Observations on changes in the analyst ecosystem « SageCircle Bl. [This commentary comes from guest contributor Gerry Van Zandt (Twitter handle), AR manager with HP Services. This guest post started as a letter that Gerry sent to his HP colleagues. We are posting an edited version with his permission] I think it’s important to read and internalize what’s happening in the analyst ecosystem at a macro level. Please note that this is my own take, and not the opinion nor the official position of HP. Thus, you may or may not agree with it. For the past 6-7 years, since blogs began to take hold and proliferate, a sea change has been occurring in the influencer (press and analyst) ecosystem. Dozens of reporters and editors have left the press ranks to become industry analysts over the years — that’s not news.
RedMonk was probably the pioneer “blogalyst,” deliberately eschewing traditional paid, data-based research services and publishing commentary free, and 100% on-line. You can find more information about GigaOM Pro here. Thanks for listening. Like this: AR belongs in Marketing - a dead idea. Trends: We're seeking to hire another analyst. Should vendors be investing in analyst conference sponsorships i. It their Q4 and full year 2008 earnings calls, both Gartner (2/5/09) and Forrester (2/11/09) commented on how the recession is impacting enterprise end user attendance at their events. Example statements: Gartner CEO Gene Hall “As discussed on our last earnings call that business has been impacted by corporate travel restrictions which have made it more difficult for our clients to attend our events.” Forrester COO Charles Rutstein “As you might expect, the events business has been softer than it has been historically.
That’s largely tied to people’s travel budgets being down.” Both Forrester and Gartner projected Event revenue declines for 2009 due to both decreased attendee ticket sales and lack of vendor sponsorships. So that brings up an important question for IT and telecommunications vendors: Should you be sponsoring analyst events in 2009? If the analyst firms are expecting fewer attendees – i.e., potential prospects – why should vendors waste money sponsoring an event? Like this: Take a deep breath before responding to analyst commentary « Sag.
Posted on December 4, 2008 by sagecircle Almost every week, SageCircle strategists do inquiries about how to respond to an analyst quote in the press or a piece of published research. Most often, the AR staffer is more than annoyed because the analyst’s words have caused a brouhaha with his or her management. Sometimes the AR staffer is so angry that he or she wants to call the analyst’s manager – or CEO – and complain, or put out a press release about the analyst’s shortcomings. While this could be satisfying emotionally, frankly it would be counterproductive. Rather than attacking the analyst by putting out a press release or talking to his or her manager, AR is better served by taking a deep breath, analyzing the situation, and developing a campaign to change the analyst’s opinion. Unfortunately, implementing a campaign to change an analyst’s opinion takes time and your executives probably want something done today.
Question: How do you deal with problem analysts? Like this: The 7 Tenets of the Connected Analyst. Jim Sinur — A member of the Gartner Blog Network. Welcome Gartner Analyst Blogs. As of yesterday, Gartner analysts are now able to blog about topics related to their industry, judging by their posts, this looks like an internal battle they were finally able to win, fantastic news. In light of their upcoming Web Innovation Summit (see the official blog), there is a great deal of focus on social media, the cloud and web 2.0.
For many IP companies, making decisions on whether to join the company always requires some degree of uncomfort and a whole lot of trust. While Gartner has official corporate blogs (as most analyst firms do) the following list of Gartner blogs appear to be personal blogs maintained by individual analysts, I’m great at lists, so here’s a start. Mark Driver, focus on large scale distributed computing and web technologies.
What’s interesting in Gene’s comments is that he writes the following: “Thanks to all for the welcome aboard. Why analyst relations matter - Analysts do not have time to do c. (After an interesting Twitter-based conversation with Illuminata’s Gordon Haff and former IDC analyst Ida-Rose Sylvester over the use of the word comprehensive, we have decided to use the word all-inclusive instead. ) One aspect of the analyst industry that is not widely known by technology buyers (aka end users, usually IT managers) and vendors is that industry analysts do not have the resources (e.g., time and travel budget) to conduct and publish comprehensive all-inclusive research about a market.
Advisory analysts gather most of their data from client inquiry and vendor briefings. The major firms do not conduct product evaluations, lab tests against specifications, or quality of service investigations. This point was highlighted by Forrester analyst Jeremiah Owyang in Starting the Forrester Wave: White Label Social Networks and Community Platforms about some research he is working on: “…Due to the rigorous methodology … The Wave will only include several vendors.” Like this: What Do Analysts Do? Wikinomics » Blog Archive » Who needs analyst firms anyways?
Like the music industry and the publishing industry, the writing on the wall is bold, capitalized, and neon for yet another industry reluctant to change in the face of Web 2.0 forces far too powerful to ignore. Officially, IT analyst firms are a $2.5 billion dollar business, of which about $1 billion belongs to the industry behemoth Gartner. As impressive as this number might seem, it represents only a fraction of the total IT analysis actually being traded.
There is a social media undercurrent running just below the surface of the IT analysis industry—call it “IT Analysis 2.0” or “Open Source Analysis,”—where insightful content is not bought and sold, but rather offered up for free. Examples include enterprises like RedMonk, Freeform Dynamics, MWD, and Enterprise Irregulars, as well as community-driven sites such as IT Toolbox and Wikibon (IT analysis a la Wikipedia). Source: Institute of Industry Analyst Relations This is not surprising. THE TOP 5 Common Mistakes that Analyst Relations Programs Make « 5. Vendors approach analysts with an undifferentiated message and lack of thought in their vision and strategy. Downside – why should an analyst pay any attention to a boring, me too vendor, especially if the market is crowded and fragmented? 4. Vendors use the same approach used for all analysts and all firms. Downside – analysts are narcissistic prima donnas who want to do things their way. 3. 2.
Downside – AR programs miss the opportunity to interact more effectively with analysts by ignoring other interaction avenues like client inquiries, deep dives, analyst consulting days, social events and so on. 1. They don’t have analysts with the right coverage on their listsThey talk to analysts with business models that do not fit their AR or corporate objectivesThey have too few or too many analysts on their listsThey do not rank and tier their analysts so they can concentrate on the most important tier 1 analystsThey have a one-size fits all list instead of breaking it out by product lines. I, Cringely . The Pulpit . Reality Check. I have this notion to write a series of columns from time to time under the title "Reality Check" -- columns intended to explain how the world of Information Technology actually functions.
Because like any other entrenched, complex, and often closeted industry, things in IT don't really work the way many people think they do. I'm guessing the Vatican is a bit like that, too. So I'll be looking at various IT players and their roles and trying to put them into perspective, much as I did recently with a column or two about the role of computer consultants.
This week the topic is Gartner Inc., or rather all the Gartner-like operations that give advice about technology to America's largest businesses: what do these guys actually DO? Not much of real value I'm afraid -- at least of value in my view. While Gartner is the biggest of these outfits, I need to say that my comments apply equally to Gartner's main competitors, Forrester Research, International Data Corp. It's all about churn. None. How to pitch me : Strategic Messaging. What is the definition of “analyst”? Over on Twitter, there is a conversation starting about the definition of “analyst.” This post is to provide a place to gather ideas and see if we can come to consensus. Please leave comments with your thoughts. There is almost no barrier to entry for someone to call themselves an analyst. All one needs is an opinion, laptop, cell phone, blog/website and (maybe) a business card. There are no state certification boards, no professional associations and no university degrees.
For analyst relations (AR) and public relations (PR) professionals this is not a trivial issue as there are more and more demands on their resources so it is important to be able to focus on the right community. This will become moot for those companies that set up “influencer relations” departments that take a unified view of the Fog of Influence. Potential elements of a definition: Reading list: Tekrati The rough cut: what is an analyst blog?
Like this: Like Loading... Filed under: Analyst industry, Commentary. How do we decide that analysts are important? « The IIAR Blog. A recent piece by Lighthouse Analyst Relations on “bloggers vs. analysts” raises some interesting questions about whether and how firms should target their limited AR resources. One argument says that AR professionals should focus their efforts only on those analysts who have the most direct influence on sales by advising end users, and that because of the demands that they make, it is hard to maintain meaningful relationships with a broad constituency of analysts. A counter argument is that there are some very smart and influential analysts working within the vendor-facing analyst firms and smaller, more specialised consultancies and an AR programme will be the poorer for ignoring them. Proponents of the latter approach also point to the indirect influence that analysts can have on a firm’s brand awareness and sales, for example through quotes in the media and blog posts.
At the core of this discussion is the understanding of analyst influence. Let’s be clear. Like this: Like Loading... Ethics and Independence Among Industry Analysts « The IIAR Blog. Posted on Friday 7th March 2008 by David Rossiter There’s been a bit of a discussion going around lately on ethics in the industry analyst sector.
I understand why the ‘pay for play’ model can seem an attractive option for smaller companies looking to generate business but firms that go down this route always tend to get found out. Their credibility is eroded, they cannot attract quality analysts and their business slowly disappears. Any analyst firm which values its long-term reputation in the market has to ensure that its research is independent (and also seen to be independent: for instance, I’d argue that there’s a greater need for analyst firms which produce sponsored research to be very open about their methodologies so they avoid any suggestion of conflict of interest).
However we do need to be realistic about the economics of the analyst business. And so long as analyst firms clearly communicate who is sponsoring their work, I’m fine with that. But what about: Like this: Tips from analysts about how to interact with them more effectiv. (Editors Note: Robin Bloor’s tips # 6-8, two by James Governor, two by Jeremiah Owyang and one by Charlene Li added on 2/19/08) I have been running across a number of interesting blog posts by analysts providing tips to the AR community. This is very useful information for AR professionals, both to improve their AR execution but also to get insights into one of their analysts. Here are the blog entries I have found so far (alphabetical order by firm): Curt Monash, DBMS2, Monash Report, Strategic Messaging, Text Technologies Charlene Li, Forrester Jeremiah Owyang, Forrester Dale Vile, Freeform Dynamics Open Reasoning Multiple posts on AR Robin Bloor, Hurwitz and Associates & Bloor Research Henry Morris, IDC Michael Cote, Redmonk Do’s and Don’ts for Analyst Briefings (on Travis Van’s Catching Flack blog) James Governor, Redmonk John Toigo, Toigo Partners International What Analysts Want Questions: AR managers – Have you seen other analyst posts or published research on what AR should be doing?
AR managers do not like surprises, which mean they are a little. Obviously SageCircle is a big proponent of social media and the potential for positive impact on the analyst ecosystem. However, that view is not shared by all AR professionals. I recently had an interesting conversation with an AR manager who was more than a little irritated with major firm analysts who blog. Are these normal growing pains in the evolution of the AR-analyst relationship or is this a nascent backlash? A big part of this person’s annoyance was centered on the lack of discipline and rigor in the analysts’ blogging versus normal research publishing. Commenting on technologies or products outside the analyst’s normal coverage areaLack of usual research rigorSubverting publishing processNo vendor review process (an especially sore point)Writing only paragraphs instead of pagesNo advanced warning to vendors when a major commentary is being published on a blogUndisciplined approach, attitude of fun Do analysts want vendors to publicly comment on errors in their blog posts?
Budget cutting can help AR focus and innovate. It is a fact of life that because of the reports of economic slowing, marketing departments at communications and IT vendors are considering budget cuts. Because most analyst relations teams report to marketing, there will be trickle down cuts hitting AR as well. Unfortunately, most AR functions are already short of staff and funding resources so the natural reaction is to perceive that budget cuts are only bad. However, if AR managers use the budget cutting as an opportunity to rethink how they do business the cutting exercise can have at least some positive outcomes. Any business function can accumulate outdated expenses, activities and techniques like barnacles on a ship.
An example can be always buying 20 advisory seats during the annual analyst services contract renewal even though only 14 are really being actively used. A Deep Dive is smaller, more focused, and significantly less expensive. SageCircle Technique: Question: AR managers – How do you approach budget cutting? Like this: Budget cutting part two — Alternate solutions for analyst contra. Last week (see Budgeting cutting can help AR focus and innovate) we suggested that potential budget cuts may have the effect of causing AR teams to prioritize and innovate in their programs and might not always be as negative as when first viewed. Another way to deal with the possible cuts in funding that follow any economic slowing is to look to alternative solutions. These techniques obviously take precious time and effort that AR teams also don’t have, but may be reasonable choices when money is not available. Analyst seat holder contracts Review each analyst contract for usage and determine business group seat holders who need to be eliminated.
Then contact the high value and high usage seat holders to see if the business group can pick up some or all of the cost. Be prepared to justify the cost as the business group is also looking to save money. Work with the analyst firm account managers to understand seat usage and have them help you rattle the tin cup. Market Research Question: Bloggers vs. Analysts: opening a discussion. Analyst Insight. James Governor’s Monkchips » Researching Is Their Job, Not Yours. James Governor’s Monkchips » How To Use Blogging: Analyst Adviso. What makes a tier 1 analyst? » Social Media Index sixtysecondview: Sixty second interviews fr.
Tecosystems » On Hiring: RedMonk, the A’s of the Analyst Industr. James Governor’s Monkchips » Carter and The Devil in the Detail: James Governor’s Monkchips » Essential Reading for the AR profes.