Tag: Jeremiah Owyang

Why is it that more analyst blogging is better?

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This morning I got an interesting tweet from Forrester analyst John Rymer (bio, Twitter handle): 

            “@carterlusher why is more analysts blogging better?”

icon-social-media-blue.jpgJohn 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 Gartner analyst Gene Phifer’s (bio, blog, Twitter handle) post about how Gartner analysts are now permitted to have a personal-branded blog. I don’t know if I was thrilled, but I did say “Excellent, the more analysts blogging the better.” Thus, John’s question.

Hmm, that is a good question. My initial thought was “well of course it’s better because blogging is good.” It took me about two seconds to discard that answer as glib and dumb. The real answer is […]

Answering “10 Questions Analyst Relations Have on Social Media” Part 2

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icon-social-media-blue.jpgRecently Jeremiah Owyang, a Forrester analyst that covers social media, spoke to a group of AR and PR professionals at a large vendor in the Silicon Valley about the use of social media. Of course, Jeremiah being Jeremiah, he posted about the meeting in 10 Questions Analyst Relations Have About Social Media. The post is interesting in that Jeremiah did not try to answer the questions he recorded, so SageCircle is going to provide our take on the answers.

The following questions were answered in part 1:

  1. Is social media a medium to influence the influencers?
  2. Are influencers impacted by social media usage of clients, vendors, and media?
  3. Now that many are creating their own messages is message control realistic?
  4. Can AR and PR benefit from listening to social media?
  5. Can AR and PR benefit from using social media to talk?
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    Now to questions 6 – 10
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  6. How do AR folks, who are traditionally accustomed to deep, often in-person relationships benefit from this? Relationships today are built on more than in-person meetings. This is especially true as both analysts and AR staff become more geographically dispersed. Social media can provide intelligence, insights and actionable information about the analysts that provides the basis for […]

Answering “10 Questions Analyst Relations Have on Social Media” Part 1

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icon-social-media-blue.jpgRecently Jeremiah Owyang (bio, Twitter handle), a Forrester analyst that covers social media, spoke to a group of AR and PR professionals at a large vendor in the Silicon Valley about the use of social media. Of course, Jeremiah being Jeremiah, he blogged about the meeting in 10 Questions Analyst Relations Have About Social Media. The post is interesting in that Jeremiah did not try to answer the questions he recorded, so SageCircle is going to provide our take on the answers. 

Some of the questions are addressed to “influencers,” not necessarily only analysts. For our answers we are going to focus on the industry analysts, thought SageCircle does think a lot about the broader influencer landscape (e.g., see Fog of Influence).

  1. Is social media a medium to influence the influencers? Yes, but “influencing” is too narrow an approach. Social media can be great tools for engaging analysts, educating them on important issues, building personal relationships, getting feedback from analysts, and so on. AR teams need to think less that social media is something “special” and more that it is just part of the overall communications toolbox to be used where appropriate depending on the specific task and analyst.
  2. Are influencers impacted by social media usage of clients, vendors, and media? This depends on the analyst. Some are ignoring the whole social media phenomena because they think it is a passing fad, not relevant to their clients, or does not fit into […]

Social media as a channel for analyst conversations

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icon-social-media-blue.jpgFreeform Dynamics analyst Dale Vile (Twitter handle) has an interesting post, The importance of the back channel, on the Open Reasoning blog. In the post, Dale discusses the value social media can play in moving public conversations into private channels. Money quote:

“Consider, for example, that while it is obvious when a blog post or a tweet on Twitter sparks an open conversation in public, it is not so obvious when it prompts a private exchange via email, instant messaging, the telephone, or some other mechanism. Indeed, it is quite common in my experience for two related threads to be running in parallel, one in public and one in the private back channel. More commonly, however, the back channel exchanges are spin-off conversations that have their roots in the public discussion, but take it down a different route.”

However, social media is a channel in and of itself for some analysts. Jeremiah Owyang (blog, Twitter handle) from Forrester in a post on Edelman AR pro Jonny Bentwood’ Technobabble 2.0 blog explains:

“I’ll be very clear on this as an analyst. If you want to influence me, be in a conversation and dialog with me, in person, online, and wherever I go.”

Jeremiah is heavy into conversations via comments to his blog and Twitter tweets.

AMR Research disruptive technology analyst Jonathan Yarmis […]

Why analyst relations matter – Analysts do not have time to do all-inclusive research

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(After an interesting Twitter-based conversation with Illuminata’s Gordon Haff and former IDC analyst Ida-Rose Sylvester over the use of the word comprehensive, we have decided to use the word all-inclusive instead. )

One aspect of the analyst industry that is not widely known by technology buyers (aka end users, usually IT managers) and vendors is that industry analysts do not have the resources (e.g., time and travel budget) to conduct and publish comprehensive all-inclusive research about a market.  Advisory analysts gather most of their data from client inquiry and vendor briefings.  The major firms do not conduct product evaluations, lab tests against specifications, or quality of service investigations.

 This point was highlighted by Forrester analyst Jeremiah Owyang in Starting the Forrester Wave: White Label Social Networks and Community Platforms about some research he is working on:

 “…I made a call for the vendor product catalog in this market, (and via email and twitter) that document is a detailed index of over 40 vendors in the space, (aprox 50% of the market) and will be available to Forrester clients…”

 “…Due to the rigorous methodology … The Wave will only include several vendors.”

There are two key points here, one is that the vendor catalog is only a subset of the market and, two, the Wave will be a further subset of the vendor catalog the analyst assembled.

For vendors in this market these points should send a shiver down their spines. If they […]

Why analysts matter – “I get asked daily in one medium or another who to buy”

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Some analyst relations (AR) managers are lucky in that their executives really get the analysts and their impact on the vendor’s leads and sales deals. Alas, not all AR professionals are so lucky. However, there is a resource to use to educate* executives about the impact of the analysts – the analysts’ own words. For example, here is a throwaway line by Forrester analyst Jeremiah Owyang in Starting the Forrester Wave: White Label Social Networks and Community Platforms:

          “I get asked daily in one medium or another who to buy”

Jeremiah is very good about keeping vendors and end-user clients alike up-to-date on what he is working on via his blog posts. This particular line was not bragging, but explaining one purpose of the Forrester Wave, which is to help technology buyers develop their short list of vendors to invite to a bid. Because it was not the main purpose of the post, I think that makes it even more powerful education tool as it […]

Examples of analysts using blogs for research purposes

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icon-social-media-blue.jpgAs we pointed out, analysts are increasingly using blogs as research development platforms so monitoring analyst blogs is a good way for analyst relations (AR) to get insights into analysts’ work-in-progress. With this information in hand, AR teams can then decide whether to join the conversation online or reach out to the analysts for a briefing or inquiry.

 Because relatively few AR teams are monitoring analyst blogs, those AR professionals that use this technique can achieve a competitive advantage by getting in early on developing ideas when they can have the most impact.

 Here are two recent examples of analysts using […]

Announcing a new “Page” – Analyst Tips for AR

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There are many interesting blog posts by industry analysts providing tips to the analyst relations (AR) community on how best to interact with the analyst. This is very useful information for AR professionals, both to improve their AR execution, but also to get insights into their analysts.

For awhile, SageCircle has kept a running list of links to these suggestions in a blog post originally published in early February and then updated periodically. The problem is that this particular post is not easy to find unless you knew to look for it. Starting today we have elevated this information into a “Page” called Analyst Tips for AR. A Page is a non-dated post and always shows up in the “Pages” box, which we have at the top of the left navigation bar. A feature of this Page will be a list of updates. This should make it easier for SageCircle readers to keep up with the tips and tricks that the analysts are offering.

In today’s rather large update we have added 14 34 suggestions from three nine analysts. However, because we got a bit behind in updating the list, there are going to be new links added throughout […]