Sam Lawrence Bitchslaps Gartner, But Still Likes Forrester

San Francisco: Sam Lawrence of Jive Software disses Gartner for truly bad performance, but has qualified but largely positive things to say about Forrester. I think he's generous in giving Gartner a C-; sounds like it should have been a D.

Best of all, the Gartner 'High Performance Workplace' team hasn't posted on their blog since February of 2007! There is no doubt in my mind these guys are dead.

The Forrester folks are extremely active, particularly Jeremiah Owyang, and Josh Bernoff. Sam says that Charlene Li has stopped posting, though?

Sam poses a few questions at the end of his post, which I am going to try to answer:

[from Go Big Always - Gartner and Forrester’s Report Card (so far)]

Q: Why, when presented with the opportunity to listen to huge companies actually using social software, would analysts not fall over themselves to listen to them?
A: Because many analysts live in a closed world working on market models and other rarified theoretical constructs. Its the rare ones that want to develop understanding of things on a bottom-up basis.

Q: Has anyone else experienced a report card like this?
A: Many companies buy the Gartner service to get written up in a report, in a magic quadrant, and then never use the service at all. Forrester seems more involved in actually advising people.

Q: Do enterprise companies still really use these reports to make buying decisions?
A: Let's hope not.

Q Will insightful and credible people from Blogosphere make analysts irrelevant?
A: They are increasingly irrelevant. There are better minds out here, in the wilds, and the phony-baloney reports are only interesting to very senior old school IT folks. The smarter, younger IT types look to the web, or independent advisors.

Comments

[Josh Bernoff]

Whoah, dude, did an analyst run over your dog or something?

Either you haven't met the right analysts or you're just prejudiced.

"Research" actually means talking to people about their technology adoption activities in a systematic way. Listening is supposed to be part of the job.

Revenues are up. Somebody must still think we're relevant. Like Sam Lawrence, for example.

[Sam Lawrence]

I liked reading your answers to the open questions, Stowe. You're the only person who answered them directly and with a strong opinion (I wouldn't have guessed otherwise).

It's going to be interesting to see how the Analyst market evolves faced with social software and the changing landscape of expertise. Personally, I think they have a massive opportunity to engage in a wholly new way and like many companies, some will embrace and others won't.

The truth is, most companies don't track social software nearly as much as our echo-chamber does and they will put value on *people* who are credible analysts to provide further insight. Who those people are and how they plan to deliver it is what seems to be in flux.

It may seem like I bitchslapped Gartner as a whole but really, it's just a point in time and it has more to do with how we're engaging with each other within a new/developing relationship then the valuable insight they do and will deliver to the industry. They have a huge amount of super smart people working there. They just need more voice.

At any rate, I hope that the positive online response is genuine and that it affect positive results vs. folks saying that they think it's great and then throwing us under a bus. Perhaps I'm too optimistic but I don't see the latter happening.

[Stowe Boyd]

Sam, I think that the Social Revolution is being underreported by Gartner et al, because the enterprise world is a laggard, and Gartner makes a living by justifying caution and hesitancy.

We'll see if Gartner snaps to, but I doubt it.

[Carter Lusher]

"Q: Do enterprise companies still really use these reports to make buying decisions?
A: Let's hope not."

Sorry Stowe, that is a forlorn hope because the IT industry analysts that advise tech buyers (e.g., AMR, Forrester, Gartner) can and do influence every step of the technology buying cycle. SageCircle has conducted several surveys of the tech buyers at large enterprises and we consistently find the same results, the analysts are all over the sales cycle. To give you a few factoids:

• 57% of tech buyers “In the past year, I have significantly considered the opinions of industry analysts when creating vendor short-lists”
• 32% of tech buyers “In the past year, I have excluded a vendor from consideration based significantly on information from an industry analyst”
• 56% of tech buyers “In the past year, I have considered a vendor who was brought to my attention by an industry analyst”
• 60% of tech buyers “In the past year, I have cited published analyst research in my business case for a technology purchase decision”

I have personal experience to back up the surveys as well because I have been both a Gartner analyst and an AR executive at a major IT vendor. I have examples too numerous to site, but suffice to say the IT analysts influence hundreds of billions of tech and comms spending every year world wide.

BTW, I agree with the proposition that the IT industry analysts in general are laggards when it comes to social media. For example, check out

Why social media scares the analyst firms and vendor AR teams

on the SageCircle blog. However, there are many exceptions where individuals or boutique firms have embraced social media. Of the major firms, only Forrester has really started using social media.

[Carter Lusher]

Oops, did not see Stowe’s response to Sam. Here is another comment.

“…I think that the Social Revolution is being underreported by Gartner et al, because the enterprise world is a laggard …”

Or maybe the thought leaders and leading providers of social media technology and services have not done a good enough job briefing the analysts and sharing market intelligence.

Myth #1 - The analysts know everything.

You are right that a significant portion of the analysts’ client base is large enterprises. CIOs are inherently conservative in adopting technology. So analysts that get a lot of data points from their end-user client inquiries will not hear about cutting edge uses of social media. An important source of information for the analysts is the vendor community. However, tech startups and small vendors are less likely to have formal AR programs. This means that the social media crowd is not making its point-of-view heard.

So it is logical that if only one side of a debate is talking to the analysts then that side's opinion and factioids will be overweighted in research. Conclusion: the social media industry has to get its point-of-view known to the analysts via briefings.

No doubt you are thinking: "Ah, but don't you have to be a client to brief the analysts?"

Myth #2 - Analysts opinions are bought; the more money = better results.

The real "currency" to use with this analyst: information and access to execs & domain experts. However, while it is required to be a client to brief and analyst, startups have to have their acts together when requesting a briefing. I have written a number of posts on analyst relations (AR) practices for startups and small tech vendors that might prove to be useful reading.

BTW, kudos to Sam and Jive Software for investing in AR and during the hard work of educating the analysts. If many more social media vendors did that, then the analysts would not be laggards.