Although I know that a lot of vendors read my blog, the audience that I’m targetting is really end-user organizations. I do a lot of “reporting” type blogging from conferences, as well as some number of product reviews. Although I do cover some of my “declarative living” topics on my blog, I leave most of those for other channels, since my blog is intended to be part of my business marketing exposure to the world, and needs to be managed appropriately.

Dean has it correct for a couple of the reasons for blogging. Speed is certainly one of the major reasons. “Getting there first”, as an influencer, is always important. And personalization is also a driver for many analysts.

I do believe that speed has another position as a major motivator. It is very easy to get a blog entry out. I even had one as the Chief Research Officer at one time. It is very complex to get a report published at some of the large firms, and that is a necessary process. So, you can get information/opinion out immediately by using a blog and it would take up to 5 weeks to get the same information out in a report. So, it is much better for the client to get your thoughts out quickly. We had thought that analysts would not write reports if they blogged, by that did not happen; most analysts kept on writing their planned reports, and blogged as well.

Back in the Giga Information Group days we had “IdeaBytes” that went out in one day. That was thanks to a publishing process that we used. Gideon also had a vision of what we called Knowledge Salons; a place where we could post opinions and clients could comment on it. This was in the mid 90″s, before the internet gave us all there is today. Knowledge Salons never got off the ground, but blogs give a research firm that same capability.

As such, it is important to comment on blogs. The analysts want you to, and ARs vendors, users, or whomever should take advantage of the capability. Agree with what is said, or disagree, but comment.

Analyst blogs are “top of mind” but not frivolous. Most firms have governance, albeit after the fact. But we never had to pull a post while I was at Forrester.

ARs should recognize that their continual relationship with analysts can help them steer analysts in a desired direction. Honesty is the thing that most analysts appreciate, and if you don’t agree with an analysts position then say so, even in their blog. But also look at what they are saying, and learn from it. The GREAT majority of analysts are thoughtful people who have opinions (all at Forrester and Giga were). A blog is one way for ARs to monitor how their key analysts are thinking. So, use that.

Thanks for letting me comment

Dan

That’s a very interesting & insightful post, and is highly relevant. As a fairly prominent “analyst who blogs” the issue of perception of the blogging/analyst relationship is one I encounter frequently in my discussions with AR people and the wider technology community.

I’d like to expand on a few points.

You assert that blogs encourage “more reporting and less analysis”. That certainly is not universally true. Certainly, I’ll occasionally put out a quick post with some “first thoughts” when an interesting news item occurs. But I’d say that’s more akin to an equities analyst at an investment bank putting a quick comment in the morning email to clients, rather than a more journalistic style of writing.

More commonly, I’ll try and tie in news, thoughts from events, or sometimes briefings, into ongoing themes that the blog features. Regular readers see strands of analysis, usually based around “ideas” posts, supported by more real-time empirical observations and proof points. I don’t know how well AR professionals track regular themes, rather than individual posts, but as many of them may take a general stance against a particular technology, or a worldview contrary to or supporting a vendor’s message to the industry, I’d argue that their influence can be considerable.

I’d also assert that there’s a large difference between IT analysts and Telecoms analysts when it comes to influence and analysis generally, and the role of the blog specificially. Crudely, the IT part of the business has a much more clearly-defined line between Vendors and End Users, with a set of intermediaries like integrators and outsourcers that can largely be considered as a subset of the vendors. Conversely, Telecoms has a rather broader web of stakeholders, especially given the overwhelming importance of the operators and service providers as a third tier, plus the external relevance of issues such as user behaviour, regulation and radio spectrum (is the Government a ‘vendor’ of frequencies?).

The notion that “blogs are pretty much all vendor facing” is therefore too one-dimensional, in my opinion. Maybe it’s true of IT analyst blogs, but I’d certainly contend it’s largely inaccurate in the comms space. A mobile operator, for example, is an “end user” of 3G or IMS infrastructure equipment, but will also have its own vision and AR pitch.

Then there is a question of what the person blogging wants to achieve. I’ll freely admit that my blog is partly intended to drive my business – selling research reports, signing advisory clients, stimulating requests for consultancy. In the past, paradoxically, it has also been intended to demonstrate to the AR community that I am actually an analyst rather than a consultant. Unfortunately, as an independent analyst, the “reach” of my published reports is rather less than that of Gartner or Forrester, and so AR departments may not always be aware of what I am writing, especially as I cover such a broad spectrum of industry sectors.

Further, I also write the blog because I have more thoughts and views about the industry than I have time to write up in full reports, or communicate to advisory clients or talk about at conferences. Frankly, I’d rather write up a post on something and give it away for free, rather than have someone else spot the same issue 3 months later and claim it as their insight. “You heard it here first” wins me business – it’s a pragmatic commercial decision.

Lastly – I enjoy writing, and the blog is an avenue for trying out new ideas to see how they sound. I like the opportunity to write in a more informal style than I might in a client-facing document. I like the ability to use the word “I” and personalise the analysis. And I like the ability to get back comments. My writing style and tone may be occasionally abrasive and colloquial, and I’ll admit that sometimes I’ll have a bit of a rant. But it’s like sometimes-objectionable TV programmes: nobody forces people to read it, but I generally get positive feedback.

I hope that gives a couple of different perspectives on this. I’m quite happy to chat offline some time about how analysis and blogging can fit together symbiotically – and how the combination can result in influence on vendor/service provider strategies and more specific purchase decisions.

Dean Bubley
Disruptive Analysis / Disruptive Wireless

“[Burton Group] is well-known for the cautious long-view that’s needed when balancing architectural strategies with business drivers.”

You see, product and market analysis are only part of a bigger picture. What’s right in one environment may be wrong in another: it all depends on a given enterprise context, which includes business drivers. Assessing the long view enables a “steadier hand on the wheel”, allowing decision makers to steer through near-term obstacles in favor of a long-term strategic goal. In the best case, architectural strategies are a manifestation of business goals. More often than not, however, they work in opposition to one another and on different timescales. Especially in this year of econominc constriction, ensuring that architectural strategies are not tossed out in favor of immediate tactical “fixes” is one of the CIO’s primary responsibilities. The combination of Burton Group advice, trend projection, and hands-on consulting is designed to enable the enterprise to move forward with tactical deliveries that align with architectural plans. It’s just not enough to put a point on a graph and use it as a star chart for strategic choices.

“[Burton Group] needs to develop a less technology-driven, more business-based, approach towards IT infrastructure as part of the broad management of technology risks, costs, services and processes.”

We couldn’t agree more. All of us who come from industry backgrounds have lived this requirement. As an analyst firm, we do you a disservice if we omit the analysis of business context. Fortunately, Burton Group has always presented business context as part of its analysis. What’s different now is that we have introduced new channels and content types that focus primarily on business drivers. Within the Executive Advisory Program, our modus operandi is to identify business implications that arise from our technical research and pull those out for closer inspection. In many cases, we roll up those implications to the CxO level where business decisions require concise explanations and infrastructure value discussions. Furthermore, infrastructure choices like Service Oriented Architecture (SOA), Software as a Service (SaaS), and Unified Communications (UC) must be assessed for their business impact and driven by actual need, lest they remain obscure technical discussions that never get off the ground. Or more ominously, they are chosen as solutions without careful analysis of future business and architectural risk.

“[Burton Group] has made some interesting moves forward over the last year. I’m especially interested in its Executive Advisory Program, which provides some free content to senior business managers outside Burton Group’s geeky client-base. … The early signs look good, especially since Burton Group is focusing on making its current insight easier rather than by developing totally new practices.”

Thanks for noticing! (And, by the way, we still love our geeky client-base.) By creating the Executive Advisory Program (EAP), we were responding to a need expressed by our clients. This included a growing dissatisfaction with Gartner and others (as noted in the Lighthouse report). Rather than try to replicate what others were doing, we decided to build upon what we do best: well-reasoned, focused research that helps move our clients forward. With our executive audience, we honor their time constraints and recognize that a different “lens” is required on our content. At the same time, we acknowledge the executive as part of the enterprise ecosystem…connected with their staff in the pursuit of IT success in their organization. As a result, we make it easy to connect our executive research with underlying technical content and vice versa. The goal is to foster a productive exchange within that ecosystem.

Watch in the next several months as Burton Group continues to reinforce its capabilities and offer compelling value to both technologists and executives. This will include new business-focused sessions at our June Catalyst Conference that provide context for our continuing in-depth technical research.

Chris Howard
VP and Director, Executive Advisory Program
Burton Group
eapblog.burtongroup.com

BTW, I posted a link to this at Reading List for January 30, 2008

Thanks for noting the launch of SageCircle.

Yes, we did learn a hard lesson working with VCs. Both Cornerstone Ventures and the founders of SageCircle managed to make every mistake in the book and even invented a few more mistakes. ;->

Dave and I look forward to collaborating with you and the other AR services firms, AR bloggers and everybody else in the extended analyst community to raise the bar on how everybody interacts with the analysts.

Cheers, -carter j

Carter Lusher, Strategist, SageCircle

BTW, I linked to this post at Reading List for January 24, 2008

All I can say is that I apologise if it comes across that way – our business is growing fast than most analyst firms – and buyers of technology love us (most of them anyway!) – vendors are not so keen. That is a shame because we try our best to ding everyone equally.

On a personal level I am passionate about this industry (analyst) just as Duncan is – and despair that the same rules and ethics that apply to financial analysts and quality journalists do not apply to us.

If a journalist consulted to the Republican or Labor Party – took cash from them – would they have any credibility as objective journalists when writing about the political situation?

Who knows, the experiment might fail, but we are proving that small analyst houses can be profitable, and grow without relying on hand outs from vendors. We need AR people to play along and help us build a better Analyst community by stopping the hand outs – refusing to fund all expenses paid trips to events etc – and recognizing the role of Analysts (buy side) is not to provide PR to vendors, but to provide truly objective advice to buyers and users of technology.

That is something I hope to continue to promote until things change.

Best
Alan