“How do you organize your firm library and distribute documents to your staff?”

Strathdon is a compact and closeknit team and our procedures for document circulation reflect this. While all key documents are stored on the group's file server using a specified format to aid retrieval and searching, press cuttings and other information of interest to the team as a whole are typically circulated by the originator on e-mail. Typically we look to subscribe to Web-based rather than paper-based services, which facilitates access by the majority of the investment team, which is not office based. Doing this also helps to reduce the size of the central library of information kept in our Winchester offices. We are excited about our next development which will be based on the unique collaboration functionality provided by Chasseral (www.chasseral.com). We are working on an initiative that will give us the unique advantage of being able to have multiple parties simultaneously working on a variety of documents. This will give us equivalent functionality in key areas to Microsoft Word, but importantly will allow us a comprehensive audit trail to identify who has made what changes, and to unwind them if required.

?We provide easy access to libraries of publications as well as a broad range of research tools and other subscriptions.?
? Don Mackenzie, Atlas Venture

Michael Roller, FINANCE DIRECTOR, STRATHDON INVESTMENTS, WINCHESTER, UK The collaborative nature of Atlas Venturemakes sharing information across the firm part of our culture. To encourage this, we provide easy access to libraries of publications ? physical and electronic ? as well as a broad range of research tools and other subscriptions. We assign responsibilities for many of our most relevant information sources to our analysts who can take raw data and make it more valuable or pertinent to the firm or our portfolio companies. The libraries of hard-copy magazines and periodicals in each of our offices are arranged in a systematic way to optimize access. We track all our subscriptions on a simple Excel spreadsheet and make this available to the whole firm. Our database of research and online subscriptions is managed centrally and, if permitted by the subscription agreements, made available to all our personnel. Finally, we search a wide range of news sources daily to find useful information to post to our Web site, circulate in our bi-weekly newsletter, Atlas VentureNews, or otherwise disseminate appropriately.

Don Mackenzie, PARTNER AND CHIEF OPERATING OFFICER, ATLAS VENTURE, BOSTON Our library primarily consists of three main items: closed deals, dead deals, and private equity trade magazines. Hard copy documents from closed deals are organized alphabetically by company name and soft copies of all closed deal documents are maintained electronically on our server and can be accessed at any time. For dead deals, we maintain a Microsoft Access database that can be sorted any number of ways to analyze deals we have reviewed over time. Hard copies of information related to dead deals that were not required to be returned or destroyed are filed alphabetically by company name and kept for three years for reference. Finally, all of our subscriptions are organized by title and chronologically within each title.documents that we distribute among colleagues mainly include subscriptions to the various private equity trade magazines. Our office manager receives all journals and attaches a sticker containing the initials of the people at Caltius who are to receive them. The journals are passed around the office and each person checks off their name once they've reviewed it. After each person has reviewed a particular issue, it is stored in our library for future reference.

Greg Brackett, CHIEF FINANCIAL OFFICER, CALTIUS CAPITAL MANAGEMENT, LOS ANGELES

Even as a small team of eight private equity executives and one office manager, it is essential to have a defined system to ensure that key information is circulated quickly. With colleagues so frequently out of the office, we have established our set process to optimize communication within the team. This centers on each Monday being designated for internal meetings, comprising: weekly new deals meetings where all new propositions are discussed; fortnightly team meetings where new deal work-in-progress is discussed, as well as key portfolio issues; and quarterly marketing meetings where relevant deals, key contacts and future planned activity is discussed. Other information such as trade publications and newspaper cuttings are circulated via three folders according to their level of importance, with the one of highest importance being fast-tracked. In our paper and computerised filing system we hold extensive information regarding our market, competitor activity and information on non-executive directors and MBI candidates.

Katia Frank, ASSOCIATE DIRECTOR, MATRIX PRIVATE EQUITY PARTNERS, LONDON

?While all key documents are stored on the group's file server using a specified format to aid retrieval and searching, press cuttings and other information of interest to the team as a whole is typically circulated by the originator on e-mail.?
Michael Roller, Strathdon Investments