Influence is in the eye of the beholder, and that certainly holds true with the industry analyst bloggers. I wanted to know how the blogs I highlighted at Tekrati during 2009 ranked in Jonny Bentwood’s (Edelman analyst relations specialist) “top analyst blogs” table. I’ve posted the cross-reference below. It’s a good reminder that there’s no single correct list of top analysts. You have to conduct research to figure out which analysts hold sway in a given market.
Jonny and I share a common starting point: the entire analyst blogs directory I publish at Tekrati. From there, we travel along entirely different roads:
- Jonny uses a hybrid qualitative/quantitative method to rank analyst blogs. He looks at stats and applies math.
- I use a purely qualitative approach to recommend blogs to Tekrati readers. I read blogs and choose ones that offer consistently high quality content over time and are written by one or more analysts with solid reputations in their market sector.
I’ve learned a great deal about influencer rankings and attributes this year. Some of that thinking will show up in what makes the cut as a featured blog in 2010.
Tekrati Featured Analsyt Blogs with Technobabble Top Analyst Blog Rank
Blogs are listed in the order they appeared as a Tekrati Featured Analyst Blog during 2009, from early January through next week.
James Govenor’s MonkChips, Redmonk: Technobabble #7
Brandon Hall Analyst Blog - Janet Clarey, Brandon Hall Research: Technobabble #35
ThreatChaos, IT-Harvest: Technobabble #52
Technology Marketing Blog, IDC: Technobabble #288
A Software Insider’s Point of View, (then, Forrester Research) Altimeter Group: Technobabble #20
Craig Mathias’s Blog, FarPoint Group: Technobabble #313
Lopez Research Blog, Lopez Research: Technobabble #376
Pike Research Blog, Pike Research: Technobabble #269
Michael Fauscette (personal blog), IDC: Technobabble #156
Column 2 by Sandy Kemsley, Sandy Kemsley: Technobabble #17
The TEC Blog, Technology Evaluation Centers: Technobabble #145
Unified-View, Unified-View: Technobabble #190
Yankee Group Blog, Yankee Group: Technobabble #68
Enterprise Mobility Matters (personal blog, Philippe Winthrop), Strategy Analytics: Technobabble #152
ABI Research Analyst Blogs, ABI Research: Technobabble #314
GigaOM Pro Blog, GigaOM: Technobabble #350
Thinking Out Loud, Outsell, Inc.: Technobabble #280
Jon Arnold’s Blog, J Arnold & Associates: Technobabble #148
Service-Oriented Architecture, McKendrick & Associates: Technobabble #9
Supply Chain Reaction, (then AMR Research, Inc.) Gartner, Inc.: Technobabble #176
Workplace Learning Today, Brandon Hall Research: Technobabble #5
Vendorprisey (personal blog, Thomas Otter), Gartner, Inc.: Technobabble #47
George F. Colony’s Blog: Counterintuitive CEO, Forrester Research: Technobabble #46
Pattern Finder (personal blog, Guy Creese), Burton Group: Technobabble #135
Supernova Hub, Supernova Group: Technobabble: #159
Parks Associates, Parks Associates: Technobabble: #134
Javelin Strategy and Research, Javelin Strategy and Research: Technobabble #105
The Guidewire, Guidewire Group: Technobabble #115
Rabkin’s ROI, Market Insight Group: Technobabble #343
Gartner - John Pescatore, Gartner, Inc.: Technobabble #40
CCS Insight Blog, CCS Insight: Technobabble #210
Gartner - Jeffrey Mann, Gartner, Inc.: Technobabble #65
SharpBrains, SharpBrains: Technobabble #3
Popularity: 68%
Many of us are ready to recognize social media as a standard subset of our B2B and B2C communications channels. Even the slow moving Fortune 500 is adopting public-facing blogs, according to SNCR. So it’s time to stop thinking about analyst-written blogs as a novelty and start thinking about them as part of standard analyst business practice. One of the central topics we can start talking about openly is vendor sponsorship. That’s right: analyst-written blogs as vendor sponsored content.
In the analyst business at large, most (maybe all) communications channels contain a portion of sponsored content. The mix varies by firm. Some don’t license any content to vendors. Others license any and all content. Most firms are somewhere in between.
Sponsored content represents a mature, steady stream of income for many analyst businesses. I doubt many of us were around when the first vendor co-branded analyst report was circulated as a sales tool. Lots of us were around to witness the first analyst appearances in vendor-sponsored microsites, webinars and podcasts. These are commonplace today. We accept them — even mine them — as a natural part of everyday communications channels.
Why imagine that blogs will be any different? Or Twitter? There’s nothing about blogging as a communications channel that makes it a poor match to sponsorship interests.
Think about it. Some analyst firms won’t buy into sponsored blogs / blog content, some will. The question is, will you buy-in?
Popularity: 7%
Personal congratulations to Ray Wang, formerly with Forrester Research, and Jon Collins, head of Freeform Dynamics for taking top honors as “Analyst of the Year” in a survey of analyst relations professionals. More at Tekrati.
Popularity: 3%
It sounds so simple: tell me your definition of an industry analyst. In truth, coming up with a viable definition for the tech “industry analyst” is not such a simple exercise. Clear-cut distinctions between industry analysts and other types of influencers have been dissolving over the last few years.
From 2006 to 2008, I helped the industry come to some common understanding by writing and curating the base Wikipedia article on industry analysts. It doesn’t quite do the job anymore.
Today, definitions of the industry analyst role run into trouble on several fronts. You’ve got big differences in the balance of research and consulting revenue streams at the largest to the smallest of analyst firms. There’s also competition from more and more quarters, including diverse businesses, organizations and social media groups publishing “good enough” research and vendor reviews, not to mention decision advice and thought leadership. Then too, there’s the growing number of SOHO professionals who take the label.
Hard and fast rules for what constitutes an industry analyst may work on paper, but they rarely hold up in the marketplace. Behind closed doors, tech decision makers and vendor AR teams alike regularly debate the criteria for what constitutes an industry analyst.
I think the conversation about what’s an analyst — the debate itself — is the answer.
Instead of aiming for one rock-solid definition that fits all analysts all the time, we can make deciding who’s in and who’s out part of an ongoing process. Each of us can make it our own process. Involve our customers and supply chain partners. Involve our salesforce. Revisit our assumptions, criteria and earlier judgements in a fluid never-ending process.
From an execution standpoint, this only works if we ask the tough questions regularly. We can’t wait for a decision event or a crisis to ponder whether someone is, or is not, an industry analyst.
Popularity: 12%
Jonny Bentwood was in touch with an invitation for you. He’d like your help in determining the IIAR’s “analyst of the year”. Technically, you’ll help determine more than one analyst of the year. They’ll name one worldwide, one for the Americas and another for EMEA. I suppose with enough votes Asia-Pacific could have an analyst of the year as well. The challenge for Asia-Pacific is not the number or quality of analysts, but in the number of analyst relations practitioners at agencies and tech companies.
There’s info about the survey and last year’s results at the IIAR blog. They’re running the survey itself on SurveyMonkey.
The IIAR, aka Institute of Industry Analyst Relations, is a paid membership association of industry analyst relations professionals and their service providers. It’s based in the UK and has a sister organization in Germany.
Popularity: 1%
