The first invitation to participate in the Ballarat ICT Cluster Survey was issued to ICT firms via email on the 31 August 2005. Ballarat organisations with IT departments and ICT user organisations were invited to participate in the Ballarat ICT User Survey on 5 September 2005. All email invitations identified that the University of Ballarat, the City of Ballarat and cBallarat were working together to implement the Ballarat ICT Cluster Consultancy. Organisations were invited to visit www.ballaratict.com and go to the 'Get Involved' section of the website to complete either the Ballarat ICT Survey (organisations whose primary business is ICT) of the Ballarat ICT Users Survey (for organisations that use ICT in their day-to-day operations).

The Project Manager received an email notification each time a survey was completed and submitted online. Survey responses were summarised in the email and automatically stored in the PHP Easy Survey Program database. A thank you email was then sent to those respondents that provided email contact details.

During the week commencing 12 September 2005 the UB Computer Assisted Telephone Interviewing (CATI) team telephoned those ICT organisations that had not yet responded to the initial email request. The purpose of the call was to confirm that businesses had received their invitation, to promote the research being conducted on behalf of the City of Ballarat and to answer any questions that organisations may have about the survey.

In the lead up to the September meeting of the Ballarat ICT Cluster Steering Committee, members were provided with a list of the names of ICT organisations that had not yet responded to the survey. They were asked to identify the organisation that they had a relationship with and that they would be happy to contact to promote the opportunity to participate in the survey. This strategy improved the response level. A thank you email and final reminder also generated additional survey responses.

Top line results were collated and presented to members of the Steering Committee at the September (ICT Firms) and November (comparison between Non ICT organisation and ICT Firm responses). There was active discussion among participants about the evidence emerging through the survey. This discussion helped in assisting the researchers in determining how the information could be best utilised in setting a context for discussion at the Ballarat ICT Cluster Workshops which would be held during Phase 2 of the study.