Interesting news for industry analyst and market research companies operating in high tech: exevo, a leading Market Research Outsourcing (MRO) firm, announced has invested USD $1 million in instituting a Global Technology Panel comprising dedicated business and consumer panelists. The research panel totals more than 125,000 members, divided between a Business Panel of more than 75,000 opinion leaders and a Consumer Panel of more than 50,000 members.

The investment highlights exëvo’s commitment to strengthening its strategic research portfolio with a full suite of services to its global clientele comprising leading research and consulting firms across the world.

The members of the panel are spread across the globe and include key economies like Australia, Canada, China, France, Germany, India, New Zealand, Singapore, UK and USA and aid in providing key insights for exëvo’s research studies. The Business Panel comprises over 75,000 opinion leaders, decision makers and purchase influencers with expertise across Hardware, Software, Network and Telecommunication, Data Centers, Security and Systems. The Consumer Panel consists of over 50,000 members who will provide insights on consumer attitude and purchasing patterns for consumer technology products.

Commenting on the announcement, Mr. Alok Tayal, CEO, exëvo, said, “Continuous investment and innovation are hallmarks of exëvo’s core philosophy. The Global Technology Panel is a key step forward in our commitment to strengthen the company’s outsourcing research capabilities and to support clients with best-in-class research solutions with far greater speed and accuracy.”

The consumer panelists are essentially segmented by gender, age, ethnicity, income and technology use. This panel consists of over 50 profile dimensions and is continually refreshed with new panelists to ensure that exëvo’s clientele are able to get apt feedback from the segment that they target. Panelists are continuously updated about the purpose and focus of various studies and how they enable research firms and service providers to improve their products and services. They are selected telephonically and are profiled prior to their inclusion to maintain authenticity of the panel. The panelists are well ingrained for rapid turnarounds and quality responses and this will enhance the delivery to exëvo’s clients based around the world.

exëvo is one of the world’s leading Market Research Outsourcing (MRO) companies. exëvo provides comprehensive survey programming, data collection, data processing, data analytics and business research services to Market Research and consulting organizations globally. With significant experience and expertise in market research, exëvo conducts research in 90 countries with capabilities in 17 international languages. exëvo is today one of the leading companies with specialization in IT, Financial, Healthcare, Retail, Telecommunications, and Automobile verticals. It is the only MRO to have the three quality certifications — ISO 20252:2006, ISO 27001: 2005 and ISO 9001:2000.

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What is a blog? How would you define an industry analyst blog? What separates blogs from the other online destinations and channels published by the ICT analyst community? Is a blog still a blog without an RSS feed? comments? Is an analyst blog tied to his or her expertise? Yesterday, I asked ten or so analysts and consultants in the US and UK to share their thoughts on what is a blog. They responded with free-range thinking on that and beyond: what is an analyst blog, why do analysts blog, and why does anyone care. Good stuff. Here’s a rough cut of my notes.

Background

My intent is to overhaul the criteria for the Tekrati analyst blogs directory. Already, the conversation offers a rich perspective on grounds for deciding which blogs are listed and why they might be tossed out down the road.

I queried analysts and consultants that are successful bloggers: each has a track record as an individual blogger, and has earned credibility as a thought leader within a professional community of practice.

The analysts are: Carl Howe of Blackfriars Communications, Mike Gotta of Burton Group, Alan Pelz-Sharpe of CMS Watch, Charlene Li or Josh Bernoff (Josh responded) of Forrester Research, Dale Vile of Freeform Dynamics, James Governor of RedMonk, John Blossom of Shore Communications, and Stowe Boyd of The Brannan Street Irregulars.

The consultants are: Jen McClure of the Society for New Communications Research, Jonny Bentwood of Edelman, and Erik SR of Tech for PR.

Again, what follows is a rough cut of the discussion threads. I’m pulling excerpts out of the conversational flow, to make for faster reading. More, and perhaps a little more polished, next week.

What is and what is not a blog?

James Governor offers:

1. RSS or ATOM feed
2. no firewall
3. written by named user/s
4. it’s on other people’s blogrolls

Jonny Bentwood agrees with the first two points; sees 3 as more a best practice or preference, and also pushes back on 4.

Dale Vile agreed with points 1 - 3, and adds: “In addition, it might be stating the bleeding obvious, but the ability for people to comment without registration should also be in the list.”

Mike Gotta raises the point of whether blogs are open or are “gated” and require client access: “I think this type of directory should be for blogs or other analyst-associated social media vehicles that are open and community-centric without a lot of strings attached.” Tekrati readers have been rather vocal on this point, too.

Mike and Josh Bernoff both suggest including update frequency. This is another hot point in correspondence with Tekrati readers. The new rev of the directory shows latest posts at a glance, and the actual posts on the detail page. (A blog graveyard might be an interesting addition — instead of a quiet delete.) Josh’s inputs include:

• Publicly available
• Updated at least 10 times per year
• Written in the first person — meaning personal, and expressing a point of view (POV)

He makes a good point: “If you don’t update it at least 10 times a year, it’s not frequent enough to be a blog.”

Disagreeing with James Governor, he reasons that RSS and comments are central to a good blog, but perhaps not mandatory.

Erik poses two criteria to be considered blogs:

• inherently and consistently personal, whether written by a group or one person. (POV)
• formatted as journals on a specific topic — unlike traditional websites. “Meaning you’ve got the main page featuring the past x number of articles, then you’ve got your sorting options (tag categories, years and months)”

Jen McClure disagrees on “personal” being requisite. She points out that blogs aren’t always personal; many businesses and organizations are using the blogging technology platform for their primary corporate website presence, in place of an e-newsletter format , or for special promotions or events. She also made a comment that pulls together many of the different thoughts expressed on what is a blog, and underscores the importance of the softer questions below:

“A blog is more than just the sum of its technological parts - as the important thing is what the technology allows, e.g., instant publication and distribution, linking, commenting.”

What is an analyst blog - and, who is an analyst?

Jonny Bentwood says decide who is an analyst, first. Then sort out the blog criteria.

When deciding who is/not an analyst, Mike Gotta says use company affiliation, basic credentials as an analyst within a sector, but — “I would not want to see something that is exclusionary or reinforce a particular status-quo.”

What is an analyst+blog?

I suspect that analyst salespeople, vendor sales and marketing people, and IT people all have fundamentally different expectations of analyst blogs. Makes answering the question an interesting exercise.

Carl Howe suggests that analyst blogs could resonate with industry research and advisory values, and offers these criteria to kick off the conversation. BTW, he characterizes these as “fairly hard nosed” and not intended to offend:

• Is there accountability? “An analyst is one who is willing to attach her or his personal reputation to their analyses.”
• Is there data to support the point of view?
• Is there original synthesis and insight?
• Is there either prescription or prediction? “Ok, so the blog tells me 1+1=3 — so what? Should I do something about that, like go back and rebalance my checkbook with this new math?”

Some of the other contributors do find these restrictive; I don’t, unless a blog is truly personal. Then again, I am overly jaded on link bait and trolls — a side affect of perusing too many press release and post titles — and I’m not refering to vendor content.

By contrast, Mike Gotta: “Not all analyst blogs contain “analyst-related writings”. Some might be more personal with postings far outside the information topics that one might expect to be associated with an analyst. This is neither good or bad – it depends on what you are trying to accomplish.” Good point, and true to the historical nature of the directory.

Likewise, Mike raises the point that wikis, social bookmark systems and other social media forms all enable analysts to express themselves. So, “fundamental question is whether this is a directory to analysts and how they are expressing themselves via social media”. He’s telling me not to get too hung up in the tech specs, as all tech dies. Et tu, bloge?

Dale shared an interesting model for categorizing blogs, very good and no way to rough cut with justice. Plus, I’m thinking about incorporating into the directory ASAP.

Why do analysts blog, and why does anyone care?

Stowe Boyd, Jen McClure and Dale Vile cracked open this territory with a short debate on social media, thought leadership and the masses. The context is how the blogging and interactive public participates in new ways — and how this can affect opinions, reputations, politics, and more. Clearly, it could affect analyst reputations, as well as the analyst workflow processes (gathering and synthesizing data, reaching and testing conclusions, and publishing).

See Stowe’s post, that kicked off the exchange: What is social media?.

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The Tekrati directory of analyst blogs is easier to use, offers more information and is better integrated with its sister directories, on analysts and analyst firms. What’s more, we migrated the OPML to the latest rev and did an extensive housecleaning on the listings. Richard handled the programming effortlessly, as always. I, on the other hand, am still wrestling with a content issue: new rules for separating a blog from any other form of online journal or commentary. I’m asking for help.

You might be thinking that I’m a little slow on the draw, given that I’m just now pondering the universal truths of Blog, some two and half years into publishing a directory of blogs.

Since the 2005 directory debut, my rule has been this: there must be evidence of blog publishing software and/or blog coding and format standards. That’s what split the blogwashers — my term for analysts using web pages that mimic a blog in a cosmetic way — from the bloggers. Only the bloggers that passed this test made it into the directory.

Fast forward to 2007. I’m feeling increasingly self-conscious about this technology-only premise, and that’s not a good thing. More web content seems to be a hybrid, a blend of blog and other content publishing applications. This results in too much dithering on my part. And, I don’t like to guess. Whether a blog is in or out of the directory should be a simple decision. It should not be subjective. (Other elements are subjective, as it is, like who is and who is not an analyst. That’s another conversation.)

What to do? I don’t think that adding more technology to my filtering criteria is the right approach. After all, any kind of page can be turned into an RSS feed, lots of publishing systems allow reader comments, lots of blog templates perform like traditional websites, and lots of analyst blogs don’t accept comments or have feeds that don’t validate.

Over the weekend, I asked Alan Pelz-Sharpe, author of doingITbetter and an analyst at CMS Watch, for his thoughts. He suggested that both purpose and means of publishing could work as criteria. Here’s an excerpt from his email:

“From my perspective a blog is something that is regularly updated and free for open consumption. I guess it is also a little less edited, and (in the spirit of a diary or weblog) more off the cuff - if something requires more thought and examination then this is not the place for it.”

I’m hoping that some analysts and readers will chime in, through trackbacks via the Tekrati weblog. It would be great to get opinions from the likes of Carl Howe, Mike Gotta, Charlene Li or Josh Bernoff, Dale Vile, James Governor, John Blossom, Stowe Boyd, Jen McClure, Jonny Bentwood, and Erik, and of course, more from Alan. And, you.

Thoughts on the redesigned blog directory would be most appreciated, as well. We’re now in position to add more interesting bells and whistles. What appeals to you, and what does not?

The blog directory starts at analystblogs.tekrati.com.*

*Effective 11 February 2011, The Tekrati Analyst Blogs Directory is no longer available.

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It’s that time of year again. Time to decide which industry analysts called the shots, gave the answers, and made the time often enough to earn an IT research and advisory contract for 2007. My advice to analysts this year: publish proof points showing your accuracy, timeliness, objectivity, engagement. Put forward some well researched — not just well rehearsed — reasons for us to believe.

Analyst bashups, in general, are nothing new. Historically, the most damage was done by competitive sales teams and word of mouth — the kind of thing you find in any industry. A few journalists would take the time to sleuth planned budgets or controversial practices, and that was pretty much the extent of it.

Blogs have changed the old analyst bashups. More people than ever are publishing anecdotes about smart and not-so-smart analyst opinions, research, forecasts.

Some examples of what’s out there, how easy it is to find:

• Salesforce.com CEO Marc Benioff apparently told the London City Show audience that he listens to Ovum’s Bradshaw, because Bradshaw knows his stuff and called it right more consistently than Gartner or Forrester. His endorsement went far beyond the back of the room. It was reported by Salesforce.com ISV Gareth Davies in his blog, Where’s the Upside?, and relayed in James Governor’s blog, MonkChips. I found it there via my FeedDemon RSS channel of favorite analyst blogs.
• Todd Defren, a principal at PR agency SHIFT Communications, spins a typical sour-grapes anecdote about Gartner Magic Quadrants into an open call for bashups about Gartner and any/all analysts at his pr-squared blog. I found it via a simple Technorati search for blog posts on Gartner and Magic Quadrants.
• Telephia suffered collateral damage in the Cingular/Sprint Nextel/Verizon cell phone network war. Blog spin of a NY Times article describing Telephia’s involvement in Cingular advertising claims (”fewest dropped calls”) included mopocket.com, and engadget mobile. As with most posts at engadget, this one was picked up by a half dozen other blogs in addition to the numerous RSS feed aggregators. Boston Globe’s story resulted in its own cascade of blog coverage, such as Joho the Blog and WebProNews.com. I found these using a Google blog search for background on the Telephia lawsuit against M:Metrics.

These are just a few examples of the reverb going on out here. This doesn’t even take into account dedicated analyst-watching bloggers, such as GartnerWatch and ARmadgeddon, or enterprise IT bloggers such as James McGovern blogging at Enterprise Architecture: Thought Leadership.

Plus, you’ve got all the blogs relaying that usual sprinkling of investigative reporting I mentioned earlier. A recent example: Computerworld New Zealand’s forum piece questioning research transparency and objectivity. This came to my attention via a reader who chose to remain anonymous. Talk about irony. Still, I followed the link and bookmarked it.

My point is that the critics are not just a few Fortune 100 directors on the back nine, or a band of trolls piping through anonymous proxy servers. Whether you need to see this as a tipping point or an inflection point, just get the point:

Analyst, research thyself and share thy findings.

As always, I hope you’ll voice your opinion on my opinion at the Tekrati blog.

Reprinted from Tekrati.

Editor’s note: Description of Marc Benioff comments were revised, per comments posted at Tekrati blog.

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Richard Stiennon raises an interesting point in his Threat Chaos post, Finding Cool Companies: should analysts who blog at online media networks — in this case, ZDNet — be given media passes to competitor’s events — in this case, Gartner Symposium?

I don’t think so, but it does raise an amusing question of ethics.

Stiennon, a former Gartner analyst, recently launched an independent research and advisory venture of his own, IT Harvest. However, he blogs at ZDNet, along with analyst blogger buddies like Dana Gardner and Joe McKendrick.

Now, Stiennon’s attempt at getting a Gartner press pass was probably more hijinks than not. But consider this: Lots of analysts blog at various media sites. What happens if analysts take to the habit of introducing themselves as bloggers OR as analysts depending on what’s most convenient, or who they happen to be contacting at an organization, or … ?

As always, I hope you’ll voice your opinion on my opinion at the Tekrati blog.

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Stephanie Stahl’s Oct 14 post reports that one BI CEO is complaining that insights obtained by former Gartner analyst Howard Dresner could present unfair competitive advantage to his new employer, Hyperion. By contrast, well-known Hyperion competitors Cognos and Business Objects had advanced knowledge of the pending departure and saw no complications or compromises resulting from Dresner’s job change. Just the same, Gartner’s Ombudsman office is developing a formal policy regarding analyst departures.

Source: “When an analyst works for your competitor”, InformationWeek blog.

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A post in the HP-branded blog by David Gee, “True and Fair View…”, calls for the industry analyst community “to commit to the same standards of transparency, neutrality, governance and liability” as he believes can be found in the post-Sarbox world of financial investment advisors. The post is certainly not an HP OpenView management endorsement of IT analyst research quality or value. In fact, it reads as though Mr. Gee was inspired to write it based on the involvement of some analysts at a recent HP technical event.

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In early 2005, Tekrati published a special report on the state of industry analyst blogs and launched the Tekrati online directory of analyst weblogs. Here, we provide links and summaries for the special report, as well as the two sidebars. At the time of launch, we listed 60 blogs in the directory. As of the end of March 2005, we list close to 90.

Special Report: The State of Analyst Weblogs, Part 1
The high tech industry analysts have been slow to adopt blogs. That’s about to change. In this two-part special report, Tekrati takes the pulse of the industry analyst bloggers… At first glance, the slow spread of analyst blogs seems illogical. We expect the analysts to embrace new technologies. We expect the analysts to embrace tools that can increase their visibility and effectiveness as thought leaders. Where the two intersect — new technologies and new communications channels — we expect to find analyst nirvana. So, why the slow uptake?

Special Report: The State of Analyst Weblogs, Part 2
As professional opinion leaders and market experts, industry analysts face three key challenges as bloggers: credibility, relevance and passion. Tekrati explores these challenges and how different analyst groups address them, as we continue this special report on industry analyst blogs. Related stories offer in-depth comments from selected analysts, and a reading list that links directly to analyst commentary on blogs and RSS.

Inside-out: Industry Analysts on their Blogs
Five industry analysts speak candidly about their blogs — past, present and future — in this supplement to Tekrati’s Special Report: The State of Analyst Weblogs.

Industry Analysts on Blogs and RSS: Research Links
This sampling of industry analyst research and commentary on blogs and RSS supplements Tekrati’s special report on analyst blogs, and the launch of our directory of analyst blogs.

Tekrati’s Directory of Analyst Blogs*
The directory includes company and personal blogs published by industry analysts. Each listing includes analyst author, blog title, blog URL, blog description, and the name of the associated analyst firm linked to its listing in our free directory of industry analyst firms. The OPML includes blog titles, URLs and RSS feed URLs as applicable.

* Effective 11 F ebruary 2011, the Tekrati Analyst Blogs Directory & OPML are no longer available.

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The Analyst Strategy Group, founded by former SageCircle analyst relations consultants, offers its 2004 Tech Buyers Study and related deliverables. Visit the ASG Web site for survey highlights (display highlights by rolling your cursor over the thumbnail charts), and to download a descriptive study scope sheet. Note that ASG suggests including company executives and members of the sales leadership team when considering its option for purchasing a live 90-minute review session of survey findings. The 2004 ASG study reflects almost 500 individual responses, providing what ASG believes to be statistically significant findings for the North America, EMEA and Asia/Pacific regions, as well as several vertical markets. The types of tech buyer information included:

• Analyst firm usage and the importance of individual analyst firms within each region
• Analyst and consulting firm usage and importance based on IT buyer company size
• The credibility of each of the major analyst firms, with differences noted by region and vertical market
• The role and relative impact of the media, analysts and consultants in each stage of the buying process
• Individual analyst/consultant vs. firm credibility in each geographic region

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This sampling of industry analyst research and commentary on blogs and RSS supplements Tekrati’s special report on analyst blogs, and the launch of our directory of analyst blogs.

JupiterResearch

“The Blog Litmus - Using Blog Software to Understand Real Content Management Needs”, by Matthew Berk, Janis Kim and David Schatsky. “At first blush, blog software, designed for personal Web publishing, provides a limited subset of Web content management functionality. A look under the hood suggests blog software can help site operators understand the true scope of their content publishing needs, a prerequisite for effective vendor selection.” Concept Report, May 22, 2003

“Weblog Best Practices - Seizing Business Benefits”, by Melissa Stock, Matthew Berk and Michael Gartenberg. “Weblog readers currently comprise only four percent of the online community, and Weblog creators, only two percent. Although the Weblog audience is small, several businesses including Groove Networks, Jupitermedia, and BizNetTravel have taken the opportunity to capture this audience’s attention through business Weblogs. As Weblog consumption grows, business Weblog creators must identify to which audience, and by which means, Weblogs will be most beneficial.” Concept Report, July 17, 2003

“Weblog Software Applications - Overcoming Enterprises’ Hesitations”, by Melissa Stock, Matthew Berk, Michael Gartenberg and Janis Kim. “With growing attention to Weblogs, Weblog creators unexpectedly make up only two percent of the online population. Weblog application developers must take note of the low adoption rate and encourage enterprises to embrace the technology.” Concept Report, July 28, 2003.

Shared Spaces

“Collaboration Software Clients: Email, IM, Presence, RSS & Collaborative Workspaces Should Be Integrated for Business Communication”, by Michael Sampson. “a free white paper from Shared Spaces Research & Consulting. The paper was written as an independent publication, without sponsorship from any vendor, so as to give a totally unbiased view of the needs of users from a collaboration software client.” Free, 2-page Shared Spaces Report in pdf, August 23, 2004

META Group

“Social Computing: Getting Ahead of the Blog”, by Mike Gotta. “Buoyed by media hype, popularity of Internet startups, and some interesting success stories, Weblogs (more commonly referred to as “blogs”) are burgeoning across the Internet as a means to improve social conversation and networking. Strategists should assess business, organizational, and technological implications of “blogging” (and social computing in general) before chasing another tool under the allure of improved information/expertise sharing, collaboration, and community building.” META Group Practice Summary, 2188, March 29, 2004. Also see META Trend at ZDNet

“Blogging Makes a Slogging”, by John Brand. Definition/introduction to weblogs. Free METAbit, August 6, 2004

Berlecon Research

“Weblogs in Marketing and PR - Concept, Potential and Challenge”, by Berlecon analysts. In German language; contact the firm for information on translations. This short study helps enterprises determine whether and how to use weblogs for marketing and PR. The study includes current spending on and use of weblogs in Germany. 27 slides, best practices advisory

Shore Communications

“Weblobs - here to s(t)ay”, by John Blossom for the SIIA magazine, Upgrade, June/July 2004 issue. Contact Shore for reprints. “There is something about weblogging that appeals out to a world that has had carefully crafted content from the media, employers and every other would-be authority figure shoved down its throat by the bucketful year after year. To these authorities and to anyone else who cares to listen, webloggers seem to say, ‘Hey, I can do this too, you know. Do you want to know what I really think?’ Content in this environment can be quite powerful –or quite dangerous, depending on your point of view.”

Wohl Associates

“The Effects of Blogs”, by Amy Wohl. An introduction to blogs, touching on money-making possibilities, a way to look at different categories of blogs, and links to a few blogs that Amy finds of interest. Amy Wohl’s Opinions newsletter, January 28 edition

Editors Note

This sampling is far from exhaustive. Future coverage at Tekrati will include focus pieces on firms deeply engaged in analyzing, if not predicting, blogging and other forms of social media.

The Complete Special Report:

• Overview - Tekrati Special Report: The State of Analyst Weblogs
• Tekrati Special Report: The State of Industry Analyst Weblogs, Part 1
• Tekrati Special Report: The State of Industry Analyst Weblogs, Part 2
• Inside-out: Industry Analysts on their Blogs
• Industry Analysts on Blogs and RSS: Research Links

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