Superstars Owyang and Wang joining Altimeter Group is not just about social media

On August 27, 2009, the Altimeter Group announced (click here for press release) that it was expanding with Deborah Schultz and former Forrester analysts R “Ray” Wang and Jeremiah Owyang.  They join Charlene Li, former Forrester social media analyst and co-author of Groundswell: Winning in a World Transformed by Social Technologies . Here are some salient [...]

If AR does not respond, maybe they don’t know who you are

“Remarkably hard to get hold of anyone at Oracle and Microsoft analyst relations.” is a tweet that caught our attention. The twit had a link to his firm’s blog, which then led us to the firm’s main website. The firm was unfamiliar to us (for this post it does not matter the name of the [...]

AR and analyst gathering in the Silicon Valley on Tuesday, September 15th

We hope that everybody in the analyst ecosystem has a fun and relaxing summer. To kick off Fall, SageCircle is once again hosting an  AR and analyst Happy Hour.
The gathering will be in Cupertino in the heart of the Silicon Valley. It will be on Tuesday, September 15th, starting at 6 pm PT and going to 7:30 pm. [...]

Forrester adds 20 analysts to Analyst Twitter directory and dozens of contributors to the role-based team blogs

Forrester gives us yet more data that social media is being adopted by the major firms. Twenty additional Forrester analysts were added to Analyst Twitter Directory since the August 14th update. The 58 additions to the Forrester Blog Directory are equally interesting but not as time compressed as we had not updated the directory in [...]

Why large advisory analyst firms don’t seem to mind losing superstar analysts

By SageCircle with special guest contributor Gerry van Zandt
Update 9/24/09 2:05 pm PT: We are receiving links to interesting related posts that we are now adding to bottom of this post.
The recent departure of Forrester analysts R “Ray” Wang (personal-branded blog, Twitter handle) and Jeremiah Owyang (personal-branded blog, Twitter handle) has prompted the usual commentary [...]

Should AR respond to an analyst blog post or dismiss it? The answer is “Yes.”

Next question? Seriously, this is not an either/or decision but one based on the circumstances of a particular blog post and governed by the communications policy and decision process that the analyst relations (AR) team has put into place.
There are many factors that will go into a decision framework to determine whether and how to [...]

Is social media today the grain of sand that will become tomorrow’s pearl in the analyst ecosystem?

While getting significant buzz, the use of social media in the analyst ecosystem is still at a nascent stage. Some analysts and AR professionals are making interesting use of blogs, Twitter, and so on, but for the most part social media is just being played with a little or being ignored all together. Those members [...]

Analysts chattering on Twitter – the genie is out of the bottle

There is an interesting blog post by Redmonk analyst James Governor on Industry analyst relations and Twitter: The Dark Side and a related one by Marketing Strategies for IT Vendors analyst Merv Adrian AR: Tiering Analysts Is Good, But Don’t Play Childish Games. These posts bring up several issues (e.g., tiering analyst lists, confidentiality, and [...]

SageCircle AR Podcast for August 18, 2009

The AR podcast is a review of the latest news and trends in the analyst ecosystem along with tips and tricks for analyst relations professionals and analyst research consumers. SageCircle strategists Dave Eckert and Carter Lusher co-host this bi-weekly program. You can find all the SageCircle podcasts on our podcast page.
Click here to listen to the [...]

So you were left off a Wave or Magic Quadrant – what next?

In January 2009, The Forrester Wave™: Community Platforms, Q1 2009 was published. This happened to be the inaugural publication of a Wave for this particular market. The primary author of this Wave was Jeremiah Owyang (bio, Twitter handle, blog) who conducted an incredibly transparent – for a Forrester or Gartner analyst – process for the [...]

Ovum-Datamonitor Restructuring: Sufficient Critical Mass to Take on the “Big Two”?

On August 11th Datamonitor announced a major restructuring of its various analyst brands into a cleaner, more focused framework.
 First a quick recap – Early in 2005 Datamonitor acquired the Butler Group. In parallel, Ovum had started on the M&A path with the acquisition of RHK in mid-2005 followed by Summit Strategies and Orbys after its [...]

How many Tier 1 analysts can be supported by an AR professional? [Practitioner Question]

Question: We are heading into our annual planning process (or preparing to revise our analyst list) and want to know if there is a rule of thumb for how many Tier 1 analysts per AR headcount?
A common question SageCircle receives is what is the rule of thumb for how many Tier 1 analysts that an [...]

Analysts can be excellent guest speakers at Sales training sessions

An interesting service that analyst relations can provide the company’s sales organization is arranging for an industry analyst to be a guest speaker at an internal sales training event. This could span the range from a main stage speech at the annual sales kickoff to a 15-minute discussion as part of a regular weekly sales [...]

Ray Wang leaves Forrester – normal course of business

When it became known that Forrester enterprise applications analyst extraordinaire R “Ray” Wang (blog, Twitter handle) was leaving the firm, it left some folks atwitter on Twitter and blogs (no apologies for the atrocious pun) (e.g., see Ray Wang departing Forrester). What does Ray’s departure mean? Does it portend broader changes in the analyst ecosystem? 
Well, [...]

Forrester 2Q 09 earnings part 2 – Client Group breakdown from 10-Q

Vendor AR teams find it useful to understand the size and nature of an analyst firm’s clients when they are trying to decide if that firm has direct influence on their sales. Analyst firms whose clients are primarily vendors have little direct impact on sales deals because they are not advising IT managers and other [...]

A potpourri of observations on social media and the analyst ecosystem

Time to take a minute to check in with what’s up with the analyst ecosystem and social media.
Atwitter about Twitter – Twitter continues to be a hot topic in general with some negative backlash developing (e.g., Morgan Stanley’s report that teens do not care for Twitter and Nielsen’s research that millions are “Twitter quitters”). So [...]

Don’t discount the business value of analysts’ 350,000+ phone-based inquiries with end-user clients

In all the buzz about 21st century social media like Twitter and blogs there is this 19th century warhorse that is the analyst firms’ secret weapon – the telephone.
 Yes, the lowly telephone.
A common conversation SageCircle has with vendor executives is their opinion that analyst research is commoditized because so much information is available for free [...]

SageCircle AR Podcast for August 4, 2009

The AR podcast is a review of the latest news and trends in the analyst ecosystem along with tips and tricks for analyst relations professionals and analyst research consumers. SageCircle strategists Dave Eckert and Carter Lusher co-host this bi-weekly program. You can find all the SageCircle podcasts on our podcast page.
Click here to listen to the [...]

Gartner Q2 2009 earnings

This analysis does not look at areas of interest to investors, but seeks to pull out insights that are relevant to clients and prospects of the “Big Two” advisory analyst firms as well as communications and IT vendor analyst relations (AR) teams. 
Gartner, Inc.  (NYSE:IT) announced its Q2 2009 earnings on August 4, 2009. See the [...]

Why an AR measurement program is important

One of the consistent findings that appears when we conduct an Analyst Relations Diagnostic™ is that more emphasis needs to put on the AR measurement and reporting program. Either the vendor does not have a formal measurement program or little effort is put into an official measurement effort. If you are in this situation here [...]