Category: Reading List

Use key insights from the analysts to align your narrative to theirs

As we head into Hype Cycle refresh time, pick up a copy of “Mastering the Hype Cycle”

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Gartner typically refreshes most Hype Cycles in June and July every year. From a timing point-of-view that means the analysts are starting to think about what they want to change in the Hype Cycle in April. Then in May and June they move into their serious work on their Hype Cycles in order to get them through Editorial by the end of June. Working backward that means that AR programs need to start now to think about how they want to influence the Hype Cycle. 

A valuable resource for AR programs that want to influence the Hype Cycle is the book Mastering the Hype Cycle: How to Choose the Right Innovation at the Right Time (Harvard Business Press, $19.77 + S&H on Amazon) by Hype Cycle creator Jackie Fenn and colleague Mark Raskino. While written for the enterprise client, there are many valuable insights in the book for vendor AR professionals.  Click here for SageCircle’s review of the book.

Related posts:

SageCircle Technique:

  • Add influencing the Hype Cycle to your annual AR Strategic & Tactical Plan
  • Carefully review the list of Hype Cycles to identify relevant targets (while there are 96 Hype Cycles as of July 6, 2008, this task will likely not require a lot of time and effort)
  • Identify which of your company’s leading-edge […]

Guy Kawasaki’s Reality Check – what we are reading

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Guy Kawasaki "Reality Check"Guy Kawasaki is a legend in the technology industry, a status earned by being one of the original Macintosh evangelists, an entrepreneur, early adopter of emerging technologies, venture capitalist, thought leader, speaker, blogger, marketing maven, and probably a dozen other things I’m leaving out. Whew.  On top of all that, Guy is also the author of books like “The Art of the Start” and “Rules for Revolutionaries.” Guy has just published a new book that has made it onto SageCircle’s reading list and might be surprisingly useful for analyst relations (AR) professionals as well.

Reality Check: The Irreverent Guide to Outsmarting, Outmanaging, and Outmarketing Your Competition ($18.65 plus S&H, click here to purchase on Amazon) is primarily for technology entrepreneurs. There are sections on topics like starting a small business, raising money, and hiring and firing that are not all that relevant to AR professionals. So what is it about this large book, 474 pages in 94 chapters plus other sundry sections, written for tech startups that should interest AR managers? It’s relevant to AR in those dozens of very short chapters on –

     Selling. Evangelizing. Communicating. Beguiling.

When you think about it, all of these are very important activities for AR even if we don’t think of ourselves as evangelists or sales representatives. As a consequence, Guy’s Reality Check offers some really practical ideas and thought provoking advice on ways AR professionals can think differently about their jobs and develop skill sets unlike their peers. These new skills can provide both career advantages for AR professionals as well as competitive advantages for their […]

Gartner’s Cool Vendor annual research note set [Startup Saturday]

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Often startups with interesting new technologies feel like there are no IT analysts that want to cover them. For example, they are usually excluded from signature deliverables like Forrester Waves and Gartner Magic Quadrants since they often don’t fit neatly into an existing market. Rather than give up, startups should consider targeting Gartner’s annual “Cool[…]