Patent ID: 7308417

Claim:
A method for converting business data into business information, comprising: identifying, from a user interface, one or more meta categories corresponding to investment data, wherein the one or more meta categories correspond to a particular investment fund's financial performance and includes a metric for financial performance of a particular fund including average dollar value invested; determining, from the user interface, one or more subcategories within each meta category that is associated with an industry segment for the fund, wherein each subcategory include a factor that directly impacts the metric and includes perceived social value of the fund mapped to a scale of 4 for excellent perceived social value, 3 for good perceived social value, 2 for fair perceived social value, and 1 for poor perceived social value size of funds; computing, within a processor, a score for each subcategory by selecting data sources to analyze using the meta categories and the subcategories and the corresponding metrics and factors found in those data sources to map to a scale for each score, wherein the data sources are selected from one or more of the following: public web sites, secondary market research, public domain documentation, and proprietary information sources, and wherein the score computed by combining the average dollar value invested in the fund with the perceived social value mapped to the scale; repeating the processing associated with identifying, determining, and computing for one or more additional funds to produce one or more additional scores; and generating, within a processor, a multidimensional graphical representation of the score and the one or more additional scores for each subcategory of each meta category, and wherein the multidimensional graphical representation of the score is identified within a presented graph and the presented graph includes a labeled axis for each subcategory and each subcategory represents a particular dimension, and wherein the multidimensional graphical representation is produced by superimposing the score and additional scores for the particular fund and the one or more additional funds on the labeled axis thereby visually depicting within the graph values for the average dollar value invested and the perceived social value for the particular fund in relation to the average dollar values invested and the perceived social values for the one or more additional scores associated with the one or more additional funds.