AR managers need to quit whining about Forrester’s role based research. To make progress, start speaking about the success imperatives its role-based research is founded on. It’s been more than two years since Forrester started the series of focus groups that identified the success imperatives. They gathered together people in each of the roles that…
In one scene of ‘What Women Want‘, a recovering chauvinist advises a colleague about her relationship: “I mean, you’re either interesting or you’re not. Ask him to decide.” The same dilemma, and same guidance, faces managers who invite analysts to briefing events and get invoices in return. AR professionals need to push back against firms…
The world economy is now in a downward spiral which was avoidable but now places significant challenges for industry analysts and the ecosystem that exists around them. With this post we’re start a new series, Save the analysts, to outline how analysts firms need to respond. The starting point is that consulting and analysts firms…
Gianni Catalfamo, co-leader of the European Technology Practice of the Brodeur|Pleon Worldwide, has posed some important questions in his recent Mzinga case study. As one of the few nuclear engineers working in PR, Gianni’s thoughts are always worth reading. He discusses the choice of Forrester’s web strategist Jeremiah Owyang to caution clients about Mzinga, a…
Merv Adrian’s posting reminded me how being given vendors’ Powerpoint after a briefing was really useful for me when I was an analyst. You can go into the outline view and cut and paste the heading into Word, then type up your notes often reusing their headings if they were factual. That could lead to…
The protests outside the G20 summit in London reminded me that for every action there’s an equal and opposite reaction. Every problem is an opportunity for someone, even in this current recession. There have been four recessions in recent history; this one is different. Consumers are loaded with debt, the return on savings is falling,…
Stacey Hawkins, until recently Gartner’s worldwide Managing VP of Research Methodology, praised our recent podcast on the Magic Quadrant in a comment. She makes the important point that lack of clarity, either by the vendor or by the analyst, is behind most of the difficult issues associated with the MQ. I consider myself something of…
In the follow-up to our post on high costs of analysts as speakers, there’s been a good follow-on question. If analysts’ managers don’t want analysts there, then there’s an opportunity for price-gouging. However, what does it mean for a vendor’s relationship with analyst firms? If analyst firms don’t want their analysts being used as speakers,…