“Improving the customer experience is an important business priority. However, many organizations are failing to deliver on customer experience expectations due to channel inconsistencies, poor expectation setting, a reactive rather than proactive approach to service, and their engrained unwillingness to engage in more open, two-way customer relationships. Organizations that strive to overcome these challenges will gain notable competitive advantage over the next few years.”
– Jim Davies, Research Director, Gartner

Source: Convergys press release, dated today, on its new “relationship management approach”

Industry analyst careers depend on maintaining good knowledge bases, great clients, and sharp wits. It’s not that difficult to maintain repositories and clientele, but what about the wits? Can we expect results from a brain fitness and exercise regimen?

Apparently, the answer is yes.

A whitepaper by SharpBrains — based on interviews with 11 neuroscientists, psychologists and other experts — debunks 10 brain fitness myths. You can obtain the complete whitepaper by registering for the SharpBrains newletter.

My top picks from the whitepaper summary:

Myth: It’s all in our genes.
Reality: A big component of our lifelong brain health and development depends on what we do with our brains. Our own actions, not only our genes, influence our lives to a large extent.

Myth: We need to buy expensive computer-based programs to improve our brains.
Reality: Every time we learn a new skill, concept or fact, we change the physical composition of our brains. Lifelong learning means lifelong neuroplasticity.

Myth: On-the-job training is the only way to train one’s mind.
Reality: Computer-based programs can be more effective at developing specific “mental muscles.”

Myth: Brain exercise is only for seniors. And, only about memory.
Reality: People of all ages can benefit from a variety of regular brain exercises. For active professionals, managing stress and emotions is often a good first step.

Myth: This all sounds too soft to be of real value to business people.
Reality: There is nothing soft about the hard science-based training of specific cognitive and emotional skills.

Myth: Videogames are always a waste of time.
Reality: Scientifically designed, computer-based programs can be a good vehicle for training specific skills. For example, it has been shown that short term memory can be expanded by such programs. Adults in Japan have started to play brain-related video games more, and SharpBrains is starting to see the same trend among adults in the U.S. and Europe.

Now, where’d I put that Sudoku book…

Carter Lusher announced he is departing HP. Adding to HP’s loss of voice in the AR community, no one will be taking the reigns of the HP Corp AR blog. Instead, it will be discontinued.

The AR community also saw the departure of Jonathan Yarmis from his high profile AR position at Hill & Knowlton, earlier this year.

On the PR/AR blogging front, Jonny Bentwood lamented earlier today about the recent loss of high profile PR bloggers.

I’ll be interested to see who steps up to take the places of these AR statesmen.

Meanwhile, enjoy your time off, gentlemen. And, stay in touch.

Update Nov 12: AMR Research has brought Jonathan onboard as a vp (Tekrati story).

Several industry analysts leverage their blogs for building business and reputation. When you think about it, blogs are a natural communications tool for achieving many influencer business goals. Assuming that you are already doing what it takes to create a blog worth reading, why not go the extra step to get the most bang — the most marketplace exposure — from the blogging effort?

One tactic that I often recommend to analysts is to syndicate (republish) blogs on 3rd party sites, with appropriate demographics and an appropriate roster of contributors. It’s a good way to ensure that a wider audience encounters the blog.

Here’s the starter list of my personal recommendations. Your comments on the experience of re-publishing on these media sites — plus additions to this list — would be great.

Bloor’s IT-Analysis
eBizIQ
IT Business Edge
ITtoolbox
Knowledgestorm
ZDNet

Some analysts/consultants have banded together for self-syndication. Two examples:
Enterprise Irregulars
Technology Pundits

The one caveat I’d put on this is that syndicating blogs on 3rd party sites complements — but does not replace — fundamental blog presence tactics. I wouldn’t neglect links and feeds at the analyst company website, Tekrati and other directories, Technorati. Plus, no skimping on tagging, blogrolls, participating in blog conversations, trackbacks, and the like.

I couldn’t help but notice that word of eroding Gartner influence has not reached the editorial offices at Computerworld. Gregg Keizer’s piece on Leopard security cites Rich Mogull as “a security consultant and former Gartner Inc. analyst.” Gartner, not Securosis, got the outbound link.

It’s tempting to brush this aside, joking that Rich has formally joined the venerable ranks of used to be’s, like Prince (used to be Prince) and Al Gore (used to be the next president of the United States).

However, that one simple phrase — citing Gartner, omitting Securosis — reflects the difficulty of establishing credibility as an independent analyst or, in Rich’s case, consultant.

The influence of the independent analysts has been a point of conversation across a handful of analyst and AR blogs this week. My vote for the most insightful post goes to RedMonk Stephen O’Grady, Burning the influence straw man.

Update Nov 5: Ferran Rodenas wrote another excellent commentary on modern analyst influence at SDLC Blog.

Carter Lusher, who heads corporate analyst relations for HP, shared some choice and candid insights on the inner workings of big-vendor analyst relations programs at his blog this week. One of the posts is about industry analyst directories.

It takes courage for vendor-dwelling analyst relations professionals to admit that they are not the walking, talking AR equivalent of Burke’s Peerage & Baronetage. If you’ve held an inhouse AR job, or interviewed for one, you know what I’m talking about. The mere mention of an AR job title brings out the name dropper in otherwise rational and likeable people. Management and marketing and sales all expect their AR team to know every analyst who’s “anybody” — and many analysts who haven’t quite “arrived”.

In his post, Carter encourages analysts to cooperate with those of us who publish the analyst directories. I think that’s good advice, but let’s face it, I’m biased. I’ve had some very funny experiences publishing the Tekrati analyst directories.

For example, one up-and-coming analyst company was keen to participate in Analyst Profiles. They just didn’t want to list any of their analysts. I politely responded that it is, in fact, a directory of people. They were equally polite in explaining that yes, they understood all that, and yes, they wanted to be included. They just didn’t want to list their staff. The clincher was that they used that tone of voice — the one analysts use when they decide they’re talking to really dense vendor spokespeople. I laughed so hard, I cried — and decided to find a way to list them. At Tekrati, irony earns its own rewards.

The blogs directory is very slippery. For example, one of my intentions is to require that each blog have at least one named, regularly contributing author. This seemed like a no-brainer. Did you know that several analyst firms consider their blogs authored by their “services”, not by their “people”? Ponder the implications of that.

Most analysts are cooperative with publishers like me. They don’t want to be misrepresented in these directories. Some are adopting open policies toward publishing staff credentials. Some are supportive in other ways.

Of couse, some are real jerks.

More than one analyst has taken the time to let me know that as far as they are concerned, the Tekrati directories — and every other analyst, media, and IT directory — are nothing more than sleazy grifts. I would have been offended, too, but for the biographies and contact info attached to their emails.