We’ve gotten some questions about the survey software we used for our reader opinion poll. Here are the details: It’s a web-based service called SurveyMonkey. SurveyMonkey offers a lite version of their service that you can use for free. At the lite level, you can post up to 10 multiple-choice questions and poll up to 100 respondents.

For Business:

• Poll your employees to find out how your goals are being communicated, or what your next process improvement should be.
• Let your coworkers vote on how to replace that broken coffee machine in the break room.
• Wondering about customer satisfaction? Use SurveyMonkey for customer surveys.
• Conduct surveys among your vendors to find out how you can better help each other to succeed.
• Poll your partners/alliances.

After Hours:

• Use it to figure out when your friends are free for your next birthday bash.
• Hold an online election for new club officers.
• Survey your friends just for fun: the greatest movies, their favorite sports teams, or the worst-ever TV moments. Who knows? It could be the next big hit on MySpace.

You don’t need a website in order to host your poll: SurveyMonkey hosts it for you, so you can just send out a link to the survey with a quick e-mail. Of course, if you do have a website, MySpace page, or another corner of cyberspace, you can post the link there.

If you want to survey more than a hundred respondents, or if you need to ask more than ten multiple-choice questions, you’ll need to explore SurveyMonkey’s professional (fee-based) plan. One of the pro level’s advanced features lets you tell the survey to skip irrelevant questions (based on your respondents’ earlier answers). You can also replace the SurveyMonkey logo with your own.

SurveyMonkey has been around for years, and it just keeps getting better. In fact, they just launched a new version this week. It includes pre-defined templates to get you started. Go to www.surveymonkey.com/Home_FeaturesDesign.aspx for details.

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