Leading Executives Elected to ithought.com Board of Directors

Business Wire, Feb 7, 2000

Business Editors

DALLAS--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Feb. 7, 2000

Robert S. Kaplan, Harvard Business School, and Nick D. Hansen, Former Kimberly-Clark Executive, Join to Develop Consumer Report Cards

on Service Businesses Nationwide

ithought.com(SM) (www.ithought.com), the first consumer rating Web site for service businesses across the country, today announced Robert S. Kaplan, the Marvin Bower Professor of Leadership Development at Harvard Business School, and Nick D. Hansen, former vice-president for Kimberly-Clark Corporation, have joined the Board of Directors.

Kaplan and Hansen will advance ithought.com's goal to build the yellow pages of the future where businesses are ranked by performance.

&uot;The combination of Robert Kaplan's leadership in performance management coupled with Nick Hansen's background with a large consumer business will enable ithought.com to quickly execute strategy,&uot; Chris Bowles, chief executive officer, said. &uot;ithought.com will certainly benefit from the direction from both Kaplan and Hansen given the achievements they have gained in their respective fields.&uot;

According to Kaplan, &uot;While many are touting the role of the Internet to facilitate business-to-business (B2B) transactions, its real power may be to improve transactions in local neighborhoods. ithought.com uses the Internet to bring consumers and local business closer together, rewarding the best providers of everyday services and providing information and incentives for the laggards to improve. ithought.com also gives small businesses a web presence that improves consumers' access to information about neighborhood businesses. With ithought.com consumers capture the ease of Internet technology with the relevance of local shopping information.&uot;

Kaplan has an extensive background researching, teaching and consulting on linking cost and performance measurement systems to strategy implementation and operational excellence. He has authored or co-authored nine books and more than 100 papers. Recent books include Cost and Effect: Using Integrated Cost Systems to Drive Profitability and Performance (Harvard Business School Press, 1998), with Robin Cooper and The Balanced Scorecard: Translating Strategy into Action (HBS Press, 1996), with David Norton.

Hansen was vice president and tax counsel for Kimberly-Clark Corporation until he retired in January 1998. Hansen currently provides tax and business counsel for startups and public high-tech and manufacturing companies. He is a member of the American Bar Association and served as chair of the Committee on Foreign Activities of U.S. Taxpayers of the Tax Section.

About ithought.com

ithought.com, a Web site dedicated to building the yellow pages of the future, allows consumers to promote better neighborhoods by rating or commenting on businesses nationwide for free. ithought.com provides consumers with ratings, referrals and comments by consumers. Currently, more than five million businesses are listed in over 400 categories including: automotive repair, contractors, day care providers, doctors, financial services, jewelers and restaurants. Businesses are ranked by value, quality, and performance and compared to others in their category by city or even zip code. Founded in January 1998, the privately held company is headquartered in Dallas.