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.
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November 1st, 2007 at 2:23 am
Nice post Barbara -indeed some analysts firms regard their working capital (i.e. the poor sods writing the content) as top secret. Which begs the question of whether those analysts have connections and thus insight?
November 1st, 2007 at 4:13 am
I think that keeping staff credentials top secret — or at least below the radar — poses more of a risk to the company reputation (brand) than to individual analyst ability to do their job. After all, most analysts still spend most of their time working in private; that’s how they primarily engage with / support their clients.
There are some fundamental measures of how well an analyst company keeps it staff informed and connected to markets. Personally, I don’t count company websites among those measures. I do count things like research culture and processes, productivity, knowledge assets and management, professional development, reference accounts, and types and calibers of partners and clients.
Do you and I disagree on that?