If you are going to Gartner Symposium, go to the AR Forums

SageCircle highly recommends that AR professionals attending Gartner’s Fall Symposia in either Orlando or Cannes go to the AR Forums. This is the opportunity to ask tough questions of Gartner’s CEO and CRO. While some AR professionals express frustrations that Gartner does not immediately do what they ask for in these meetings, the AR Forum [...]

Why AR professionals should consider joining IIAR

Last Thursday saw the inaugural meeting of what is hoped to become the Silicon Valley chapter of the Institute of Industry Analyst Relations (IIAR, website, blog). There was good attendance and a lively panel of independent analysts discussing their role in the analyst landscape. But will an IIAR chapter in the Silicon Valley really take [...]

Kudos for the Oracle AR about analyst support at OpenWorld

Nice gesture by Forrester’s Merv Adrian (bio, Twitter handle, no blog) to give a shout out to the Oracle AR team.

There is also a serious message here for all AR teams planning an analyst event — don’t try and cut off the analysts from the Internet. While you might want them to

Update on Gartner’s expanded blogging initiative – activity and copyright policy

Update 10/3/08: Gartner Fellow Darly Plummer has posted his first piece On the Death of 20th Century thinking! Now only two “phase one” analyst blogs have not been updated.
Update 9/30/08: Kudos to David Mitchell Smith for his post A Tale of Two Clouds that links to a Forrester research note and other non-Gartner commentators. Nice to see a [...]

Vendor AR teams need to achieve balance between outbound and inbound interactions

One of the biggest mistakes that an analyst relations (AR) team can make when trying to influence an industry analyst is focusing too much on outbound communications (e.g., briefings) and not using inbound interactions (e.g., client inquiry) enough (click to enlarge graphic).
Analyst relations (AR) is typically interrupt-driven so it is easy to get caught up [...]

Important location change for Bay Area IIAR meeting

IMPORTANT UPDATE — LOCATION CHANGE –The IIAR meeting will be at the same date and time (6 p.m. on Thursday, September 25), but at a different location: Hewlett-Packard’s Palo Alto headquarters, the auditorium off the main lobby. 3000 Hanover Street, Palo Alto, CA 94304. Corner of Page Mill Road.
Click here for the original announcement about the meeting.  Don’t [...]

Q&A from SageCircle’s “Dealing with Problem Analysts” webinar

A “problem analyst” is in the eye of the beholder. There are analysts whom vendors think are problems, but are really only doing their jobs in an effective manner. However, there are truly analysts who cause problems for vendors with technology buyers and the press. The two SageCircle webinars on “Dealing with Problems Analysts” were [...]

What AR should blog about – common questions

A frequent comment that SageCircle gets when discussing AR blogs with AR managers is “But I don’t have anything to write about.” Horsefeathers! Not surprising, we think there is a nearly infinite number of interesting, useful topics to discuss. Some topics just fall in your lap, making it really easy to whip up a quick [...]

Are you or do you know an independent AR contractor?

SageCircle is working on our newest reference page, the AR Contractors Directory. We are looking for names and contact information for people to add to this directory.
Definition: An AR contractor is an individual who will conduct day-to-day analyst relations tasks (e.g., set up and execute analyst briefings, monitor analyst opinion) in a non-employee relationship. AR [...]

Get onboard the AR social media train

ThinkBalm – focused on the Immersive Internet

Too often analyst relations (AR) professionals and analyst services buyers, both vendors and end user clients, focus on the larger firms. While this focus is natural because the larger firms have greater market presence and a large dedicated sales force, ignoring boutique analyst firms misses the opportunity to obtain interesting insights and advice or to [...]

How serious is the PR pro at an agency about AR? Check the Twitter follows.

In Killer questions to ask PR agencies to see if they are AR pretenders or contenders, we provided a technique to help determine whether a PR agency that is bidding for a vendor’s analyst relations (AR) business truly understands the analysts and AR. There might be another technique that could potentially – but only potentially – [...]

Q&A with Gartner about the new Gartner Blog Network

The new Gartner Blog Network is generating some interesting buzz in the analyst ecosystem (see Gartner ups the ante on analyst blogging – maybe 50 new bloggers). To learn more about what Gartner is up with this new initiative, SageCircle interviewed Andrew Spender, Gartner’s VP of Corporate Communications, via email.
SageCircle: Andrew, thank you for participating in [...]

Announcing “Introduction to Blogging for AR,” a special SageCircle webinar

While there are hundreds of analysts that blog, the big dog in the analyst market has been a Chihuahua not a mastiff in the blogosphere, even discouraging its analysts from having personal blogs. However, that is changing in a big way as news has gotten out that Gartner has upped the ante on analyst blogging [...]

Operational framework: The 5 I’s of Analyst Relations

In the bustle of daily activities, it is sometimes hard for analyst relations (AR) managers to keep their teams focused on their key operational activities. SageCircle created the 5 I’s of Analyst Relations to provide an easy mantra of essential activities. The 5 I’s are:

Identify — The Most Influential Analysts

Ranked and tiered analyst list(s)
Continuous research [...]

Gartner ups the ante on analyst blogging – maybe 50 new bloggers

Update 9/15/08 10:30 am PT: Gartner launched the Gartner Blog Network today with 47 analyst blogs (though not all have posted their first post yet). You can find a link and a list of blogs in this post Announcing “Introduction to Blogging for AR,” a special SageCircle webinar
Update 9/12/08 1:43 pm PT: Gartner analyst Andrew Frank [...]

Presentation déjà vu could be a sign you are dealing with a problem analyst

Something that always stands out in my experience as an AR manager at a major vendor is what I call “presentation déjà vu.” This happens when you are reviewing an analyst presentation and just feel like you’ve seen it before. This typically occurs when you are looking at the slides of an analyst you have [...]

Why is it that more analyst blogging is better?

This morning I got an interesting tweet from Forrester analyst John Rymer (bio, Twitter handle): 
            “@carterlusher why is more analysts blogging better?”
John was responding to my reply to a comment (“Good news, Gartner is allowing analysts to blog @carterlusher will be thrilled”) by Forrester analyst Jeremiah Owyang (bio, blog, Twitter handle).  This comment pointed out [...]

Who influences your enterprise customers’ and prospects’ technology purchasing decisions?

There is much speculation about the role of telecommunications and IT analysts in the enterprise tech purchasing decision, especially in the context of the rise of social media. There is also great angst among AR professionals about whether they need to start adding bloggers to their portfolio. Unfortunately there is more speculation than hard data [...]

Marketing hype language to avoid with the analysts

One of the nifty aspects of blogging is that past articles can be improved over time. For example, When hype can go overboard and hurt credibility was originally posted on February 19, 2008. Today it was updated with a list of terms that trigger analysts’ hype alert

There are many types of problem analysts

For the most part, IT and communications industry analysts are a hard working, diligent group. They do their homework, make sure that they are up-to-date and act in an ethical manner. Unfortunately, this description does not cover all analysts.
While the analyst community can rightly say that there are problem AR teams, the reality is that [...]

Essential AR skill – knowing analyst firm research methodologies

One of the essential skills for all analyst relations (AR) professionals is knowing the different types of research methodologies used by analysts and the implications for vendors. 
For example, advisory analysts* are very well positioned to spot  a vendor’s message inconsistencies. That is because advisory analysts are talking to a wide variety of people that interact [...]

HCL America has five new Analyst Relations and Influencer Relations job openings

HCL America is actively looking to hire five analyst relations (AR) professionals:

Two AR pros (8-10 years experience) to focus on Financial Services and Manufacturing verticals
Three Influencer Relations managers (10-12 years experience) to focus on managing relationships with TPI, Equaterra, Everest, neoIT, et cetera

Job descriptions are attached.
To submit a resume or to get

How to manufacture a “problem analyst”

After promoting the Dealing with Problem Analysts webinar (September 17th at 8:30 am PT and 4 pm PT) on Twitter, I got the following tweet from Martin Atherton (profile, Twitter handle) of Freeform Dynamics:
 
The tweet was good for a chuckle, but it got me thinking. Martin has great points, but what he brought up were [...]

AR Strategic & Tactical Plan – The Intersection of Many Activities

As is often the case with blog posts, I scan the AR profession and SageCircle’s client work to determine “What’s hot” – i.e. the common theme running though our engagements and inquiries. This time the issue is the AR Strategic & Tactical Plan.  We encounter planning issues when starting an AR Diagnostic; it often comes [...]