How to track a lot of analyst blogs and Twitter streams without spending a lot of time

One of the side effects of the growing use of social media by IT industry analysts and analyst relations (AR) is a pending sense of doom that we are going to get overwhelmed by too… much… stuff. This certainly came out in discussions at the US Forrester AR Council panel I was on and in [...]

Recent favorite tweets and other random Twitter comments

Analyst Twitter Directory just update – now up to 108 entries. Are there any analysts I am missing?
A fair number of Oracle AR team members started exploring Twitter in the last couple of weeks. Welcome to Twitterland!
Question: Would it be useful to have an AR Twitter Directory like the Analyst Twitter Directory?
Where do I think [...]

SimpleSeating – online tool for creating seating charts for analyst summits

Jonathan Eunice (bio, Twitter, blog), principal analyst at Illuminata, sent along a tip about Simple Seating. A quick scan reveals that it might be a really useful tool for those in charge of planning an analyst event. We think it is a best practice to leave nothing to chance when it comes to who sits [...]

An analyst has some advice for PR agencies

Redmonk’s Stephen O’Grady in Bad PR – The Bane of My Existence: Seven Suggestions for PR Workers has some practical advice for PR professionals at agencies. Here are his seven suggestions (details in the post):

Analysts Are Not Press: Don’t Treat Them as if They Are
Caller ID Works: Don’t Just Keep Calling, and Calling, and Calling
Personalization: [...]

Avoid like the plague – Using pseudo-Magic Quadrants in your analyst briefing presentations

After completing the in-depth Magic Quadrant series I was going to give this topic a rest for awhile. That is until I saw this tweet:
 
jowyang is the twitter handle of Forrester social media analyst extraordinaire Jeremiah Owyang. Jeremiah joined Forrester only last October and already he has seen so many vendors use a pseudo-Magic Quadrant [...]

Do your analysis before deciding to use social media like blogs or wikis

Barbara French left an interesting question on SageCircle announces the Analyst Relations Wiki*, a tool to help AR teams be more efficient and effective. Basically, she asked why use a wiki instead of deploying more efficient PDF search technology on the existing PDFs?
We picked the wiki technology, because it became the logical choice after we did [...]

Using five rights to avoid a wrong when it comes to purchasing Gartner or Forrester services

You can minimize analyst firm price hikes by buying the right services from the right firms at the right price.  This post is the first entry in a series* that will discuss how buyers of industry analyst services can manage their analyst contracts and minimize the impact of price hikes on their budgets.
Since Gene Hall [...]

Sorry ‘Net searchers, you will not find a Forrester Magic Quadrant

We track the search terms people use that leads them to the SageCircle website and blog for SEO purposes. It is interesting the number of times that people search for some variation of Forrester Magic Quadrant. This reinforces our point that “Magic Quadrant” is a brand name that is become a generic description. However, this [...]

We received the first submissions to the “Vendor Analyst Events” calendar

Tip o’ the hat to Rachel for her tip about the Avaya Analyst Conference. Another tip o’ the hat to Shelley for the tip about Iron Mountain’ analyst event. A double tip o’ of the hat to Daniel for the two-fer tip about Deloitte’s Americas and EMEA AR Summits.
Remember, there is no charge to have [...]

Nifty idea for raising awareness of vendor staff at an analyst summit

One of the quandaries I’ve had at analyst summits is how to introduce the analysts to on-site staff so they know who to go to for assistance and with questions. Seth Godin in his post Saying thanks in a conference presentation has a simple technique that can be applied to this purpose. It does not [...]

Time is running out for influencing Gartner’s Fall Symposia agendas

I just came across some interesting tweets (click on image to enlarge) by Gartner’s Jeff Mann (bio, Twitter). It seems that he is deep into planning Gartner’s Fall 2008 EMEA Symposium in Cannes. Money quote from a tweet: “Pouring 10 kilos of Symposium presentations into a 3 kilo sack.” Do you think that topics and [...]

Harvest insights by having topic discussion tables at analyst summits

Most large analyst summits (aka as analyst conferences or days) are organized the same way: main tent presentations, breakout sessions, 1-on-1s, demos and booze-and-schmooze receptions/dinners. Breakfasts and lunches are typically organized by putting an executive at a table so that analysts can ask questions. Here is an idea for a new approach: topic discussion tables.
This [...]

Redmonk TV interviews IBM’s John Simonds on using social media for AR

In John Simonds on Twitter, blogs, & tags in Analyst Relations Redmonk analyst Michael Coté (Twitter, blog) interviews IBM analyst relations manager John Simonds (Twitter, blog) on how John uses social media for his AR work. Interesting and well worth watching.
Tip: If the video stops/starts and is jerky, hit the pause button. It will continue [...]

Updates to Tekrati’s analyst blog directory

Tekrati Blogs Directory Update – March-May Archives  list of the blogs deleted from the directory during March, April and May
Tekrati Blogs Directory Update – March-May Adds list of blogs added during March, April and May

SageCircle launches calendar of Vendor Analyst Events

Twice in the last couple of weeks, we have received requests – one from an analyst and one from a vendor – that SageCircle put together an online calendar to track vendors’ major analyst events. The idea is not new as it has popped up a number of times over the last few years as [...]

Participate in Jeremiah Owyang’s poll “What do analysts do?”

Forrester analyst Jeremiah Owyang is conducting an interesting survey in  What do analysts do?. I encourage everybody to participate. Details:
“Well of course I have my answer, but I’ve come to realize there’s a lot of misconception out in the market as to what we really do.
Rather than me tell you, I’d want to first learn what [...]

There is still time to sign up for SageCircle’s AR Seminar on Monday, June 23rd

There are still seats available for the SageCircle AR Effectiveness Seminar that starts on Monday, June 23rd. The price includes the 155+ page binder. To learn more, click on the graphic to the right to download the brochure in PDF.
Click here to register for the seminar. Cost is $995. Annual Advisory clients received one seminar ticket [...]

Whoa, I think people are going a little overboard on the IIAR “Analyst of the Year” survey

Don’t get me wrong, I think the IIAR “Analyst of the Year” survey was quite fun. We promoted it right here on the blog. But, good grief, folks are going a little overboard in reading into the survey that it signals some major shifts in the analyst industry.
The latest item about the IIAR survey that [...]

Gartner changes the date of the next Quarterly AR Call

Gartner has moved this week’s Quarterly Gartner Analyst Relations Call back by one day. It is now on Thursday, June 19th. They also changed the time, making it a single session at 11:30 am to 12:30 pm EDT.
I think this is great, because the AR Call no longer conflicts with SageCircle’s webinar on Spokesperson Best Practices for Analyst Interactions (click [...]

Kleenex, Frisbee, and Magic Quadrant – what do they have in common?

Have you heard your spokespeople make the following statement when briefing the analysts or presenting to a group of analysts on a teleconference: “… also if I reflect on the way you put us, whether it’s your magic quadrants or …” Probably the executive was using “magic quadrant” as a generic label for analyst research [...]

Examples of analysts using blogs for research purposes

As we pointed out, analysts are increasingly using blogs as research development platforms so monitoring analyst blogs is a good way for analyst relations (AR) to get insights into analysts’ work-in-progress. With this information in hand, AR teams can then decide whether to join the conversation online or reach out to the analysts for a [...]

Heads up about next week’s Coffee Talk on Monday and webinar on Wednesday

There are two exciting events for analyst relations (AR) professionals - did I actually use “exciting” and “AR” in the same sentence? – events next week:
Monday, June 16th, at 8:30 am US Pacific Time - “Does it make sense to set up an AR-Sales Partnership program?” This free session is part of SageCircle’s Coffee Talk series. Coffee Talks [...]

Context, advice, reputation and time: How analysts can thrive in the social media age

Because vendor executives still wonder why enterprise IT managers still use the analysts (they need to read Why technology buyers use the IT industry analysts) and hope that they influence will diminish (they should check out Influence is not a zero-sum game so analyst influence is not necessarily diminished by the rise of bloggers), we [...]

Equipping Sales for the MQ Effect: the Magic Quadrant & Tech Vendors [part 7]

Gartner’s Magic Quadrant can have a powerful impact on IT vendor sales cycles – anointing some vendors as a prime candidate for a sales opportunity while denying other vendors even a chance to bid. In order to exploit positive placement on a Magic Quadrant and mitigate negative placement, vendor sales executives need to work with [...]

Job Listing – Avanade

Avanade (A global IT consultancy dedicated to using the Microsoft platform to help enterprises achieve profitable growth.)
Click on Global Analyst Relations Manager to learn more and submit your resume.
Location: US (flexible)