Reflections on 2007

For the last day of 2007, here are a few random observations about the year that is wrapping up.  
Moving from the blogosphere to the analyst ranks – Traditionally analyst firms get a lot of their analyst hires from vendors and end users with some hires from the press and elsewhere. This year we saw [...]

The Curse of Knowledge

Innovative Minds Don’t Think Alike is an essay by Janet Rae-Dupree in today’s Sunday New York Times Business section. The first paragraph is what really caught my attention: “It’s a pickle of a paradox: As our knowledge and expertise increase, our creativity and ability to innovate tend to taper off. Why? Because the walls of [...]

Interesting mix of analyst videos on YouTube

While browsing around YouTube this afternoon, I came across an interesting mix of analyst videos. Everything from firm level experiment like the Forrester Research channel (left) and the IDC eXchange channel to one-off videos by many other firms and individuals. I thought that Redmonk had a regular show on YouTube, but I did not find [...]

What is the ideal stage for startups to start working with the analysts or building relationships? [Startup Saturday]

Today’s post is an answer to one of the questions outlined in Should tech startups invest in analyst relations? The question is “What is the ideal stage for startups to start working with the analysts or building relationships?”
 
The rule-of-thumb answer for this question is “much earlier than you think.”

What am I missing? Why would a vendor brief a competitive intelligence firm?

While an AR director, each time I received a call from a competitive intelligence (CI) firm analyst requesting information, I would politely decline. When asked why I had declined, I would respond “Why would I give you information that you will turn around and give to my competitors?” This CI types often tried to persuade [...]

Best practices for client inquiry execution

Whether IT managers at corporate/government organizations or product managers at IT vendors, many analyst clients do not maximize the value of client inquiry because they do not approach using inquiries systematically. The best practice below does not require a lot of time, only a few minutes to write up the background e-mail, but can result [...]

So why does SageCircle list its competitors on its links list?

If you look over in the right-hand blogroll you will see a section for “AR Services Firms.”  It is true that some of these firms are directly or indirectly SageCircle’s competitors.  Admittedly, it is a bit unusual for a company to put its competitors in a prominent place on its blog.  However, it is our [...]

Do you have a favorite piece of analyst research?

Have you read a piece of analyst research — research note, blog, podcast or whatever — recently that really made you go “hmmm”? It could be something that directly impacted your plans, how you are working on a task or it was so good that you shared it with colleagues. Drop me an e-mail with your nominations [...]

The Payback for an Analyst Briefing can be Measured in Minutes

As part of the ongoing struggle to convince their management about the value of analyst relations, AR professionals often prove the effectiveness of their AR programs by showing written research with mentions about the vendor. This type of metric is often shortsighted because it does not take into account the verbal delivery of research via [...]

For PR… Why PR and AR need strong collaboration

How often have you been part of this vignette? The scene: PR manager strolls into the AR manager’s cubicle.
 
PR manager: “Howdy. Can you get me an analyst quote on this topic for my press release? Oh, and an analyst that can act as a press reference would be great as well.”
AR manager: “Sure, shouldn’t be [...]

Using analyst inquiry… Find out what’s heating up and what’s cooling off

One of the assets that well-connected analysts have is their many anecdotal data points gleamed from day-to-day conversations.  While not statistically valid, doing pattern analysis on these questions can reveal some interesting insights into emerging trends and issues falling off the radar screen. The problem from a research consumer point-of-view is that these data points [...]

Analyst myths revisited – “Analysts know everything” still #1 for IT managers and vendors

There are several lists of myths about the IT analysts.  These include Tekrati’s Analyze This: 5 Myths About Analyst Briefings; KCG’s Under the Influence: Myths About International AR; and Valley View Ventures’ IT Industry Analysis Myths. There are probably other lists that I don’t know about, but suffice to say that are plenty of myths [...]

Christmas leftovers that are better than fruitcake

As a helpful public service, here some ideas for consuming any leftover 2007 budgets:
 

BusinessWeek on cloud computing – over 4,000 words with only one analyst quote

The BusinessWeek cover story Google and the Wisdom of Clouds weighs in at over 4,100 words over eight prime pages and there is a grand total of one industry analyst quoted: IDC’s Frank Gens with a 19 word tid-bit. Geez. And this lack of analyst quotes is not uncommon in the business press. 
 

Gartner’s Cool Vendor annual research note set [Startup Saturday]

Often startups with interesting new technologies feel like there are no IT analysts that want to cover them. For example, they are usually excluded from signature deliverables like Forrester Waves and Gartner Magic Quadrants since they often don’t fit neatly into an existing market. Rather than give up, startups should consider targeting Gartner’s annual “Cool [...]

Looking to hire AR staff? Send us your job openings.

The most popular page visited so far on the new SageCircle blog is the AR Job Listings (left nav bar). Send us your job openings and we will post them for free. E-mail to info [at] sagecircle dot com.

Invite your IT analysts to listen to investor conferences

Public companies frequently have their executives speak at investor conferences (e.g., Gartner at Goldman Sachs Communacopia XVI Conference-Replay). While the IT industry analysts are typically not interested in the same information as financial analysts, the presentations at these conferences can actually be useful for IT analysts. That is because your company’s executives will almost always [...]

Checklist for an experienced AR pro starting a new job

A couple of AR people I know started new jobs this week and this got me thinking about what an AR professional should do when joining a new company. Here are some ideas for tasks that should be priorities:  

Using analyst inquiry… Dig into press reports

There have been a number of reprints of the Associated Press story Growth of global technology spending is expected to slow in 2008 that report that the “Big 3” analyst firms (i.e., Forrester, Gartner and IDC) are forecasting reduced spending on information technology. This is potentially useful data for both IT departments and tech vendors, [...]

Should tech startups invest in analyst relations?

Last night I attended the Marketing SIG monthly meeting of the SDForum (an association for tech startups) because Dana Marks of Weber Shandwick and analyst Rob Enderle were talking about “Analyst Relations — It’s All About Influence.” It was a pretty interesting meeting. Rob was very candid and had a lot of funny stories about [...]

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