Archive for the ‘Analyst’ Category

When Analyst Relations Get Social

Categories: AnalystPosted on April 24th, 2009

I had an interesting conversation with the head of marketing of a vendor here at Forrester’s marketing conference. She told me about the changing role of AR. Now, the role of AR must evolve, as analysts have direct connections to employees of their company, and have the ability to circumnavigate that traditional relationship. For example, I can easily tweet out “anyone in the sharepoint team have have a moment for some questions” and I’d suspect they’d quickly respond in seconds, whether or not the AR person was involved.

To respond to these times, I’ve found that the best AR folks do the following things: 1) Listen to analysts and synthesize. Now, AR folks can listen directly to the thoughts and insights of analysts that share online. Most AR folks I talk to know what I’ve been up to, where I’m going, and what I care about. As more analysts start to create more content online, the AR role becomes more critical 2) Prepare internal stakeholders. This isn’t anything new, but I’ve noticed that the top AR folks are prepping the interviewers I speak with my blog posts and reports, helping them save time. I’ll be honest, it’s difficult to keep track of my output, fortunately the AR person can do this. 3) Reconnect me with stakeholders. The best AR folks are building a long term relationship with me, leave comments on my blog, send me emails, and setup formal briefings.

What’s the theme here? The role hasn’t changed that much in the traditional sense, but the AR professional isn’t a gatekeeper, instead they facilitate.

Leave a comment, how else can AR folks evolve when it comes to social?

Posted in Analyst | Comments

Comments

Tips From a Road Warrior

Categories: Analyst, RuminationsPosted on April 8th, 2009

I’ve never traveled more than I do in my current role. Although it comes in spurts, I’m currently traveling 4 out of 5 weeks. While it can certainly take a toll on loved ones and your own body, I’m starting to get more comfortable with traveling a bit more efficiently.

I won’t say I’ve got it down right, but here’s a few things I’ve learned, my hopes are that you’ll chime in and add your tips below in the comments, alright let’s get started:

Tips From a Road Warrior:

Flying a lot? Get a Travel Agent
I’ve a travel agent, Carlson Wagonlit (thank you Ron!), that helps me coordinate my often multiple city destinations, they use my frequently flyer numbers and really help coordinate flights, hotel, and rental cars. This saves me valuable time from doing research to find out flights, nearby hotels, and keeps me focused on what matters. I’m pretty sure this is what Tim Ferris would do.

Print out your itinerary
Despite being a digital guy, I always print out my itinerary that has my flight numbers, hotels, and other contact information. You can’t count on technology to work when you’re on the go, dead batteries, the hassle of looking things up, or the ability to rapidly pull out a piece of paper is invaluable.

Get the right luggage and bags
Watch airline staff. These guys and guys are the pros. If you look how they travel, they have small suitcase with wheels, and then a second satchel or bag with personal items, and then if a lady a purse. They make the items stackable so you can put the personal bag (perhaps a suitcase or laptop bag) on top so it can easily roll. I use a backpack, never a messenger bag as you want to keep your back in alignment as much as possible. For long walks, I’ll affix my backpack on my suitcase to relieve the weight.

Learn how to pack right
First of all, if you’re a business traveler, you’ve likely got a carry on bag, checking in and picking up luggage is a major time sink, let alone the risk of them losing the bags. The trick here is to pack your clothes so you don’t have to iron them later. I use the ol’ roll your clothes like a towel trick. As a gent, I put the largest items out on the end such as shirts, and then items that you don’t care if they get wrinkled in the middle. For example lay your coats down on your bed first, followed by suits, then shirts, pants, then tshirts and other undergarments. Then roll them up like a burrito, and put into your carry on suitcase. On the sides you can put your shoes in plastic bags (so they don’t scuff) and toiletries. Ah, stuff your shoes with your clean socks or undergarments to save space, and ensure they maintain their shape.

Steam your clothes in the bathroom
This is one of my favorite tricks. As soon as you get to your hotel room, un-roll that rolled set of clothes I just mentioned. Then, get those shirts, suits, and slacks on a hangers and put in the bathroom –not the closet. When you take your next shower, the steam will naturally get many of the wrinkles out minimizing any time spent ironing.

Have doubles of toiletries for a quick reload
If you’re on the road a lot, it helps to have a backup toilitiries bag so you don’t constantly have to move items in and out. Buy everything in duplicates so you have duplicate toothbrushes, toothpaste, floss, hair products. These little efforts make reloading a breeze.

Learn to traverse the airport
Don’t wear a belt, wear slip off shoes that don’t require a lot of tying, and put your watch, wallet, and other items in your backpack as you exit the car. I bought a Clear card a few months ago, which let’s you breeze past security, but there really isn’t a need for it in a down turned economy (also, I feel a bit like a jerk when they move me to the front of the line) I won’t likely renew my clear card in this economy. I always sit in the aisle when possible so I can get to the restroom without hassling that sleeping guy next to you, and to quickly get my bag and exit faster. Before you enter the security lines, before you choose which aisle to go down, avoid being behind people that are wearing a lot of jewelery or big families, they end to slow down the line. Side note: TSA is much friendlier in the midwest then on the coasts.

Bring the right in-flight gear
I have a spare battery for those long flights for my laptop extending my work time on the plane (one of the few places I can concentrate). Secondly I have an iPod and noise canceling headphones that really turn a confined environment more into a sanctuary. Also, I snagged earplugs and eye masks from previous long distance flights and keep in my backpack, those help. Oh and ahem, please bring mints or gum so you don’t annoy your fellow travelers.

Long trip? Go business class –but not first class
Traveling inter continental is a real time sink, west to east coast can be over 5 hours of downtime, but it’s great for catching up on sleep, writing those pesky reports, (my biggest struggle) or your latest blog post. The problem with many airlines is that the seats are so crammed together it’s nearly impossible to open your laptop and expect to extend your arms. If you’re working, upgrade to the business class, which provides more foot room, or get into the exit aisle or bulkhead. I don’t have the disposable income nor the miles to upgrade to first –maybe someday when I become an executive.

Text message yourself your parking spot
Ever forget where you parked at the airport? Yeah I feel you. Sometimes I get home late at night, bleary eyed, confused, perhaps a bit dazed from a conference party, the last thing I’ll be able to do is remember where my car is at the massive SFO parking lot. The good thing is that I always text message my parking spot to myself on my phone when I first park. Text message your parking spot to yourself, saving you time, frustration, and the embarrassing situation of thinking your car may have been stolen.

That’s enough tips for me, I’d love to hear from you, what do you do to make your travel efficient? Let’s collectively learn, I know there’s a lot of busy professionals that are part of my community. Do tell.

Written from a hotel in welcoming Minneapolis, 140am.

Posted in Analyst, Ruminations | Comments

Comments

Report: Social Media Marketing Up During Recession

Categories: Analyst, Forrester, Social MediaPosted on March 16th, 2009

I’m sitting across the street from the SXSW convention center, yesterday the organizer Hugh Forrest told me that attendees to the Interactive portion (a great deal with a focus on social) was up aprox 20% (just an approximation). I’ve seen many social media strategists (see list) here at the conference that are here to network with the influencers, get educated at the sessions, and to soak in what community really means.

During a recession, marketers are often forced to reduce budgets, in fact, it’s often one of the first buckets to get trimmed. In our latest research: Social Media Playtime is Over, we found that 53% of marketers are determined to increase their social media budget during a recession, and 42% will keep it the same, a total of 95% of marketers bullish on social media marketing. Why? The reasons are obvious to some, it’s inexpensive and the opportunity to benefit from cost-effective word-of-mouth, are promising.

Now this doesn’t mean that budgets are expanding immensely, since this is a ‘new’ media, these are small budgets. How small? I say minuscule. Three-quarters of marketers have $100,000 of less budgeted for social media marketing.

Even though the budgets are small and growing, we recommend to our clients, in order to be successful, not to approach social media marketing as experimental, but to put the right roles, process, and measurement capabilities in place to be effective. Remember, the most expensive cost isn’t the tools, the most expensive part is the soft costs: strategy, education, process, roles, measurement).

Key Takeaway? Social media budgets are small, but are growing during a recession, yet brands shouldn’t approach this as an experiment, and should have a proper strategy complete with objectives, roles, processes, and measurement.

I’d like to thank Tom Cummings who lead the survey effort and data cleansing, Emily Bowen who kept us on track, and Josh Bernoff for his insight and editing for the collaborative effort on this report –without them, this report would not have published, it’s great to work with a top-notch research team.

Related Voices

Adweek’s Brian Morrissey: Notes that the budgets are quite small, in his piece Social Media Outlay Still Small

Read Write Web: Despite Recession, More Than 50% of Marketers Increase Spending on Social Media

Marketing Pilgrim: Forrester Report Suggests Marketers Still Spend Peanuts on Social Media, But Increases Planned

BL suggests there are still going to be internal challenges to strategy, objective, and roles.

Colleague Josh Bernoff reinforces: Recession resistant: 95% of social media marketers will maintain or increase social media spending

Posted in Analyst, Forrester, Social Media | Comments

Comments

Research Status: The Future of the Social Web, Social Media In A Recession

Categories: AnalystPosted on March 11th, 2009

I’ve been laboring over the last few weeks on my latest report, the future of the social web. It’s been very difficult to boil down interviews with the world’s top minds on the social web. I’ve interviewed folks from: Google, MySpace, OpendID Foundation, Facebook, Twitter, LinkedIn, Lotus, RWW, Federated Media, Plaxo, Dell, Cisco EOS, Flock, Meebo, Gigya, Intel, Razorfish, Six Apart and others. I’ve over 25 pages of raw notes, all representing their different corporate strategy and a mixture of opinions. I’ll admit, it wasn’t easy to find the pattern.

When I need to do heavy problem solving, and find those patterns, I disconnect. So I did.

I went offline on Monday, I drove to one of my favorite remote locations on the Pacific coast where there is no wifi, no powerplugs, no cubicles, few people, and tried to decipher all of the viewpoints. I worked from my car, talked outloud, went for walks, ran on the beach with @goodboyrumba in tow until I was able to figure out what I needed to do. I finished my last interviews with Adam Nash of LinkedIn, Angela who runs marketing at MySpace, and the brilliant Chris Messina who works on the Open ID foundation. Somewhere inbetween finishing my last interviews and my third jog, it started to gel.

I have to thank Josh Bernoff who took my calls during the day, and let me bounce ideas off him, he’d give me a requirements that I needed to hit. It’s become clear that there are at least 5 eras of the social web and we’re entering the second one now, and will soon enter at least 2 of them perhaps by the end of this year. I blog about some of the concepts and theories as I know that friending will someday go away, and when CRM systems connect to social networks registrations pages will be extinct. It feels good to finally be able to document the framework –now to spelling it out what it means to consumers, social networks, and brands.

Another report that we’ve been working on, Tom Cummings and Josh Bernoff worked with me in a collaborative function is a very timely report that will showcase the findings from a recent survey among marketers. We found that a majority of marketers that we surveyed will increase their spend on social media marketing –even in the face of a recession. This is tremendous news for the social media space as it’s one of the few markets in the world that are increasing (that aside from human vices).

In a few hours, I’m boarding a plane and headed to Austin to meet some clients, then I’ll be at the SXSW conference for the interactive session along with thousands of others in the social media space. I’m not sure which events I’ll be headed to, there’s at least 4-6 parties every night, and dozens of sessions I want to attend each day. On Sunday at 10am, I’ll be on the mainstage (room A) that if I remember can fit a few thousands and we’ll be debating spec work (crowdsourcing design), I know it’s a fiery topic, but I’m going to take the stand that: It’s happening, so you designers and buyers better figure out how it works, or get out of the way. Update: our panelist is wired magazine, read their blog post. I’m avoiding scheduling any meetings at SXSW, instead, I just want to go with the flow, so I hope to meet you at SXSW, one way to track where I’ll be is by following my tweets. I’ll be very slow in responding to emails till the end of SXSW.

Posted in Analyst | Comments

Comments

How to Translate Vendor Talk into Plain English

Categories: AnalystPosted on February 2nd, 2009

My job as an industry analyst is listen to pitches from different vendors, from small startups, to the web giants. I get paid (yes I’m a professional BS filter) to listen to their pitches –and then translate it into reality for reports and for our clients, the buyers.

Here’s a few things I’ve learned to translate, and I’m going to share with you here now –so you, as a buyer, will know the danger zones when you’re buying from a vendor. In most cases, you can skip the first 5 slides of any presentation, a great time to fiddle with blackberry, smack talk on twitter using your iphone, start a game of bullshit bingo, or figure out a way to sound relevant.

How to Translate Vendor Talk into Plain English

The Famous Two by Two Grid
For some reason, vendors think anything in a chart is believable, even if they made it up themselves! Typically, in the first five slides of a presentation, there’s a two-by-two grid (image: sample grid, not for re-use) where the vendor always positions in the top right. The competitors are scattered in all the other quadrants, but are never more further ‘up and to the right’ than the vendor. The funny thing is, the X and Y axis are often criteria that you won’t find on any research report –and every vendor’s 2×2 is different so they’re ‘up and to the right’. Update: I forgot about this post from former analyst Carter Lusher, now AR advisor, he says to get rid of grids all together.

Translation: We know up and to the right is best, so we created our own X and Y axis labels, we’re hoping you won’t read the small print “tallest CEO” or “best ping pong players in support”

We’re the “Industry Leader”
I’ve heard this one over and over, in fact everyone’s an industry leader at something. “Industry leader at wom in Facebook in Tuesdays” or “Industry leader in community interactions in Fresno at YMCA” The trick here is to ask them who determined they were the industry leader, and if the category is large –and believable enough.

Translation: Leading is a good term to use, but the size of the industry and how we segment is up to us, don’t ask questions as we’ll just tell you “We’ll get back to you on those details”

The Logo Smorgasbord
Vendors love to put many logos on one of the first 10 slides, it’s meant to amaze you and show that they are with it with the big brands. The trick here is that even the smallest of deployments will validate a logo on that slide –and sometimes without the permission of that brand. If you’re interviewing competitors you’ll notice that many of them share the same customers as others in their space, it’s likely true. I often see Cisco, IBM, Microsoft, and other big tech companies on nearly every logo slide from even competitors.

Translation: The more logos we cram on here the more you’ll be impressed, if you rotate your head back and forth real fast, it’s kinda like a kaleidoscope…but digital.

The Fallacy of Vendor Math
You’ve probaly heard vendor math before: “We’ve 39 of the Fortune 50″ or a variation on a theme “17 of the top 20 pharmaceutical companies use us”, or we’ve 150% year on year in new clients in enterprise space. While factual, deciding on numerators and denominators can be tweaked to fit the needs of every vendor. Secondly, the universe of “Fortune” companies changes annually, if not more frequently. Vendor math may sound impressive –but it’s likely skewed, of course, this is coming from the 7th most popular Jeremiah above in most Google searches. (thanks to analyst for this one Laura Ramos)

Translation: Whoever told you numbers never lie was right, ‘cept perspective is a son of a gun. We didn’t want to tell you that 150% year on year growth of new enterprise clients could be going from 2 customers to 5 (but one was my brother’s company)

Our Many Awards
Everyone loves a shiny trophy, and we see accolades and awards from just about every vendor. Contests from blogs, conferences, editors, and even analysts. With everyone getting awards, and touting it too, it’s hard to put any real value on any of them.

Translation: We’re hope you’re impressed with this shout out and award from this blogspot blogger in 2005 –it’s hanging next to our elk head in the den by the wetbar.

Most Successful Investors Ever
Hearing about investors is common in the nascent social media space, so there’s often a slide on company stats that touts the experience of the management team and vision. Notice that Reid Hoffman is on everyone’s investor slide? Me too, I think he’s invested in the entire internet!

Translation: Reid invested in the whole internet! No seriously, he really did! (Ok really it’s about 60 companies, but using Vendor Math, that’s nearly the whole internet, at least the north west side of the ‘nets.)

Now if you’re a vendor (or perhaps their PR agency), don’t be offended and use this information to improve your communications. In all due fairness, if someone has a list of ‘translating Analyst/Client speak’ I’ll link to it here too (I made fun of myself here). Oh, and for the record, Reid Hoffman really is successful, and I’m scheduled to meet with him soon.

Have you heard any other vendor talk that can be translated into regular English? If I like em, I’ll add it to the above and credit/link to ya!

Update: Who’s the best at making fun of vendors? Independent Analyst Jon Toigo who covers the storage industry created this creative spoof gallery clowning on the 3 lettered storage vendors (IBM, EMC, HDS, ESS-HP, NAP) I used to work at HDS, and always admired his photoshop skills. I think I’m going to start one for social media vendors, hmmmmmm.

Posted in Analyst | Comments

Comments

Body of Work: Community and Social Network Research

Categories: Analyst, Community Marketing, ForresterPosted on January 16th, 2009

Ill be up front, writing research is one of the hardest parts of the job for me, it’s an area I end up putting extra time in.

Despite the extra effort I have to put in, looking back I’m very proud of my body of work. You’ll notice that there’s a strong body of work on community and social networks, all designed to help a brand with their community strategy from soup-to-nuts. Here’s some highlights of what I’ve been working on in the last 16 months:

Body of Work: Community and Social Network Research

Strategy: Online Communities: Build Or Join? (Hint: the answer is ‘when’)

Resources: How to Staff for Social Computing (Like any business program, key people are needed, and here’s there two roles you’ll need to succeed)

Best Practices: Online Community Best Practices (I interviewed 19 brands that have done it right, and to find out how, remember: only 20% is technology)

Best Practices: Best And Worst Of Social Network Marketing, 2008 (we scored 16 brands who conducted marketing efforts on social networks like Facebook, MySpace, and Bebo)

Best Practices: What works in Online Company Forums (lead by Cynthia Pflaum, we published this report to help brands understand what works)

Vendor Selection: Forrester Wave on Community Platforms (This recently launched report scrutinizes 9 of the 100 vendors in this crowded space)

Technology: I’ve done a piece on Facebook’s engagement ads and Google’s Opensocial, while I tend not to like to focus on technology as a driver, these were both innovative ways for marketers to reach communities.

Soon to be published: My upcoming publications include the social technographics of baby boomers, and our predictions for social computing for 2009, you can setup a ‘research alert’ on the right nav of my profile page to be alerted to upcoming reports.

I’m very proud of the hard work we’ve put in, and I’m thankful for my very tough editors, researchers, research associates, editing team, web team and management for supporting this process. Although the research is never done, the current body of work is designed to answer the most critical questions during key milestones for brands who want to understand community. In most cases, while these reports help brands get their strategy in order, I’m often asked to present the reports to their staff, conduct custom research, or make specific strategy and vendor suggestions, I’ve noticed an increase in demand and it’s keeping me very busy.

Upcoming Reports:
I’ve two reports that I’m working on, both I hope you’ll find interest in. The first, which is focused on how brands are changing their spending and behavior towards social media during a recession. We conducted a survey, and I found it interesting that most marketers certainly leaned one direction when we asked them “are you going to increase or decrease social media spend”. I am also seeking case examples of brands that have conducted social media efforts since sept 08 and have seen success during times of resource scrutiny. Secondly, I’m working on a report to outline the future of social networks, you may know about the roundtable I hosted in Oct, which is just the precursor to this vision piece. I’m seeking to speak with thought leaders that can see how technologies like, social networks, mobile, ecommerce and corporate websites will evolve to impact the marketing and purchasing process.

If you have research examples you want to submit, you can contact me at jowyang at forrester.com, lead in the subject line “Research Report Submittal: X”

Social + Research
In my opinion only, I’m well aware of the impacts of social technologies on research and analyst firms. Although it hasn’t been done correctly yet, the market could self-organize and provide community based research to each other, bypassing firms. We’ve not seen this happen yet, as then quality of community based research is still low and lacks a directional strategy it certainly is possible. Like I tell my marketing clients, the power is in the hands of the participants –so participate!

My employer has taken note of how I’ve used social technologies to improve research, increase thought leadership, and to share the findings with the market, I’ll be working with fellow analysts to help them understand what works and what doesn’t. Blazing trails is always risky and sometimes fun, but what really matters when it helps a company become more efficient.

Feedback needed
If you had your say in my 2009 research agenda, I’d love to hear what you think is missing. We’ve a pretty solid plan based on what we think the market is asking, but I’d love to hear your opinion as well.

Posted in Analyst, Community Marketing, Forrester | Comments

Comments

How we filtered 9 vendors out of 100 for the Community Platform Wave

Categories: Analyst, ForresterPosted on January 13th, 2009

Research is always challenging, I’m required to stay objective, follow a consistent methodology, and inform the market who is strong and who’s not. Believe me, I’ve gotten my share of angry calls, emails, blogposts, comments, and conversations with brands and vendors as a result of my reports. I’ve found that one thing that really helps everyone to understand is to be open and transparent about the process.

In every Wave, like the Community Platform Wave I recently published, there are vendors that are elated and those that are disappointed, this is a normal outcome of reports that make the tough decisions to help brands make decisions. I’m empathetic to some of the vendors who were not in the Wave and want to make some clear explinations as they have to answer their colleagues, customers, and investors.

To start with, in a market of now 100 vendors, it’s very important that vendors take the onus to respond to the call for submission to the Vendor Product Catalog (free after registration). We used this information to filter out which vendors would be appropriate for the Wave report. I made a few public calls on my blog, twitter, indicating my intent as a result over 50 vendors submitted. We generally do not follow up unless we’ve heard client demand from inquiry calls, and I turned to 3 analyst peers for their inclusion of any additional vendors.

You can understand the challenges in filtering a large market to just a few vendors, given the amount of hours required to spend on each vendor, Forrester limits the number of candidates involved in the Wave, for this one, nine was a manageable size and we capped it at that number.

Next, we filtered vendors to meet the needs of external communities used for customers (I serve the Interactive Marketer) as well as vendors were primarily serving enterprise class companies.

Some vendors chose not to participate as being involved in a research report takes time of the vendors and perhaps precious time away from clients. Vendors have to participate in meetings, plan travel to meet me in lab, and be involved in several communications throughout the process. In fact, a multi billion dollar company who owns a community platform chose not to participate despite my offer.

I’m required to be objective, without this, I lose credibility and then everything else will fall apart. Several vendors who are in the community space who are Forrester clients were not included in the Wave, in fact, some were livid and gave me an loud earful and I actually suspect they may leave us as a client. Despite this, I’m supported by my management, and our CEO to stay objective.

Now for the good news, while there is no immediate plans, Forrester is known for updating Wave’s in the space after a few years. Secondly, if you’re in this space, you know I publish a weekly digest giving updates to buyers about what’s happening in the market. I know for a fact the digest is read by senior decision makers at large corporations. If you are a vendor in this space, you can schedule a briefing with me and we can discuss your situation, I speak to clients, press, and media frequently and will always match market needs with vendors as deemed appropriate.

I believe in the open conversation, and will support the right for every vendor and customer to voice an opinion. I hope this helps provide insight to why some vendors did –and did not make the Wave, we tried every effort to be fair in our first report in a very large market.

Posted in Analyst, Forrester | Comments

Comments

Forrester Wave Report: The Leaders in Community Platforms for Marketers (Part 4/4)

Categories: Analyst, Forrester, White Label Social NetworkPosted on January 9th, 2009

Clients can access the full report The Forrester Wave™: Community Platforms, Q1 2009 on the Forrester site, however the high level findings are available below, as with all of our reports, we stand by our products.

Communities are a powerful way for businesses to grow
Used correctly, communities can impact the top and bottom line of company’s financials: from brands encouraging customers to self-support each other (reducing costs), to spreading word of mouth to each other (efficient marketing and increased sales) to crowd sourcing innovation (streamlining R&D) communities matter more than ever –especially during a recession.

What you must do before you select a vendor
Many of our clients follow the POST methdology, which is a framework for them to first understand the People they’re trying to reach, and how they use social technologies. Then to pick an Objective that aligns with their business, next, they will spend most of their time scoping out the Strategy, which includes internal processes, stakeholders, roles, budgets, empowerment, policy, and change management. Once you’ve done that, only then you’re ready to choose a vendor, which is the Technology. As a rule of thumb, successful brands focus about 80% of their efforts on the People, Objectives, and Strategy, and about 20% effort on Technologies –don’t get it backwards.

Over 100 vendors in this commodity market
Many an entrepreneur has realized this community opportunity, when I started to cover this market there were 8 vendors on my list, today the space now boasts 100 vendors and it continues to grow. Fortunately, the Forrester Wave reports are designed to segment crowded industries. It’s important that your realize this report is for interactive marketers at enterprise-class companies that are seeking to deploy customer communities –not for the internal intranet, collaboration, or insight community vendors.

Therefore brands seek solution partners–not technologists
Having spent my time as a community manager at Hitachi and coupled with research we know that successful community deployments are far more than forums, blogs, rss or other technologies. As a result, we applied over 60% of our weighted criteria based on what our clients tell us they want, a solutions partner that delivers strategy, education, services, community management, analytics and support. During a recession, brands want to be sure that vendors are around for the long term, so we also factored in leadership, executive team, client base, and of course, financial viability.

Key findings of the 9 vendors
What did we find? First of all, this is still a very young market, with the average tenure of a company being just a few years in community. Despite the immaturity, we evaluated nine and were impressed with Jive Software and Telligent Systems who lead the pack because of their strong administrative and platform features and solution offerings.

Next, a group of vendors ranked as strong performers: KickApps and Pluck enable large Web sites to quickly scale with social features. Also in the strong performer category, Awareness, Lithium Technologies, and Mzinga enable brands to build branded communities while LiveWorld offers brands agency-like services. While Leverage Software is not on par with the others in the category, they are ideal for medium-sized businesses and due to their cost-effective platform could have a strong position during this economic downturn.

Above Graphic: Forrester Wave™: Community Platforms, Q1 ’09

Customize the Wave report to your business needs
We don’t live in a world of absolutes, and we understand that the needs of one brand will differ from another, so clients that can access the report can also download the excel sheet. This detailed excel sheet for clients (which has scores, explanations, criteria, scoring criteria) has ‘sliders’ and ‘toggles’ that make it easy for brands to dial up or down specific criteria –creating a custom Wave report for their needs. Different business needs require different vendor offerings, so the Wave is flexible, you can make it your own.

A summary of the rigorous methodology:
I encourage our clients to be open and transparent about their products and services, in order to build trust with their market, so I’m holding myself to the same rigors, here’s a high level summary of the process:

First, we vetted the 100 vendors to submit to a vendor product catalog, over 50 submitted which we used the data to pair down who were appropriate for the Wave report.

Hands-on lab evaluations: I spent up to 6 hours with each vendor in a windowless room to evaluate their product live using common customer scenarios. I grilled the executive team, and discussed their strengths and weaknesses.

Product demos. We asked vendors to conduct demonstrations of their products’ functionality. We used findings from these product demos to validate details of each vendor’s product capabilities.

Customer reference calls. To validate product and vendor qualifications, Forrester also conducted reference calls with up to three of each vendor’s current customers for a total of up to 27 customer calls.

We collected hundreds of screenshots, presentations, samples, reports and all of this information was entered in a multi-tab spreadsheet that accounts for thousands of cells, scoring, and detailed explanations which clients can use to toggle up and down specific needs as in some cases, specific feature needs may need to be highlighted over others.

In the bottom links, I’ve made my research process very transparent, and have indicate the other three other blog posts documenting this laborious research effort.

The conversation is just starting
Although this report is a snapshot in time, and some vendors have expressed they’ve made some improvements to date, to keep this long process from going further, we have to put a cap on the updates. Therefore, I will continue to keep the market updated with the the social networking weekly digest just as I have for the past years. In the spirit of the community conversation, if you’re a vendor in this wave in this space, I encourage you to voice your opinion online, I’ll make sure the market sees it, I strive to be fair.

A very sincere public thanks to the team
This was the most difficult project I’ve had to do in a long time, and I’d like to thank Shar VanBoskirk (editor), Christine Spivey Overby (editor and my manager), Angie Polanco (Research Associate), Oliver Young (subject matter expert), Sarah Glass (who went beyond the call of duty as a Senior Research Associate), Zach Reiss-Davis (Research Associate), Megan Chromik (editing), and Josh Bernoff (moral support), I couldn’t have done it without you guys, I assure you, it was painful for them as well as me.

Helping decision makers to be successful
Yet the pain will pay off for our clients as brands can easily find vendors that will meet their specific needs. I’ve been passionate about the community market far before I became an industry analyst covering this space, and am glad to serve the industry. We went to great lengths to be objective, accurate, consistent, detailed, and fair and hope this accelerates your business. Thanks for your patience, and enjoy the Wave!

Related Resources
I’ll be updating this section as I see interesting voices from media, vendors, brands and customers.

Jive and Telligent have made the report available

Read Write Web: Report: Community Platforms Market Led by Jive Software and Telligent

Leverage Software CEO Mike Walsh (and other vendors) have responded in the comments

Josh Bernoff: Picking a community vendor? We’ve evaluated a bunch

Tom Humbarger: Questions if these vendors are eating their own dog food read Walking the “Social Media Walk”

Telligent’s corporate blog chimes in and makes the report available for you.

Connie Benson: Wave report showcases community platforms

Neighborhood America CEO, Kim Patrick Kobza: Forrester Wave Report Part 1

Forrester’s Interactive Marketing Blog: I’ve cross posted this same content on our blog for interactive marketers.

My follow up post: How we filtered 9 vendors out of 100 for the Community Platform Wave

Webinar: I’ll be conducting a teleconference on Feb 3rd, hope you can attend

Max Kalehoff discusses the wave and talks why he choose Telligent –and how they can improve.

Destination CRM: Forrester Waves to the Top Providers of Community Platforms

Barry Hurd: Corporate Social Media Platforms – great info to check out.

Mediapost: Ultimate Guide To Community Platform Technologies

Read more about this Wave Research project:

Part 1: Starting the Wave
Part 2: Data Collection Process
Part 3: The Analysis Process
Part 4: Announcing the Wave, the final report

Posted in Analyst, Forrester, White Label Social Network | Comments

Comments

Looking back on our 2008 Predictions

Categories: Analyst, Forrester, Social MediaPosted on January 4th, 2009

By Jeremiah Owyang and Josh Bernoff and cross posted on Forrester’s Interactive Marketing Blog

At Forrester we tend to look forward, not back. In fact, right now we are preparing our predictions for what 2009 will bring in the social application space. But the end of the year is also a time to reflect. So we looked back at our 2008 predictions to see how we did. Overall, we had one big mistake (vendor relationship management went nowhere) and we were too optimistic on several other predictions. Optimism, it seems, comes along with this space. But we were pleased that the entrance of corporations into the social world seems to be coming along fine, despite the recent Motrin kerfuffle, to cite one example.

Hindsight is 20-20; it’s harder to remember what life felt like in December of 2007, before the recession loomed large, Barack Obama used social technologies to win the election, and social technology became mainstream. But cast mind back 12 months, and then see if you would have agreed with our predictions . . . and what can be learned from the mistakes we made. Here they are, along with the grades we give ourselves 12 months later. (Note: these predictions were in a Forrester document available to our clients (Update: Which included the help of Charlene Li and Peter Kim, who have since moved on to become alumni). We’ve reproduced the predictions, with some edits for length that don’t affect the content.

Our 2008 Prediction: Corporate participation will bring social applications to the mainstream. . . .Emboldened by the success of pioneering efforts like Victoria’s Secret’s Facebook page and extensive private communities like Procter & Gamble’s beinggirl.com, companies will move beyond one-off experiments in social media to establish full-fledged initiatives. Sponsored communities, YouTube videos, social networking groups, and widgets will become a standard part of online marketing campaigns, further pushing adoption by mainstream consumers. . . . By the end of 2008, marketers will be searching for concrete ways to measure return . . .

Result: Give us a B on this one. There were indeed many more social applications, as evidenced by the 150 excellent entrants to the Forrester Groundswell awards. And, there is definitely a renewed focus on metrics. But social is far from universal, and the state of measurement sadly lags social deployments.

Our 2008 Prediction: Community manager roles will gain prominence in companies. As companies realize how important social applications are to their marketing and business strategies, formal budgets and roles will become more standard at large marketers. The staff in charge of those applications might not all have the same title, but they will share similar duties and responsibilities, namely, to develop a social technology strategy and start to deploy social tools and programs.

Result: A-. Community managers aren’t universal. But there are an awful lot of them, and the ones we know have definitely risen in prominence within their companies, see this list compiled of community managers at enterprise class corporations.

Our 2008 Prediction: Corporate social responsibility will take on a new meaning. Corporate participation in Social Computing hasn’t had the greatest run, between fake blogs and flat marketer profiles on social networks that shout at, rather than talk with, site members. Moreover, consumers have become more vocal about preserving control over their information and experiences. . . .Just as Sarbanes-Oxley provides guidelines for internal controls, companies will find themselves answering as well to a growing community of external auditors.

Result: B-. Recent events like the Motrin fiasco show the groundswell is keeping people honest. But we still hear the occasional corporate executive asking us if they can fake it. (We always tell them that would be a very bad idea.) We still think this will come true, but may take another year or more.

Our 2008 Prediction: Customer needs will gain a voice and launch demand-platform prototypes. . . . Customers will state their intention to buy products or services via a Web-based marketplace. eBay’s “Want It Now” program will get a turbo boost when the company turns the existing bulletin board/announcement service into a bidding-based marketplace. College students on Facebook will organize buying clubs centered on an entire dormitory, allowing marketers to move bulk merchandise with a single purchase order. Meanwhile, search engines like Google will create prototype vendor relationship management (VRM) tools that will enable both customers and marketers to find, aggregate, and match user requests to providers.

Result: F. Proved to be far too optimistic; never happened.

Our 2008 Prediction: Micromedia adoption will increase, and marketers will learn to join in. Twitter, Pownce, Jaiku, Utterz, and other micro-blogging and micro-media tools will give users the opportunity to share short sentences or audio clips with trusted friends. Better search and aggregation tools as well as the ability to have differentiated, group-based distribution will make these “micromedia” conversations more useful and relevant, extending their use beyond the early adopters. Marketers will learn how to use the new tools to monitor and target these ephemeral conversations and participate in relevant interactions on the fly.

Result: A-. Twitter dominated the micromedia market. Companies from Comcast to H&R Block to Zappos have learned to accomplish real business goals with it. We expect a whole lot of further growth in marketer use of Twitter in 2009.

Our 2008 Prediction: The social graph will open up. In 2008, we will see social network members clamoring for greater control over their social networking site profiles, specifically, the ability to express their personal social graphs across multiple sites, for example, on both Facebook and LinkedIn. What will break down the walls in these walled gardens? Perhaps a disrupter like Microsoft or Yahoo! will open up their respective relationship maps from Web-based address books and instant messenger buddy lists and allow outside developers to build apps on that truly open the social graph. This will set the standard, and every other social networking service will need to follow suit shortly thereafter, or risk the wrath of members unable to control their profiles.

Result: C. This trend is powerful, and will develop, perhaps even the way we predicted. But standards move slowly and we see fragments of technologies from Facebook’s Connect, Google’s Friend Connect, and OpenID. Look for this opening up to gather momentum in 2009 where a standardized protocol between all of these technologies to merge.

Our 2008 Prediction: Social search will make its debut. Social search will finally inch its way into the mainstream by re-ranking search results based on inputs from your personalized search history as well as the searching patterns of your social graph. For example, people with similar searching patterns and people like you within your social networks might have favored a particular site over other results in a search for “china.” If so, that link will move up higher in the results. Leading the path to social search will be small vendors like Collarity, Eurekster, Mahalo.com, Wink Technologies, and Wikia, which will begin with site-based social search results. But also look for Google and Yahoo! to start testing and inserting limited social and personalized search results, and eventually ads, as an optional advanced search at the top of search results pages.

Result: D. Social search didn’t catch on very well. But Google did add the ability to promote or demote search results to its mainstream searches –but it lacked a true social element. We did start to see tools that help people quickly share information like ex-Googlers at Friendfeed but the tool doesn’t highlight search as a primary effort. Now that large web platforms like Yahoo, Microsoft, and AOL are expanding their social features we should expect search to be impacted in the next year. Social search will get here, one way or another.

That covers all our predictions from last yea, it’s important that we review who made a prediction and to own up to how accurate it was, and more importantly; what changed and why? We’ll be publishing our predictions for 2009 in a report for clients, keep an eye out for that.

What are your best ideas for what’s going to happen in 2009? And what predictions already out there do you think are right – or wrong?

Posted in Analyst, Forrester, Social Media | Comments

Comments

Event Summary: The Future of the Social Web

Categories: Analyst, Events, Forrester, Social MediaPosted on January 1st, 2009

Nothing like ringing in the new year with a look at where the industry is headed. My job as an industry analyst is to assess where the industry is going, and how vendors and brands should respond to changes. My upcoming research on the topic of the future of the social web will do just that, and perhaps the most effective way for me to learn from the best and brightest in the industry is to bring them all to one room.

A few months ago, I held an event to bring the industry top leaders together to discuss the future of social networks for my upcoming research report on the topic. I brought forth community platforms, widget companies, social networks, brand monitoring, web analytics, CRM, CMS search companies, and of course, brands that will implement these technologies. Thanks to SAP who hosted this event (thanks Giovanni for the intro) we had a day long working session to uncover what we see are the predictions of the social web, the challenges to overcome, and how they will be beat. Thanks to Kenny Lauer and the GPJ team for assisting me through the event. Special thanks to SAP for hosting this community event.

Folks flew in from around the country to attend this no-cost event, and we brainstormed and collaborated during the day to come up with the three things (and more) that will matter. Most would agree, none of the findings were earth shattering, but were confirmation for the different parties to attend. I’ll be hosting similar events throughout 2009 to bring the industry together, so we can learn from each other, and I can improve my research.

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: socialnetwork socialmedia)

Update: For some reason the pictures aren’t showing in the embedded slideshare, although they are viewable in this version.

The embedded slideshare has more details about the event, if you’ve questions, leave a comment, I’ll answer the best to my ability.

Key Findings
Group findings at the very high level revealed the following, to see the specific three predictions, check out the slideshare. Note, these were not my predictions, but what I gleaned from the attendees.

The social web industry was able to collaborate towards a single goal.

Predictions generated weren’t “earth-shattering” yet group consensus confirmed industry direction.

Most challenges indicated culture and change management processes within corporations –not a technology issue.

The social web is still in early stages –standards have not been fully been developed nor adopted.

Measurement continues to be a key issue to determine progress and value –as well as a lack of standards.

Key relationships were developed pan-industry.

Here’s the roster of attendees
I invited others, but some were not able to attend, I tried to avoid pundits, and focus on those that really do the work not just talk about it. In some cases, I sent an invite to the company, and they selected who would attend, some of these folks were hand selected by me.

Brands
Scott Lawley, SAP
Len Devanna, EMC
Brian Ellefritz, Cisco
Faith Legendre, Webex
Bob Duffy, Intel
Joel Nathanson, Wells Fargo
Joshua-Michéle Ross, O’Reilly
Karl Long, Nokia
Paul Gilliham, Juniper Networks
Tom Diederich, Cadence
Justin Kestelyn, Oracle

Brand Monitoring, Analytics
Brad Brodigan, Biz 360
Aaron Gray, Web Trends

CRM, Enterprise Applications
Sandy Carter, IBM
Param Kahlon, SAP
Oracle
Eugene Lee, SocialText

Widgets/Applications
Rooly Eliezerov, Gigya
Will Price, Widgetbox
Jeff Nolan, Newsgator

Social Networks
Chris Schalk, Google
David Recordon, Six Apart, OpenID
Surya Yalamanchili, LinkedIn

Community Platforms, CMS
John McCormick, Documentum EMC
Adam Weinroth, Pluck
Bryan House, Acquia
Cameron Deatsch , Jive
David Carter, Awareness
Lyle Fong, Lithium
Michael Chin, Kickapps
Mike Walsh, Leverage Software
Rob Howard, Telligent
Rusty Williams, Mzinga
Peter Friedman, LiveWorld

Expect more on this topic as I dive into this research for 2009, I plan to host this roundtable each year, will try to circulate different attendees as possible.

Posted in Analyst, Events, Forrester, Social Media | Comments

Comments

Thank you 2008

Categories: Analyst, RuminationsPosted on December 30th, 2008

This has been the busiest year of my career by far, I’ve traveled (and held blogger dinners) in great cities like Tampa, NY, Virginia, Hawaii, Colorado, Austin, Dallas, So Cal, Barcelona, and Tokyo; I’ve accrued many-a-frequent flyer mile. I published several research reports, (won an award), did more public speaking than ever before, delivered above my average of client engagements, was quoted a few times in the press, and grew this blog and twitter account, even though I’ll still get paid if I stop blogging.

Of course, not everything went well. There’s always room for improvement, I need to be better prepared for client engagements (I didn’t do hot on at least two client engagements), I was criticized a few time by bloggers, got duped by Janet and need to check my ego before I get trapped. Outside of work I need to stay on top of my health, and I need to do better at balancing personal and work life.

Perhaps one change is that I’ve now been given the stigma of ‘guru’ which I really dislike. Why? I want to be known for what I can do, not just thought leadership. I produce research reports (products) and help my clients make decisions and give them recommendations (services).

As a result, you’re going to see some changes in my behavior this year, I’m going to do less ‘talking’ and focus more on ‘listening’ and ‘energizing’ (what we call ‘word of mouth’), that’s why I’m taking a Twitter hiatus. Perhaps most importantly, I plan to continue to ‘support’ my community, many people are going to be hurting as they wont be working, keep an eye on this blog in the coming weeks.

Update: To cap the year off the Top Chocolate Blogger brought me some treats, thanks Brian

Posted in Analyst, Ruminations | Comments

Comments

A Day In the Life of an Industry Analyst: Advisory Projects

Categories: Analyst, Forrester, Social MediaPosted on December 7th, 2008

I made a promise to be transparent with the mysterious industry analyst job, in fact, I didn’t completely understand all aspects of what the job entailed until being here for a few months. I realize that the public usually doesn’t understand the research industry business model, or how we help our clients make decisions. So in an attempt to explain what I do (read other posts tagged analyst to learn of other aspects) to understand one important part of my job: advisory.

Make Leaders Successful
Last week, I wrapped up another project with a technology client where we helped them develop a social media strategy based on actual research –a powerful way to ensure your efforts will be successful. Although Forrester has a consulting arm, I really consider our services as ‘advisory’ where we help clients understand the different choices they can make, make a decision based on research and data, and then suggest the appropriate course of action.

Project: Social Media Strategy
In this project, we helped a technology company enhance and expand their existing social media strategy. They had read the Groundswell book and understood the POST methodology, they understood how important it was know their customers before choosing social technologies. We kicked off with scoping discussions, understanding the needs of the business, and learned about their marketplace and customer base. Next, we then created a survey which was fielded to their market of influencers and decision makers where we asked questions about their: Demographics (who are they) Psychographics (what do they care about) Media Consumption (What do they read, and from where) and Technographics (how do they use social technologies.

Assembling the Team
Scientific surveys are a tricky beast, so we lean on our data experts like Cynthia Pflaum who helped to design, field, process and analyze the data from the survey. We have folks from traditional consulting backgrounds, and if you work with me you’ll likely meet consultant Nicole Belanger, who ensures we’re meeting the needs of the client, and we stay on target. My role as the subject matter expert is to make specific, make sense of the data, make specific recommendations, and provide a clear course of action for the client. To be quite honest, making recommendations becomes very easy once you have all the information in front of you –research is a very powerful tool.

Research Helps Reduces Risk and Increases Success
We had several meetings with the client, to share initial findings, discussion the different paths, and ended things off this past week with a presentation to the entire marketing team. Nothing pleases me more than to see the impacts I’m making with clients, in this case I learned that the client had already started with some of the newer recommendations based off the research. In some cases, clients are seeking clarification for their existing plans, so in addition to directional guidelines, we also help our clients with best practices (the report on community best practices, is very popular) and vendor selection, that’s why the upcoming Wave report on community platforms will really change buying behavior.

Full Circle: Client Feedback
Of course this story is incomplete, it doesn’t include the feedback from the client themselves! I know they are readers of this blog, so they’re welcome to review this project process in a transparent manner, either as a guest post, either anonymously or disclosed, or they don’t have to disclose at all. Perhaps more importantly, we’ll revisit their social media activities in a few months to track progress, I certainly hope the data and recommendations sets them up for success.

Fail Fast: I make mistakes too
In the spirit of transparency, things don’t always go well with clients, about once a quarter I stumble with a client engagement, or a client complains about my performance. I’ve learned where I’m challenged, such as: freaking out when I’m overwhelmed, making sure I’m prepared, checking my ego, and setting expectations with clients, I can’t say I’ve mastered all these, I’ve still got a lot to learn, but like everyone else, I stumble too. The key thing I’ve learned from making mistakes is to fail fast, and try to quickly get back up after licking my wounds. We all must grow.

Posted in Analyst, Forrester, Social Media | Comments

Comments

An Update on my Research Agenda

Categories: Analyst, ForresterPosted on December 4th, 2008

I’ve been receiving questions about the much anticipated Community Platform Wave report, and wanted to provide an update. I’ve completed a majority of the report and it’s currently with the editing team getting the t’s crossed and i’s dotted. We’re expecting an early January publication date, and I’ve been making an effort to be upfront and transparent with updates. Also, there’s a teleconference that many of you may have signed up for in this Dec, however we’ll be pushing it back in order to coincide with the publication date. Update: The report will publish in early Jan and the teleconference is now on Feb 3rd.

If you’re a client of Forrester, you can schedule an inquiry call with me to discuss your plans for selecting a community platform vendor –or view this vendor product catalog (free for anyone) which has over 50 of them listed out. I’ve already helped a few clients with vendor selection based upon the data found in the report, research really is a powerful process.

I’ve received a few questions about the smart folks at Gartners take on this space, and they’ve recently published a magic quadrant on social software (Read a copy on Jive’s site), but it looks like they may be including more internal tools, and are including a plethora of vendors.

I can’t comment on their research (as I wasn’t involved) but the focus on the Community Platform wave is for interactive marketers at enterprise size companies, also I’ll only be including 9 vendors and they are all community platforms (not collaboration, not wiki players, not insight vendors). This means external deployments (communities for customers), and not internal, it looks like we’re approaching it at two different angles.

Also, I’m working on a report to understand how baby boomers (like my mom and dad) use social technologies, so expect to see that publish in the near future. While youth certainly adopt social tools, boomers are also reading and participating.

Posted in Analyst, Forrester | Comments

Comments

The Startup Conundrum: Scalable vs Services

Categories: Analyst, Social Media, VCsPosted on December 2nd, 2008

VCs Seek Scalable Technologies
Lately, I’ve been spending time trading information with one of the most powerful groups in our industries: VCs. They spur innovation by injecting funding into startups, help fuel those that need an accelerated path, and work many deals in the background to connect their investments with the right folks.

[Although VCs seek investments that rapidly scale, startups must satisfy the needs of enterprise clients by offering a range of services]

Yet despite their power I’m often concerned about one of goals that VCs have of their investments is finding and investing in a company that will quickly scale an an exponential rate then exiting. Their vision is for technology to go from 1 person to 10 people to 100, 1000, 10k and so forth. Then the opportunities for monetization and exit strategies are more at hand.

Yet Enterprises Often Need Service Offerings
I understand why this model makes sense to VCs, but this is often the opposite model that enterprise class companies may need. Some analysts approach the same industry from a different perspective. I’m looking for companies that just won’t scale to reach millions of users, but companies that will help brands and users make a difference, yet often, this requires offering non-scalable offerings, like services.

The Conundrum of the Solution Startups
Take for example the community platform market, a space I’ve been covering for over a year and a half. These vendors sell to large enterprise companies, yet the business case is far different. To be successful in selling to the enterprise, vendors need to have a solution offering that includes services like: education, implementation, custom development, support, analytics services, and community management services. When you couple these services with a technology offering (called a ’solution sell’), you’re now able to provide value to large brands.

What’s the challenge when vendors offer a solution to enterprises? Services don’t scale in terms of revenue, it’s only an incremental growth in the top line incomes (2-10X). As a result, some VCs may shy away from investments that are heavy services focus, and may instead encourage their portfolio companies to instead focus on scalable technologies.

[Often, social media implementation in the enterprise is 80% process and labor, and only 20% technology]

80/20 Rule of Services/Technology
In the end, you’re going to need both types of companies (scalable technology and solution partners) to help both businesses and users, in fact the most successful companies will often have both. I often encourage my clients (large brands) to look at vendors beyond technology, in fact, most enterprise deployments of social media are only 20% technology and 80% process and labor. So when you’re selecting a vendor, be sure to understand their roadmap, how their investors perceive the direction of the company, and take a long hard look at the services and support they can offer you.

Note: I’ve also heard that some VCs are scaling back their investments in startups, while you continue to hear of funding happening for vendors.

Speaking of community platform vendors, I’ve submitted the community platform wave report to editing, and am anticipating a publish date in early Jan.

Posted in Analyst, Social Media, VCs | Comments

Comments

The Glances

Categories: Analyst, RuminationsPosted on November 5th, 2008

This post has nothing to do with technology, but everything to do with communication

I’m not a great speaker, but someday hope to be one. I have learned that being in tune with your audience is key when it comes to giving your presentation. When I’m at public conferences and speaking, I watch twitter in real time, in hopes of avoiding an audience Groundswell.

Like a good doctor, my job is to learn and listen, diagnose problems, and offer remedies to my patients. Since I often speak to the web strategists at a company, (VP, Dir, Manager of Web) and related marketing cohorts I’ve started to become really in tune with the non verbal gestures within a room as it relates to their core pain points. Body language, which often accounts for 80% of all in person communication, really helps me to tune into what’s really happening at the company:

Antagonist/Protagonist
Often analyst are brought in to settle disputes using data and insight between debating groups or product teams, and I can often tell when questions are being loaded, aimed, and fired at me for me to then resolve. For example, when one individual asks a particular loaded question, I immediately watch the glances of everyone else in the room –they’ll likely shoot right over to the antagonist. After I give my answer, you can often watch shoulder tension fall or raise, which can sometimes indicate where more conversation will happen later.

Find the power
It’s easy to spot the decision maker in the room, when the topic of budgets, roles, responsibilities comes up in topic or audience question, in a small room, it’s easy to see where the eyeballs all look. Most people don’t even realize they’re split second glance to the decision maker, but when I see a pattern, I can often tell who holds the power.

Echos in the backchannel
Recently, I spoke with a product team, and they were furiously discussing (and perhaps critiquing me) in the backchannel IM. While few of them looked up from their laptops at me, I could tell they were absorbing, reacting, and discussing the data and insight I was bringing. I could hear the increase of typing of notes or instant messages in between certain topics –they were reacting back.

While this observational method isn’t always spot on, it’s important that a speaker be very in tune with the audience he’s speaking to, as we know how non-verbal communication can provide data about what’s really happening underneath.

Posted in Analyst, Ruminations | Comments

Comments

Status: Forrester Wave Report for Community Platforms, Analysis Process (Part 3/4)

Categories: Analyst, Forrester, White Label Social NetworkPosted on October 24th, 2008

Wave report to segment market leaders in a crowded industry
I’m over the hump of this laborious research project to determine which of the 90 community platform vendors are enterprise worthy for Fortune 5000 interactive marketers.

Enterprise brands seek ‘Community Solution Partner’
I firmly believe that technology is a commodity, that’s why there are 90 vendors in this crowded space. Brands have indicated that success is only 20% technology, and the majority is 80% is a combination of internal changes, services, and support.

One thing I heavily stressed in my research, isn’t a focus so much on the technology, but instead how the vendors could truly be ‘community solution partners’ to their clients. A true solution partner understands the business needs of their client, offers strategy, best practices, can assist with implementation, offers ongoing technical –but more importantly, community management, guidance, and recommendations.

The research methodology includes:
I’ve had to make sense of thousands of cells in multiple excel sheets, ensure each line is accurate and will enable our clients to make important decisions.

6-hour in person lab days with each of the 9 vendors
During the last few weeks, I spent 5-6 hours with each of the nine vendors, often in a windowless room where powerpoint, screenshots, and live testing of their software took place. Using Forrester’s 5 objectives of listening, talking, energizing, supporting, and embracing, I’ve found some key patterns to the strengths of vendors.

Up to 27 customer interviews
Surprisingly, vendors don’t know their own customers that well, in more than one occasion, customers poorly rated the vendors that suggested they participate as this ideal customer reference. I also cross references with vendors to see how well they could anticipate what their customers said about them –in some cases, vendors were completely unaware of the challenges that clients were having –a very bad sign.

Reviewed data submitted by vendors
Earlier, we issued a survey to vendors in this space, over 50 of them responded, and submitted around 50 or so fields of data. I factored in a great deal of this to perform market sizing and to complete comparative analysis.

Frequent discussion with clients
Perhaps the most important piece of data input is the constant discussion with my clients on inquiry calls. I hear from them what they want (demand side) as well as their experience with vendors (feedback). It’s interesting to find out that many brands are not happy with their platform vendors, and the vendors often don’t even know it!

Next Steps: Final Analysis, Preparing for Publication
Expect to see the published report in the coming weeks. Right now, the spreadsheets are being reviewed by vendors in the fact checking process, and I’ve already started to see some patterns in the data that will help to determine positioning. Thanks for your patience, between client duties and travel, getting all the pieces together for success requires some patience to ensure it will be done correctly.

If you’re a client and need advice now, you can schedule an inquiry call with me and I’ll be happy to discuss with you my current findings. I’ve already made some recommendations to clients based upon their specific needs and objectives.

I hope you find this transparency in the research methodology helpful in understanding our goals to make sure our clients make the right decisions to be successful.

Read more about this Wave Research project: