May marks the 1-year anniversary of the release of Charlene Li’s and Josh Bernoff’s book, Groundswell.  Several industry analysts have released books since then. I figure it’s a good time to shout out to some recent analyst authors and talk a little about why writing books can be such an important activity for market influencers and influencer relations professionals alike.

For IT industry analysts and other types of influencers, writing a book serves several purposes. Books can help create broad industry acceptance of ideas. They also elevate the status of the author as a bona fide expert, and serve as a powerful marketing tool. As a result, influencer relations programs take “author status” into account when profiling opinion-leaders. Publishing a book adds weight to the influencer’s market reach and authority.

 

cbaroudiCarol Baroudi, Jeffrey Hill, Arnold Reinhold, Jhana Senxian: “Green IT For Dummies” explores how businesses can save money and energy and reduce environmental waste by becoming a leader in green technology.  Carol has other “Dummies” titles to her credit, including SOA for Dummies which she co-wrote with Judith Hurwitz, Robin Bloor & associates.

 

jblossomJohn Blossom: Developed through a collaborative expert wiki, “Content Nation: Content Nation: Surviving and Thriving as Social Media Changes Our Work, Our Lives and Our Future” describes how social media changes the way businesses market products & services, influences how people interact with the government, and dictates how we communicate with one another on a personal level.

 

 

gschulzGreg Schulz: “The Green and Virtual Data Center” covers technologies and techniques for data centers trying to maximize resources such as power, cooling, floor space, storage, server performance, and network capacity. It shows how to make server and storage virtualization energy efficient and still be able to support a diversity of high-performance applications without degrading application quality of service or service level commitments. 

 

 

csharmaChetan Sharma: “Wireless Broadband: Conflict and Convergence” (IEEE Series on Digital & Mobile Communication) explains the business, regulatory, and technology issues of the future market for wireless services. It covers broadband and the information society; drivers of broadband consumption; global wireless market analysis; broadband IP core networks; convergence; and contention and conflict. 

 

 

jfenn1Jackie Fenn, Mark Raskino: Companies rush to adopt the innovation, often with a heavy investment—and then, when the promised bounty doesn’t appear as quickly as anticipated, there’s an equivalent rush to bail out. ”Mastering the Hype Cycle” lays out a disciplined, benefits-led approach to innovation adoption, drawing on company examples and Gartner’s STREET framework (Scope, Track, Rank, Evaluate, Evangelize, Transfer).

 

 

Did I miss one?  Feel free to post additions & comment on these titles. All valid influencers and all types of influencers are welcome.

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2 Responses to “Analysts as authors: extending influence through books”

  1. Hi Barbara. I recently read ‘Green’ by Gary Barnett and Jonathan Steel of the Bathwick Group. Gary is an ex-colleague of mine from Ovum. It’s a very short but highly readable justification for considering sustainability in an IT strategy.

    To your generic point, there are some cases where authoring a book leapfrogs an individual into the influencer category. I’m thinking Malcolm Gladwell or (maybe) James Surowiecki (Wisdom of Crowds). But reflecting on my bookshelf, most titles are written by people that are already influential in one sphere, and their book extends their influence into other area of reach.

    I’m reading more titles by academics these days, such as Dan Ariely’s Predictably Irrational, and they are surprisingly readable and influential (in their relevant domain). The ‘readability’ exception is Nassim Nicholas Taleb, who I find impenetrable, but who is influential nonetheless…

  2. Thanks for pointing out these titles, Duncan. Now I’m going to have to read Predictably Irrational next. Irresistible

    Two more additions to the books by analyst authors, via Twitter comments:

    Everything they told you about Marketing is wrong, by Ron Shevlin.

    and The Technology Garden - Cultivating Sustainable Alignment by Jon Collins, Dale Vile, Neil Macehiter and Neil WardDutton. It’s not a recent title, however it is a good read.

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