to bring the product home for testing. The respondent provides product information and reaction in a telephone survey.

• Audit

  Examination of the marketing plan. The marketing plan is researched before implementation. Internal and external influences are evaluated for plan adjustment.

• Augment

  Process of increasing the amount of research interviews for a particular subgroup within the population.

• Average Company Financing

  The dollar value of total capital invested divided by the total number of investee firms in a given period.

• B Corp

  A B corporation is a designation for a socially responsible company that takes not just profits into account but also employees, communities and the environment.

• B2B Exchanges

  Online market places where businesses can offer specific companies products or services at discounted prices, products or services through an auction, and buyers can receive attractive bids.

• Baby Boom

  America's largest generation consisting of Americans who born after World War II.

• Back Checking

  The consumer is contacted after the research and questioned about the interview. This process authenticates the collected data by ensuring responses were provided by the actual consumer.

• Back Room

  This room is used to listen and observe qualitative research by researchers. Room is hidden from the observed focus groups by a one-way mirror. Also known an observation or viewing room.

• Balanced Fund

  A private equity fund strategy whereby a wide range of investment targets is pursued, as distinct from a Specialized Fund.

• Basic Research

  The method conducted to gain knowledge as opposed to research aimed to solve problems.

• Bayesian Statistics

  Probability calculations are derived from statistics which include previous knowledge as well as aggregate experience.

• Benchmark

  Source used as a target to compare to a similar project or product.

• Bias

  A misrepresentation of the population from the taken sample. Interviewing, techniques, data entry, question wording and a non-representative sample cause biases.

• Bimodal

  A mode consists of a single peak. A two-peaked frequency curve distribution.

• Bivariate Techniques

  Multiple strategies to analyze how two different variables relate to one another.

• Blind Study

  The product or brand is hidden from the consumer during the testing.

• Blog

  A blog is an online journal that’s updated on a regular basis with entries that appear in reverse chronological order. Blogs can be about any subject. They typically contain comments by other readers, links to other sites and permalinks.

• Boundary Files

  Physical features that border a market area recognized by a computer.

• Box Plot

  Visual tool used to graph the data and exposed outliers.

• Brand

  The physical attributes of a product. A unique combination of name and logo of the product should evoke in the mind of the audience.

• Brand Associations

  The Consumers opinions of brand that are generally analyzed by qualitative research.

• Brand Impact

  A method used to measure the effectiveness of advertising.

• Break Off

  The consumer decides to terminate the research before completion. This is for self-administered surveys with research conducted by an actual interviewer.

• Bricks And Mortar

  Company which requires consumers to travel to a location in order to have access to the company's products.

• Bridge Financing

  Capital provided on a short-term basis to a company prior to its going public or its next major private equity transaction.

• Briefing

  A discussion between a client and the researcher designed to find the efficient research technique for the client's needs.

• Burn Rate

  The rate at which a company requires additional cash to keep going.

• Business Intelligence

  Information considered for company planning, decision and strategy making. Business Intelligence relies upon data mining solutions and data analytic tool.

• Business To Business (B2B)

  B2B market consists of a business selling its product to another business instead of selling to consumers.

• Business To Consumer (B2C)

  The market of a business selling a product or service to a consumer, not to the another business.

• Buying Behavior

  When the buyers go through a process of deciding whether or not to purchase goods or services. This can be influenced by external factors and motivations including marketing activity.

• Buying Intent

  A method used to measure the level to know that a participant intents to buy a particular product.

• Buyout Capital

  A specialized form of private equity, characterized chiefly by risk investment in established private or publicly listed firms that are undergoing a fundamental change in operations or strategy. Buyout funds are often called such, even if their mandates are not exclusively buyout-related.

• Call Record Sheet

  A document that interviewers use to record which numbers they have tried as well as what is the result of the call.

• Callback

  A follow-up with someone where contact was established. If a person was not contacted on the first attempt.

• Campaign

  An online campaign is a set of coordinated marketing messages, delivered at intervals, with a specific goal, such as raising funds for a cause or candidate or increasing sales of a product.

• Capital Available For Investment

  The total dollar value of Capital Under Management less those resources that have already been invested by a private equity fund. Also known as liquidity.

• Capital Commitment

  Resources flowing from individual, institutional and other external sources to private equity funds.

• Capital Under Management

  The total dollar value of capital resources, both invested and un-invested, in a private equity fund or market as a whole.

• CAPTCHA

  Abbreviation for Completely Automated Public Turing test to tell Computers and Humans Apart.

• Carried Interest

  The substantial share, often around 20%, of profits that are allocated to the general partners of a venture capital partnership.

• Category Usage

  Certain products among a population requiring a study. Category Usage is an incident rate for that product.

• Causal Research

  Research that attempts to explain the relationship between two different variables.

• Cause Marketing

  Cause marketing is a business relationship in which a for-profit and a nonprofit form a partnership that results in increased business for the for-profit and a financial return for the nonprofit.

• Census

  A survey that is administered to an entire population.

• Central Limit Theorem

  Theory that states that if you have a collection of a large number of sample, the means will have a normal distribution of the population used for the sample.

• Central-Location Study

  A study that takes place at a physical site that is convenient for all participants to access.

• Chi-Square

  A statistical test that measures the accuracy between the expected distribution and the observed distribution.

• Chinese Walls

  Arrangements that prevent sensitive information being passed between different parts of the same organization, to prevent a conflict of interest or breach of confidentiality.

• Choice Modeling

  Choice analysis involves conjoint research in which the results must match with the current market responses.

• Churn

  The amount of consumers that leave a panel during a specific time frame.

• Civic Media

  Civic media is any form of communication that strengthens the social bonds within a community or creates a strong sense of civic engagement among its residents.

• Clarifying

  A method used to follow up on open-ended responses by asking participants to explain their response to make it more clearer.

• Closed-End Question

  A question that offers the consumer answers from which they must choose from.

• Cloud Computing

  Cloud computing (also called “the cloud”) refers to the growing phenomenon of users who can access their data from anywhere rather than being tied to a particular machine.

• Co-investment

  Two or more investors in a given transaction. Also known as syndication. The average rate of co-investment is the total number of investments made in the total number of deals in a given period.

• Coding

  A process used to quantify data so that it can be used to statistical analysis and data processing.

• Cognitive Dissonance

  Consumers will try to rationalize their purchase by focusing on the advantages to the product they bought.

• Comment Spamming

  Refers to indiscriminate postings, on blog comment columns or message boards, of advertisements, etc. that bear no connection to the contents of said pages.

• Committed Capital

  Pledges of capital to a venture capital fund. This capital is drawn down over the life of the fund.

• Common Stock

  The equity typically held by management and founders. Typically, at the time of an initial public offering, all equity is converted into common stock.

• Compact HTML

  Markup language resembling HTML; it is used when creating web pages that can be displayed on mobile phones and with PHS and PDA.

• Company Buyback

  The redemption of private stock by the management of a Portfolio Company. This is a common Exit Mechanism for private equity funds

• Comparative Scales

  Scales that require consumer to judge an objectas compared to another in the same category.

• Completion Rate

  Percentage of qualified consumers involved with completed interviews or surveys.

• Concept Description

  The brief summary to describe a new product or service.

• Concept Testing

  To judge market responses new ideas or their implementation.

• Conceptual Mapping

  A technique used to understand how consumer view products or services by assign the products or services to certain areas of a diagram. Primarily this is used to discuss that why certain products or services are viewed in a particular way.

• Concurrent Validity

  Using the past results to predict a current project because of valid measurement techniques.

• Confidence Intervals

  A statistical range that is placed to ensure that the true population parameter will be included in the survey results.

• Consolidation

  A private equity investment strategy that involves merging several small firms together and exploiting economies of scale or scope.

• Consumer Behavior

  Buying trends and habits of consumers in the purchasing and usage of products and services.

• Consumer Drawings

  A method in which participants are asked to express their perceptions about a product by drawing.

• Consumer Expenditure

  The amount that expresses what consumers put toward a purchase on goods and services.

• Consumer Orientation

  It is the process of finding specific firms/individuals that might be interested in purchasing the company's products or services.

• Convertible Equity Or Debt

  A security that can be converted under certain conditions into another security (often into ordinary shares). The convertible shares often have special rights that the ordinary shares do not have.

• Copyleft

  A play on the word copyright, copyleft is the practice of using copyright law to remove restrictions on distributing copies and modified versions of a work for others and requiring that the same freedoms be preserved in modified versions.

• Corporate Fund

  A private equity fund that is a division or subsidiary of a financial or industrial corporation to invest in other firms outside the corporation.

• Corporate Venture Capital

  An initiative by a corporation to invest either in young firms outside the corporation or units formerly part of the corporation. These are often organised as corporate subsidiaries, not as limited partnerships.

• Crawl

  Exploration of websites by search engine software (bots) in order to index their content.

• Creative Commons

  Creative Commons is a not-for-profit organization and licensing system that offers creators the ability to fine-tune their copyright, spelling out the ways in which others may use their works.

• Crowdsourcing

  Crowdsourcing refers to harnessing the skills and enthusiasm of those outside an organization who are prepared to volunteer their time contributing content or skills and solving problems.

• CSR

  CSR is short for corporate social responsibility, a concept whereby businesses and organizations perform a social good or take responsibility for the impact of their activities.

• CSS

  Abbreviation for Cascading Style Sheets; a language for defining the design and layout of a web page.

• Data Mining

  Data mining is the ability to query large data sets. It requires advanced skills and is a very promising solution.

• Data Protection

  National and international laws that cover the appropriate methods to be used in protecting data privacy. They have guidelines to be followed for data privacy.

• Data Warehouse

  A data warehouse is a massive collection of essential business intelligence.

• Database Management Software

  Computer Software that manages data and allows the user for saving and updating the data. That can be effectively used and manipulated later.

• Deal Flow

  The rate at which business plans are received by a venture capital fund over a certain timeframe.

• Digital Inclusion

  Digital inclusion, or e-inclusion, is an effort to help people who are not online gain access with affordable hardware, software, tech support/information and broadband Internet service, so they can begin to use this technology to improve their lives.

• Digital Story

  A digital story is a short personal nonfiction narrative that is composed on a computer, often for publishing online or publishing to a DVD. They are told from the narrator’s point of view and the subject is generally about something the maker experienced personally. Digital stories typically range from 2-5 minutes in length (though there are no strict rules) and can include music, art, photos, voiceover and video clips. They are also typically created by one person with little technical training, rather than by a team of professionals.

• Disbursement

  The actual dollar amount flowing from a private equity fund or funds to a company in a given transaction

• Distressed Debt

  A private equity investment strategy that involves purchasing discounted bonds of a financially distressed firm. Distressed debt investors frequently convert their holdings into equity and become actively involved with the management of the distressed firm.

• Divestiture Financing

  Capital provided to a company to facilitate the sale of its interest in a product, division or subsidiary to another business entity.

• Domain

  An address on the Internet that indicates the location of a computer or network. These are administrated to avoid duplication.

• Double Bottom Line

  The double bottom line refers to a business’s attention to both conventional profit and loss as well as to the social good. An increasing number of companies and organizations now seek a second bottom line look to measure their performance.

• Down Road

  A round of financing where typically new investors purchase stock from a company at a lower valuation than the valuation placed upon the company by earlier investors.

• Drop-down Menu

  A system in which one chooses content from a menu. When one clicks on the menu, the list of choices are displayed in a list in a drawn out manner.

• Drupal

  Drupal is a free, open-source platform and content management system written in php. It is often used as a “back end” system that powers community features on many different types of sites, ranging from personal blogs to large corporate and political sites.

• Due Diligence

  The process of assessing the business and financial viability of a potential investment target, as well as the potential terms and conditions of an investment agreement.

• E-sourcing

  Internet-based outsourcing that takes advantage of the application service provider delivery model.

• Early Stage Financing

  Capital provided to a young or emerging company to facilitate its growth and development, as illustrated in Seed Financing and Start-up Financing.

• Earn-out

  Part of the price of a transaction, which is conditional on the performance of the company following the deal

• Ebooks

  An ebook (or e-book) is an electronic version of a traditional printed book that can be downloaded from the Internet and read on your computer or handheld device.

• Embedding

  The act of adding code to a website so that a video or photo can be displayed while it’s being hosed at another site. Many users now watch embedded YouTube videos or see Flickr photos on blogs rather than on the original site.

• Employee Buyout Financing

  Capital provided to facilitate the takeover of all or part of a business entity by employees or a labor organization

• Exercise Price

  The strategic means by which a private equity fund liquidates its stake in a business and achieves optimal returns. There are multiple exit routes, including Acquisition, Company Buyback, Initial Public Offering, Secondary Purchase and Write-off.

• Expansion

  To grow and expand an established company. For example, to finance increased production capacity, product development, marketing and to provide additional working capital. Also known as “development” or “growth” capital.

• Expansion Financing

  Capital provided to a company to facilitate its growth and development objectives.

• Factoring Companies

  Provide finance by buying trade debts at a discount, either on a recourse basis (you retain the credit risk on the debts) or on a non-recourse basis (the factoring company takes over the credit risk)

• Fair Trade

  Fair trade is an organized social movement and market-based approach that aims to help producers in developing countries obtain better trading conditions and promote sustainability. The movement advocates the payment of a higher price to producers and adherence to social, labor and environmental standards.

• Fair Use

  Fair use is a doctrine in U.S. law that permits limited use of copyrighted material without obtaining the permission of the copyright holder, such as use for scholarship or review. Fair use is delineated in Section 107 of the U.S. Copyright Code.

• Financings And Investments

  Each transaction involving a private equity fund or funds in a given portfolio company represents one round of financing. Each financing is made up of one or more investments, depending on the presence of co-investors.Financings are also known as deals

• Firm

  The partnership which manages a venture capital fund. One firm might manage more than one fund

• First Closing

  The initial closing of a fund

• First Fund

  An initial fund raised by a venture capital organisation

• First Round

  The first investment in a company made by external investors.

• Flash

  Web technology or software developed by Adobe Systems Incorporated. It is able to create web content that combines sound, video and animation.

• Flash Mob

  A flash mob is a group of individuals who gather and disperse with little notice for a specific purpose through text messages, social media or viral emails.

• Float

  In a public market context, the percentage of the company's shares that is in the hands of outside investors, as opposed to being held by corporate insiders

• Flotation

  To obtain a quotation or IPO on a stock exchange, such as the Australian Stock Exchange or the NASDAQ

• Follow-on Financing

  A supplementary round of financing in an existing Portfolio Company that builds on its original financing, generally in line with business growth and development. Venture-backed firms are often engaged in multiple follow-on deals.

• Follow-on Fund

  A fund that is subsequent to a venture capital organisation's first fund

• Follow-on Offering

  An offering by a firm that has already competed an initial public offering and whose shares are already publicly traded

• Fund

  A pool of capital raised periodically by a venture capital organisation. Usually in the form of limited partnerships, venture capital funds typically have a ten-year life, though extensions of several years are often possible.

• Fund Manager

  The professional manager of a private equity fund or funds

• Fund Of Funds

  A fund that invests primarily in other venture capital funds rather than portfolio firms, often organised by an investment adviser or investment bank

• Fund-raising

  The activity whereby a private equity fund seeks to raise new Capital Commitments from external sources of supply.

• Gatekeeper

  A professional advisor or intermediary operating in the private equity market on behalf of clients, such as institutional investors

• Gearing, Debt/equity Ratio Or Leverage

  The total borrowings of a company expressed as a percentage of shareholders’ funds

• Geotagging

  Geotagging is the process of adding location-based metadata to media such as photos, video or online maps. Geotagging can help users find a wide variety of businesses and services based on location.

• Google AdWords

  An advertising service which places relevant advertisements on search results pages and other content. When a user searches for keywords using Google, AdWords advertisements related to those keywords are displayed on the right, top and/or bottom of the search results pages alongside the organic search results.

• Government 2.0

  Government 2.0 is the term for attempts to apply the social networking and integration advantages of Web 2.0 to the practice of government.

• Government/State Fund

  A government-owned private equity fund, usually organized through a national or state agency.

• GPL

  GPL is short for GNU General Public License, often used with the release of open source software. An example of a copyleft license, it requires derived works to be made available under the same license.

• GPS

  GPS is shorthand for Global Positioning System, a global navigation satellite system. GPS-enabled devices — most commonly mobile handhelds or a car’s navigation system — enable precise pinpointing of the location of people, buildings and objects.

• Hashtag

  A hashtag (or hash tag) is a community-driven convention for adding additional context and metadata to your tweets. Similar to tags on Flickr, you add them in-line to your Twitter posts by prefixing a word with a hash symbol (or number sign). Twitter users often use a hashtag like #followfriday to aggregate, organize and discover relevant posts.

• Holding Period

  The length of time an investor holds all or part of their interest in a portfolio company

• Homesourcing

  As a substitute for outsourcing more companies are turning to service providers that provides homesourcing services using home-based agents to answer calls.

• Hosting

  A blog, video or podcast needs a hosting service before it can appear online. Companies sometimes host their blogs on their own servers, but a better choice for video or audio is to use a host such as YouTube, Viddler or Magnify.net for video and a host such as Libsyn for podcasts.

• HTML

  Abbreviation for HyperText Markup Language, a language used when describing web page documents. It denotes the basic elements of web pages, including the document text and any hyperlinks and images embedded within.

• HTTP Headers

  In HTTP (HyperText Transfer Protocol), different types of data that are sent off before the actual data itself.

• HTTP Status Code

  A code that expresses the meanings of responses from the server when computers are conveying information to each other. The code is allotted as three numerical digits, with a different meaning depending on the number used.

• Initial Public Offering (IPO)

  The sale or distribution of the privately-held stock of a Portfolio Company on public markets for the first time. This is a common Exit Mechanism for private equity funds, especially venture capital funds

• Insourcing

  Insourcing can refer to reducing your staffing and administration costs by contracting out a complete area of your operations to an external service provider.

• Institutional Buy-out (IBO)

  To enable a private equity firm to acquire a company, following which the incumbent and/or incoming management will be given or acquire a stake in the business. This is a relatively new term and is an increasingly used method of buy-out. It is a method often preferred by vendors, as it reduces the number of parties with whom they have to negotiate

• Institutional Investor

  Pension funds, insurance companies, endowments, charitable foundations, mutual funds and other non-bank financial institutions that are often key suppliers to private equity funds. In Canada, certain large institutional investors also have in-house programs for direct market activity.

• Institutional Venture Capital

  The organized market for venture activity, based on an industry of management firms and funds, as distinct from the informal investment market.

• Internal Rate Of Return (IRR)

  The discount rate equating the present value of cash outflows with the present value of cash inflows

• Internet Newsroom

  An Internet newsroom (sometimes called Internet pressroom or online media center) is an area of a corporate website that communicates corporate messages and makes content available to the news media and the public. Rather than just feature little-read press releases, a true Internet newsroom incorporates features such as videos, podcasts, high-resolution image galleries, surveys, forums, blogs and other online marketing communications materials.

• Investment Adviser

  A financial intermediary who assists investors, particularly institutions, with investments in venture capital and other financial assets. Advisers assess potential new venture funds for their clients and monitor the progress of existing investments. In some cases, they pool their investors' capital in funds of funds

• Investment Banks

  Financial institutions that organise the provision of medium to longer-term loans, usually for larger amounts than clearing banks. Later they can play an important role in the process of “going public” by advising on the terms and price of public issues and by arranging underwriting when necessary.

• Involuntary Exit

  Where the company goes into receivership or liquidation

• IRR: Internal Rate Of Return

  There are three versions of the internal rate of return - the arithmetic average, the capital weighted average, and the pooled average. The arithmetic average IRR for a sample would be the sum of the IRRs for the individual funds in the sample divided by the number of funds in the sample. The capital weighted average IRR is calculated in a similar manner, except the individual IRRs are weighted by fund size and affect the average in proportion to their size. Therefore, this average for the sample is skewed towards the larger funds. A pooled average IRR isn't actually an average, but one average calculated for the entire sample. In other words, instead of using the cash flows of the funds to calculate IRRs for each fund, the sample (and all of the accompanying cash flows) is treated as one fund and one IRR is calculated for it.

• JavaScript

  A type of programming language. It can add dynamic features to web pages and is used by many web services.

• Judgment Sample

  A non-probability sample comprised of individuals with judgments about the subject being researched.

• Jump Page Ad

  A jump page is a pop-up window directing the Internet user to a product or service. This usually occurs when the browser is loading up another page.

• Key Verifying

  A data entry process involving 2 or more individuals entering the same data for 100% accuracy.

• Keypunch

  The process of punching holes in a card by a machine for data processing.

• Keyword

  Keywords have significant relevancy to a specific web page. Keywords are purchased for ad placement on search engines.

• Knowledge Management

  Knowledge Management is a system that affords dissemination, control and usage of information.

• LBO

  Leveraged buyout, the acquisition of a firm or business unit, typically in a mature industry, with a considerable amount of debt

• Leveraged Buyout Fund

  A fund, typically organised in a similar manner to a venture capital fund, specialising in leveraged buyout investments. Some of these funds also make venture capital investments

• Lifecasting

  Lifecasting is an around-the-clock broadcast of events in a person’s life through digital media. Typically, lifecasting is transmitted over the Internet and can involve wearable technology.

• Lifestreaming

  Lifestreaming is the practice of collecting an online user’s disjointed online presence in one central location or site. Lifestreaming services bring photos, videos, bookmarks, microblog posts and blog posts from a single user into one place using RSS.

• Limited Partnership (LP)

  A legal fund structure most frequently used by Private-Independent Funds to raise capital from external sources, such as institutional investors. The primary relationship in this structure is the general partner (the fund manager) and the limited partner (the capital source)

• Lock-up

  A provision in the underwriting agreement between an investment bank and existing shareholders that prohibits corporate insiders and private equity investors from selling at the time of the offering.

• Management Buy-in (MBI)

  To enable a manager or group of managers from outside a company to buy into it.

• Management Buy-out (MBO)

  To enable the current operating management and investors to acquire or to purchase a significant shareholding in the product line or business they manage.

• Management Buyout Financing

  Capital provided to facilitate the takeover of all or part of a business entity by a team of managers.

• Management Company

  The professional manager of a private equity fund or funds.

• Management Fee

  The fee, typically a percentage of committed capital or net asset value, that is paid by a venture capital fund to the general partners to cover salaries and expenses

• Mashup

  Mashups (or mash-ups) have several meanings. A music mashup is a combination of two or more songs, generally the vocals of one song overlaid on top of the melody of another. A video mashup is the result of combining two or more pieces of video, such as news footage with original commentary. A Web mashup result when a programmer overlays information from a database or another source on top of an existing website, such as homes for sale taken from Craigslist plotted on a Google Map.

• Merger

  The strategic combination of one business entity with another, often with the assistance of private equity.

• Metadata

  Metadata refers to information including titles, descriptions, tags and captions that describes a media item such as a video, photo or blog post. Some kinds of metadata for example are camera settings such as exposure, aperture, focal length and ISO speed can be captured automatically from the device without needing a human to enter the data.

• Mezzanine Capital

  A specialized form of private equity, characterized chiefly by use of Subordinated Debt, or preferred stock with an equity kicker, to invest largely in the same realm of companies and deals as buyout funds (see: Event Transaction, Middle Market)

• Mezzanine Financing

  Late-stage venture capital, usually the final round of financing prior to an IPO.

• Microblogging

  Microblogging is the act of broadcasting short messages to other subscribers of a Web service. On Twitter, entries are limited to 140 characters, and applications like Plurk and Jaiku take a similar approach with sharing bite-size media. Probably a more apt term for this activity is “microsharing.”

• Mobile Sitemap

  An XML Sitemap that contains URLs of web pages designed for mobile phones. Submitting the URLs of mobile phone web content to Google notifies us of the existence of those pages and allows us to crawl them.

• Moblog

  A moblog is a blog published directly to the Web from a phone or other mobile device. Mobloggers may update their sites more frequently than other bloggers because they don’t need to be at their computers to post.

• Nearshoring

  Restructuring a company's workforce by moving jobs to a nearby foreign country.

• Net Neutrality

  Net neutrality is the principle requiring Internet providers to act as common carriers and not discriminate among content or users. for example, by providing degraded service to rich-media sites, by throttling file-sharing services, by penalizing customers who watch or download a lot of videos or by blocking Internet applications and content from competitors.

• Net Present Value (NPV)

  NPV is a standard method in the planning of long-term investments. Using the NPV method a potential investment project should be undertaken if the present value of all cash inflows minus the present value of all cash outflows (which equals the net present value) is greater than zero. A key input into this process is the interest rate, or “discount rate” which is used to discount future cash flows to their present values.

• News Reader

  A news reader (sometimes called a feed reader, RSS reader or news aggregator) gathers the news from multiple blogs or news sites via RSS feeds selected by the user, allowing her to access all her news from a single site or program. Popular examples include Google Reader, Netvibes and Bloglines (all accessed through a Web browser) and FeedDemon or NetNewsWire (applications that runs on one machine).

• NGO

  NGO stands for nongovernmental organization, an entity apart from the business and government sectors.

• Nptech

  Nptech is shorthand for nonprofit technology. nptech encompasses a wide range of technologies that support the goals of nonprofit, NGO, grassroots and other cause organizations.

• Open Directory Project (ODP)

  The world's largest volunteer-run web directory (a list of Internet links collected on a large scale and then organized by category).

• Open Media

  In its most common usage, open media refers to video, audio, text and other media that can be freely shared, often by using Creative Commons or GPL licenses. More narrowly, open media refers to content that is both shareable and created with a free format, such as Theora (video), Vorbis (audio, lossy), FLAC (audio, lossless), Speex (audio, voice), XSPF (playlists), SVG (vector image), PNG (raster image, lossless), OpenDocument (office), SMIL (media presentations) and others.

• Open Platform

  Open platform refers to a software system that permits any device or application to connect to and operate on its network.

• Open Source

  In its strict sense, open source refers to software code that is free to build upon. But open source has taken on a broader meaning such as open source journalism and open source politics to refer to the practice of collaboration and free sharing of media and information to advance the public good. Well-known open-source projects include the Linux operating system, the Apache Web server and the Firefox browser.

• Open Video

  Open video refers to the movement to promote free expression and innovation in online video. With the release of HTML5, publishers will be able to publish video that can be viewed directly in Web browsers rather than through a proprietary player.

• OpenID

  OpenID is a single sign-on system that allows Internet users to log on to many different sites using a single digital identity, eliminating the need for a different user name and password for each site.

• Option

  The right, but not the obligation, to buy or sell a security at a set price (or range of prices) in a given period.

• Paid Search Marketing

  Paid search marketing is the placement of paid ads for a business or service on a search engine results page. An advertiser pays the search engine if the visitor clicks on the ad (pay-per-click or PPC).

• Permalink

  A permalink is the direct link to a blog entry. A blog contains multiple posts, and if you cite an entry you’ll want to link directly to that post.

• Personal Media

  Personal media or user-created material refers to grassroots works such as video, audio and text. When the works are shared in a social space, the works are more commonly referred to as social media.

• Placement Agent

  A financial intermediary hired by venture organisations to facilitate the raising of new venture capital funds

• Placement Agent

  A financial intermediary hired by venture organisations to facilitate the raising of new venture capital funds.

• Platform

  A platform is the framework or content management system that runs software and presents content. WordPress, for example, is a service that serves as a platform for a community of blogs. In a larger context, the Internet is becoming a platform for applications and capabilities, using cloud computing.

• Podcast

  A podcast is a digital file (usually audio but sometimes video) made available for download to a portable device or personal computer for later playback. A podcast also refers to the show that comprises several episodes. A podcast uses a feed that lets you subscribe to it so that when a new audio clip is published online, it arrives on your digital doorstep right away.

• Podsafe

  Podsafe is a term created in the podcasting community to refer to any work that allows the legal use of the work in podcasting, regardless of restrictions the same work might have in other realms, such as radio or television use.

• Portfolio Company

  A business entity that has secured at least one round of financing from one or more private equity funds. Also known as an investee firm.

• Post-money Valuation

  The product of the price paid per share in a financing round and the shares outstanding after the financing round.

• Preference Shares

  These are non-equity shares. They rank ahead of all classes of ordinary shares for income and capital. Their income rights are defined and they are usually entitled to a fixed dividend.

• Preferred Stock

  Stock that has preference over common stock with respect to any dividends or payments in association with the liquidation of the firm. Preferred stockholders may also have additional rights, such as the ability to block mergers or displace management.

• Private Equity

  The generic term for the private market reflecting all forms of equity or quasi-equity investment. In a mature private equity universe, there are generally three distinct market segments: Buyout Capital, Mezzanine Capital and Venture Capital.

• Prospectus

  A condensed, widely disseminated version of the registration statement filed with the relevant securities and exchange commission outlining summary data about the firm.

• Proxy Service

  A computer that substitutes the connection in cases where an internal network and external network are connecting, or software that possesses a function for this purpose.

• Public Domain

  A work enters the public domain when it is donated by its creator or when its copyright expires. A work in the public domain can be freely used in any way, including commercial uses.

• Public Media

  Public media refers to any form of media that increase civic engagement and enhance the public good. The term often brings to mind public broadcasting such as PBS and NPR, but many initiatives and organizations that receive no public funding fall within the scope of public media.

• Q-Sorting

  A ranking process using card sorts.

• Qualifying Questions

  These questions are used to determine whether or not a consumer is qualified to proceed with the research interview or survey.

• Qualitative

  Qualitative data requires subjective analysis as it is not collected analytically. Focus groups, open-ended questions and interviews are all forms of qualitative research.

• Qualitative Variable

  A result that cannot be quantified but rather belongs to a classification or category.

• Quasi-Experiments

  A study that cannot be assigned to a consumer at random due to the requirement of a pioneer condition or a lack of control for scheduling.

• Questionnaire

  A group of carefully framed questions that would aid researchers in achieving necessary data to fulfill research objectives.

• Quota

  The required number of units.

• Quota Sample

  A set number of consumers that possess specific and identified characteristics. The sample is not random because of the specificity of the target consumers.

• Ratchets

  A structure whereby the eventual equity allocations between the groups of shareholders depend on either the future performance of the company or the rate of return achieved by the private equity firm.

• Re-capitalization Financing

  Capital provided for a significant overhaul of a company's financial structure.

• Redirect

  Being automatically transported from one specified web page to another specified web page when browsing a website.

• Referrer Log

  Referrer information that is written into the access log. When it is traced, one can find out from which sites visitors arrived.

• Refinancing

  The purchase of the venture capital investors' or others' shareholdings by another investment institution

• Rescue/turnaround

  To finance a company in difficulties or to rescue it from receivership.

• Restructuring/ Turnaround Financing

  Capital provided to a established firm, usually in a traditional sector, that is undergoing financial distress or a major re-organization, but is perceived as having long-term commercial viability.

• Road Show

  The marketing of a venture capital fund or public offering to potential investors

• Robots Exclusion Standard

  A convention to prevent cooperating web spiders/crawlers, such as Googlebot, from accessing all or part of a website which is otherwise publicly viewable.

• RSS Feed

  Data including full or summarized text describing an update to a site/blog. RSS is an abbreviation for RDF Site Summary; a service using a similar data format is Atom.

• Screen Reader

  Software for speaking on-screen information or outputting to a Braille display.

• Screencast

  A screencast is a video that captures what takes place on a computer screen, usually accompanied by audio narration. A screencast is often created to explain how a website or piece of software works, but it can be any piece of explanatory video that strings together images or visual elements.

• Search Engine

  Computer function that searches data available on the Internet using keywords or other specified terms, or a program containing this function.

• Search Engine Marketing

  Search engine marketing (SEM) is a series of online tactics that, when combined with SEO, helps to attract customers, generate brand awareness and build trust. SEM (sometimes called search marketing) seeks to increase websites’ visibility chiefly through the purchase of pay-per-click ads and paid inclusion.

• Search Engine Optimization

  Search engine optimization (SEO) is the process of arranging your website to give it the best chance of appearing near the top of search engine rankings. As an Internet marketing strategy, SEO considers how search engines work and what people search for. Optimizing a website primarily involves editing its content, identifying high-traffic keywords and improving the site’s layout and design.

• Search Query

  Single or multiple terms which are input by the user when performing a search on search engines.

• Secondary Offering

  An offering of shares that are not being issued by the firm, but rather are sold by existing shareholders. The firm consequently does not receive the proceeds from the sales of these shares.

• Secondary Purchase

  When a private equity firm acquires existing shares in a company from another private equity firm or from another shareholder or shareholders.

• Seed Financing

  Capital provided to facilitate commercialization of new product concepts, often from laboratories, research centers or entrepreneurs. If successful, a seed financing may result in a Start-up.

• Shareholders Agreement

  Agreement between the shareholders of a company relating to the ownership and management of the company.

• Shares Outstanding

  The number of shares that the company has issued.

• Short Code

  A short code is a mobile shortcut, a telephone number consisting of four to six digits that makes it easier for subscribers to vote, subscribe to a service, order ringtones and the like via SMS (eg., text HAITI to 90999 in order to contribute to the Red Cross’s relief efforts).

• Smart Phone

  A smart phone (or “smartphone”) is a handheld device capable of advanced tasks beyond those of a standard mobile phone. Capabilities might include email, chat, taking photos or video or hundreds of other tasks.

• SMS

  SMS stands for Short Message Service, a system that allows the exchange of short text-based messages between mobile devices.

• Snippet

  Text displayed beneath the title of a corresponding web page on the search results pages of a search engine. A web page summary and/or parts of the page that match the search keywords will be displayed.

• Social Bookmarking

  Social bookmarking is a method by which users locate, store, organize, share and manage bookmarks of Web pages without being tied to a particular machine. Users store lists of personally interesting Internet resources and usually make these lists publicly accessible. Delicious is the best-known social bookmark site.

• Social Capital

  Social capital is a concept used in business, nonprofits and other arenas that refers to the goodwill and positive reputation that flows to a person through his or her relationships with others in social networks.

• Social Enterprise

  A social enterprise is a social mission driven organization that trades in goods or services for a social purpose.

• Social Entrepreneurship

  Social entrepreneurship is the practice of simultaneously pursuing both a financial and a social return on investment (the “double bottom line”). A social entrepreneur is someone who runs a social enterprise (sometimes called a social purpose business venture), pursuing both a financial and social return on investment. Often, social entrepreneurs offer system-changing solutions for the world’s most urgent social problems.

• Social Media

  Social media are works of user-created video, audio, text or multimedia that are published and shared in a social environment, such as a blog, podcast, forum, wiki or video hosting site. More broadly, social media refers to any online technology that lets people publish, converse and share content online.

• Social Media Optimization

  Social Media Optimization (SMO) is a set of practices for generating publicity through social media, online communities and social networks. The focus is on driving traffic from sources other than search engines, though improved search ranking is also a benefit of successful SMO.

• Social Media Service

  A community-type web service that promotes and supports forging connections among fellow users.

• Social Networking

  Social networking is the act of socializing in an online community. A typical social network such as Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace or Bebo allows you to create a profile, add friends, communicate with other members and add your own media.

• Social News

  Sometimes called social sites, social news sites encourage users to submit and vote on news stories or other links, thus determining which links are showcased. Social news was pioneered by community sites like Slashdot, Metafilter, Fark and Kuro5hin.org. It became more popular with the advent of Digg and similar sites such as Reddit, Newsvine and NewsTrust.

• Social Return On Investment

  A social return on investment (SROI) refers to the non-financial returns sought by a social entrepreneur.

• Social Tools

  Social tools (sometimes called social software) are software and platforms that enable participatory culture — for example, blogs, podcasts, forums, wikis and shared videos and presentations.

• Specialized Fund

  A private equity fund strategy whereby the focus in on specific investment targets (e.g., sectors, stages of development), as distinct from a Balanced Fund.

• Splogs

  Splogs is short for spam blogs — blogs not providing their own or real content. Unscrupulous publishers use automated tools to create fake blogs full of links or scraped content from other sites in order to boost search engine results.

• Staging

  The provision of capital to entrepreneurs in multiple installments, with each financing conditional on meeting particular business targets. This helps ensure that the money is not squandered on unprofitable projects.

• Start-up Financing

  Capital provided to facilitate the first-time establishment of a legal company structure around a marketable product concept.

• Streaming Media

  Unlike downloadable podcasts or video, streaming media refers to video or audio that can be watched or listened to online but not stored permanently. Streamed audio is often called Webcasting. Traditional media companies like to stream their programs so that they can’t be distributed freely onto file-sharing networks.

• Subdomain

  A type of domain used to identify a category that is smaller than a regular domain.

• Subordinated Debt

  A financial instrument with qualities of both debt and equity, often used in transactions as an alternative, or complement to, pure equity.

• Succession Plan

  The basis for transfer of business ownership from one generation of managers to the next, often with the assistance of private equity.

• Sustainability

  In the nonprofit sector, sustainability is the ability is to fund the future of a nonprofit through a combination of earned income, charitable contributions and public sector subsidies.

• Tag Cloud

  A tag cloud is a visual representation of the popularity of the tags or descriptions that people are using on a blog or website. Popular tags are often shown in a large type and less popular tags in smaller type.

• Tags

  Tags are keywords added to a blog post, photo or video to help users find related topics or media, either through browsing on the site or as a term to make your entry more relevant to search engines.

• Technology Steward

  A technology steward is someone who can facilitate community and network development. Nancy White offers the definition: “Technology stewards are people with enough experience of the workings of a community to understand its technology needs, and enough experience with technology to take leadership in addressing those needs. Stewardship typically includes selecting and configuring technology, as well as supporting its use in the practice of the community.”

• Term Sheet

  A summary sheet detailing the terms and conditions of an investment opportunity.

• Terms Of Service

  Terms of service (TOS) are the legal basis upon which you agree to use a website, video hosting site or other place for creating or sharing content. Check before agreeing to concede the rights the site owners may claim over your content.

• Text Style

  Formatting, such as the font, size and color of the text.

• Tombstone

  An advertisement, typically in a major business publication, by an underwriter to publicise an offering that it has underwritten.

• Trade Sale

  The sale of the company's shares to another company, perhaps in the same industry sector.

• Triple Bottom Line

  The triple bottom line (sometimes abbreviated as “TBL” or “3BL”) is rapidly gaining recognition as a framework for measuring business performance. It captures the values that some organizations embrace: people, planet, profit — that is, social, environmental and economic factors.

• Troll

  In Internet slang, a troll is someone who posts controversial, inflammatory, irrelevant or off-topic messages in an online community, such as an online discussion forum or chat room, with the primary intent of provoking other users into an emotional response or to generally disrupt normal on-topic discussion.

• Tweet

  A post on Twitter, a real-time social messaging system. While all agree on usage of tweet as a noun, people disagree on whether you “tweet” or “twitter” as a verb. RT stands for retweet: Users add RT in a tweet if they are reposting something from another person’s tweet.

• Tweetup

  An organized or impromptu gathering of people who use Twitter. Users often include a hashtag, such as #tweetup or #sftweetup, when publicizing a local tweetup.

• Twitterverse

  Akin to blogs and the blogosphere, the Twitterverse is simply the universe of people who use Twitter and the conversations taking place within that sphere.

• UGC

  UGC stands for user-generated content, an industry term that refers to all forms of user-created materials such as blog posts, reviews, podcasts, videos, comments and more.

• Unconference

  An unconference is collaborative learning event organized and created for its participants by its participants. BarCamp is an example of a well-known unconference.

• Underwriting

  The purchase of a securities issue from a company by an investment bank and its (typically almost immediate) resale to investors.

• User Experience

  The experience gained by a user through using products, services, etc. Emphasis is placed on providing an experience truly sought after by the user, such as "enjoyment," "convenience" and "comfort."

• User-agent

  Software and hardware utilized by the user when said user is accessing a website.

• Valuation Policy

  The method or guidelines used by a private equity fund to determine the value of its portfolio assets.

• Venture Capital (VC)

  A specialized form of private equity, characterized chiefly by high-risk investment in new or young companies following a growth path (see: Stages of Development) in technology and other value-added sectors.

• Venture Capitalist

  A general partner or associate at a venture capital organisation.

• Videoblog

  A videoblog, or vlog, is simply a blog that contains video entries. Some people call it video podcasting, vodcasting or vlogging.

• Vintage Year

  The year in which a private equity fund is first created.

• Web 2.0

  Web 2.0 refers to the second generation of the Web, which enables people with no specialized technical knowledge to create their own websites to self-publish, create and upload audio and video files, share photos and information and complete a variety of other tasks. In this new world, the Internet becomes a platform for self-expression, education and advocacy that “regular people” can use on their own without having to go to an expert to do it for them in contrast to the less interactive publishing sites of Web 1.0. Some of the best-known Web 2.0 websites include Wikipedia, MySpace, Digg, Flickr and YouTube.

• Web Analytics

  Web analytics is the measurement, collection, analysis and reporting of Internet data for the purpose of understanding who your visitors are and optimizing your website.

• Web Conferencing

  Web conferencing is used to conduct live meetings or presentations over the Internet. In a web conference, each participant sits at his or her own computer and is connected to other participants via the Internet. This can be either a downloaded application on each of the attendees computers or a web-based application where the attendees will simply enter a URL (website address) to enter the conference.

• Webcasting

  Webcasting refers to the ability to use the Web to deliver live or delayed versions of audio or video broadcasts. The chief distinctions between webcasting and traditional radio broadcasting include the following: Listeners can tune into webcasts from anywhere in the world, whereas radio broadcasting is generally local; webcasts may be “interactive” (for example, users may rewind the show) whereas radio broadcasting generally is not; listeners may receive textual or visual data (artist and song titles, ads, album artwork, etc.) during a webcast; if music is included, a “copy” is stored in the memory of the listener’s computer and thus webcasters are required to obtain a license from and make payments to a licensing agency such as BMI, ASCAP or SESAC.

• Webinar

  Short for Web-based seminar, a webinar is a presentation, lecture, workshop or seminar that is transmitted over the Web. In general, participants register in advance and access the presentation in real time over the Internet and listen to the presenter either through computer speakers or a telephone connection. Webinars are generally one-way and can involve chat or polls.

• Wi-fi

  Wi-fi (or wifi) stands for wireless fidelity, a simple system allowing enabled devices to connect to the Internet within short range of any access point without cables or adaptors. A more powerful wireless technology, WiMAX, is not yet deployed as widely as wi-fi.

• Widget

  A widget, sometimes called a gadget, badge or applet, is a small block of content, typically displayed in a small box, with a specific purpose, such as providing weather forecasts or news, that is constantly updating itself (typically via RSS). Widgets make it easy to add dynamic content to your site or blog.

• Wiki

  A wiki is a collaborative website that can be directly edited by anyone with access to it.

• Wildcard

  A character (*) that takes the place of any other character or string of characters.

• Word-of-mouth Marketing

  Word-of-mouth marketing, sometimes called grassroots marketing or conversational marketing, is an umbrella term for dozens of techniques that can be used to engage and energize customers. By building relationships with influencers through Word-of-mouth marketing, marketers can get people to become so enthusiastic about a cause, product or service that they drive sales through conversations.

• Write-off

  The write-down of a portfolio asset to the value of zero, with the result that the private equity investor or investors go without proceeds upon disposition.

• XHTML Mobile

  XHTML, a markup language redefined via adaptation of HTML to XML, and then expanded for use with mobile phones.

• XML Sitemap

  A list of the pages on a particular website. By creating and sending this list, you are able to notify Google of all pages on a website, including any URLs that may have been undetected by Google's regular crawling process.

• Yield

  Calculated by dividing the gross dividend by the share price and expressed as percentage. It shows the annual return on an investment from interest and dividends, excluding any capital gain element.

• Z-Test

  Z-Test reliability requires knowing the population mean, standard deviation and there must be a simple random sample. A test used in determining the difference between a sample mean and the population mean that is large enough to be statistically significant.

• ZIP Code

  United State Postal Service assigns regions or mailing districts with a Zone Improvement Plan (ZIP) code. A standard ZIP code contains 5 digits or a combination of 5 digits – 4 digits.