I attended last week’s IDC Directions09 conference in San Jose, courtesy of IDC in light of my role as an industry analyst watcher and blogger. It was one of the best that I can remember, and I’ve been to a few over the years. The theme, content and speakers were good — but that’s not why I’m giving it 2 thumbs up.

For me, the highest value was professional networking. To a great extent, I credit the relaxed and comfortable atmosphere. That’s not easy to achieve with an audience of 1,000+. The hallway conversations were non-stop. Analyst 1-on-1s were a central attraction, yet there wasn’t hustle for the sake of hustle — no people-to-see-places-to-go pretensions in the air. You could pick out — and get to — faces in the crowd with ease, yet the crowd was large enough to fill the space, even during Nicholas Carr’s closing keynote.

I can’t stress enough the importance of this aspect of any analyst conference for this year and beyond. None of us — well, few of us here in San Jose — see ourselves as Mohammed going to the mountain when we attend these analyst conferences.

Today, we don’t go to these events just to hear analysts present. We don’t want to play powerpoint roulette with our brains. This is an attention economy. We go to mingle with analysts, look them in the eye and take the measure of their company. We go to meet and have intelligent conversations with other attendees. We go to become better informed, and therefore more powerful influencers in our own right. And if there’s some juicy industry gossip sprinkled in, all the better.

IDC understands that.

I’ll be posting more about the event over the next day. Meanwhile, if you can, attend IDC Directions 2009 in Boston next week. Or, catch it in Singapore, India, China, Japan, Australia or New Zealand.

Syndicated from Sway

The Computer History Museum invites you to attend a special event next week, when they present industry analyst marketplace pioneer Gideon Gartner, in conversation with venture capitalist Neill Brownstein. Part of the CHM Presents speaker series, the evening offers a rare opportunity to hear Mr. Gartner share candid and personal insights on the rise of IT industry analysts. The talk takes place at the Computer History Museum in Mountain View, CA, USA, starting at 6:30 pm. Free, suggested $10 donation at the door.

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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 … ?

I’m pleased to relay this press release…

Analyst blog directory and special report debut in conjunction with New Communications Forum 2005

REDWOOD CITY, Calif.–January 27, 2005–Tekrati(TM) today debuted a new directory of weblogs published by information technology and telecommunications industry analysts in conjunction with the New Communications Forum 2005 – Blog University, taking place in Napa, Calif., today. Available as a free resource in Tekrati’s Industry Analyst Reporter “Analyst Cafe” section at (link), the blog directory provides a single, central resource that makes it easy to find and click through to blogs published by the analysts. The directory displays hyperlinked blog titles plus analyst authors, firms and short blog descriptions.

Introduced with a special report on the state of analyst blogging by Barbara French, Tekrati founder and editor of The Industry Analyst Reporter, the analyst blog directory offers yet another convenience for high tech professionals and watchers worldwide.

Commented French, “The Industry Analyst Reporter is all about providing timely, actionable information on IT, telecom and semiconductor industry analyst research, opinions and events. Weblogs are becoming integral to the dissemination — and even the development — of analyst opinions. We’re bringing it all together in a single location.”

The Tekrati directory of analyst blogs debuts with approximately 50 analyst weblogs and will be updated on an ongoing basis. The directory includes a diverse group of analyst bloggers, representing everything from the largest analyst firms to independent analysts.

French has been monitoring analyst use of blogs since 2003. “Overall, the analyst community has been slow to adopt blogging. I expect a dramatic uptake over the next 12 months, based on comments from the 350 firms we cover,” said French. “Although the analysts have held back on blogging, many other bloggers post comments about analyst research every day.”