I’ve been tagged by Alan Pelz-Sharpe. Here are five things about me that I probably would never have told you.

1. The first rock concert I ever attended was the Beatles appearing in Atlantic City in 1964. I was terrified and loved every minute. Years later, my parents couldn’t remember why they let me (8 years old) and my sister (10 years old) go with their friends’ teenage daughter.

2. I was one of many people who saw a UFO above Sedona, AZ in 1981. Not saying it was alien-made, but it wasn’t headed for Sky Harbor Airport, either. The local news covered it at the time. Today, it’s referenced here (”plane-like UFOs”). I’m still conflicted about not being beamed up.

3. I’m one of the culprits behind the term “legacy system“. I was doing analyst relations in the mid/late 80s, and needed to discourage analysts and reporters from refering to mainframe computers and software as “dinosaurs”. Gartner consultants working under a NDA contract to my company, were playing around with the term “legacy systems”. I used it in every fax and phone call with every hardware and software analyst on the planet (a few hundred) at the time. It was everywhere within a few months. Some Gartnerites were not amused.

4. Both thumbs are “double-jointed” at the second thumb joint. So, if you’re squeamish, think twice about asking me for a high-5… my sense of humor is a little loosely jointed, too.

5. All four grandparents emigrated from Scotland to the United States. In fact, one bypassed immigrant screening by literally jumping ship in Canada, on his very first outting as crew. We’ve been a sweat-equity-loving clan ever since.

Alan tagged me to bring the game into AR waters. Let’s keep it here: David Rossiter, Jay Anderson, John Sun. A little light, but I don’t know many of the AR bloggers all that well.

For decades, CeBIT in Hannover was the leading annual venue for meeting with the broadest range of ICT industry analysts from across the world and the industry. This week, CES in Las Vegas may take bragging rights for the attracting the largest swarm of industry analysts on the planet. Barbara French, Tekrati, and Kim Horner, CustomerClix, offer a snapshot of analysts at 2007 CES. Here’s last minute help for that Hail Mary Pass aimed at getting just a few more meetings.

Attending CES is as important to the analysts as it is to every other contingent. Industry analysts attend the show for the usual mix of motives: business development, networking, availability to the media, sanity checks on countless pre-event NDA briefings, opportunities to touch new and concept products and services, and a good deal of “sniffing the air” — not as in searching for wireless but in the traditional European sense, of experiencing the marketplace heat, hype and mayhem in situ.

Kim Horner, provider of AnalystClix, an unique database of forthcoming analyst publications and events, recommends taking advantage of the event by meeting up with analysts attending CES as well as those making appearances as speakers. It’s a great way to keep up with leading opinion and also to assess and compare research companies and personalities. Advance planning is key for booking meetings during the show.

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You can now search all the blogs listed in the Tekrati directory of analyst blogs — and get seriously good results — thanks to Mike Gotta. Mike, who runs with the Burton tribe these days, has mashed up his own Google Co-op magic with my OPML to create one of his serendipity search sites. I’ll arrange to keep the initial search feature going, and add some features and community, within a few weeks (i.e., after CES). Thanks, Mike.

The results are good, based on my initial test queries. And, it’s easy and free!

If you’re going to use it, here’s some background on the Tekrati OPML piece:

First, a note of caution: This OPML is 1.0 — i.e., out of date. It still works just fine with most desktop readers. I’ll publish a heads up after validating/updating with Dave Winer’s OPML 2.

As with all Tekrati directories, this one changes constantly. Recent incoming: 25 blogs since American Thanksgiving. Recent outgoing: no idea.

This OPML is the only Tekrati directory content that is published as “shared content”.

The analyst blogs directory and OPML has a life and luck all its own. I’ve been awed by the caliber of the people who take time to point it out, suggest improvements, alert me to their competitors’ blogs, encourage me to carry on with it. Just a few of the highlights:

The editor of ResearchBuzz, Tara Calishain, gave it an initial credibility with the Internet research community — a world far beyond my ICT research reach.

Tara’s coverage led Matt Pasiewicz, the content manager at EDUCAUSE to my inbox, with the suggestion to add an OPML, pointers on how to do it, and an offer to test it (this all predated Winer’s first OPML validator).

Redmonk Stephen O’Grady caught and furled an unintentionally exposed Tekrati experiment in exporting the OPML to a weblog for central “analyst planet” style publish, search and cross-link. This inspired many selfless and many more not-so-selfless suggestions on tools and services to try. Sadly, none worked very well.

Which brings me back to Mike’s project. I’m really excited about this. Thanks again, Billy Bob — er, Mike…

The communal project, “analyzing the analysts guide - open source analysis edition”, starts today!

This is an informal, community effort to develop a guide to working with industry analyst firms using open source licensing / analysis as part of their business model. The project was proposed last month by James McGovern at Enterprise Architecture: Thought Leadership.

This is a project of peers; no one is in charge. I simply volunteered to set up a wiki and tap some analysts on the shoulder. Subject matter experts are welcome to participate. This includes industry analysts, professionals who are experienced clients of industry analysts, and related subject matter experts.

I don’t have email addresses for everyone James mentioned in his original post. So if you did not get a late-night email inviting you to join, please contact anyone already involved to join. (You can put a fork in my head next time you see me.) Check your spam filter, too — I think the email was sent from the wiki, not from me.

It’s at wikispaces and it’s called the “osaa” wikispace.