Bottom line: PR shouldn’t be a pompous ass, either on its own behalf or the client’s.

JournalistWhoPrefersToBeAnonymous 11:13 am
hey… RedactedCompanyName changed outside pr firms

tell them to stop wasting their money.
CurtMonash 11:14 am
How so?
JournalistWhoPrefersToBeAnonymous 11:14 am
all these firms do is email me. they don’t add any value.
CurtMonash 11:14 am
May I quote you?
JournalistWhoPrefersToBeAnonymous 11:14 am
just got a note from them telling me about a blog post by RedactedExecutiveName. OK, fine. why on earth can’t RedactedExecutiveName ping me directly.

am I supposed to think they are more important because they have a PR firm?

are only PR firms capable of obtaining my email address?

Do third-party PR firms have more credibilty with journalists????
CurtMonash 11:16 am
OK. I’ll quote you PUBLICLY, but not by name. Nor with RedactedCompanyName’s name.
JournalistWhoPrefersToBeAnonymous 11:16 am
Are these vendors really fooled by third-party PRs that try to win their business by talking about all the “stories they ‘placed’” and the “access” theyhave.

i mean come on.

JournalistWhoPrefersToBeAnonymous 11:16 am
if you want to quote me please no fingerprints

just call me a ‘journalist’
CurtMonash 11:17 am
["fingerprints" redacted]
JournalistWhoPrefersToBeAnonymous 11:18 am
my real point here is: If you are a small startup with innovative technology, put as little as possible between your own people who can talk with passion about the stuff, and whoever you’re trying to get coverage from.

dont spend $20,000 a month retaining some third-party PR firm!

CurtMonash 11:18 am
Oh, I agree.
And I hate it when PR firms contact me, after putting out press releases, offering to let me talk w/ an exec.
JournalistWhoPrefersToBeAnonymous 11:18 am
“Let” you.
CurtMonash 11:19 am
Umm, if I asked to talk with an exec, I’m pretty sure the firm would make same available …
JournalistWhoPrefersToBeAnonymous 11:19 am
i was once offered an “exclusive” with a small vendor’s chief marketing officer.

not kidding, this was really a pitch i got
CurtMonash 11:19 am
Well, “let” is my word. They tend to use “availability” or whatever.
JournalistWhoPrefersToBeAnonymous 11:19 am
yeah
CurtMonash 11:21 am
If I have trouble reaching an exec, it’s at a multi-billion company.
And then only the ones who avoid me because they want to control their message, not because they’re just short of time.
I presume the same is true for you?
JournalistWhoPrefersToBeAnonymous 11:22 am
i mean yeah, pretty much. some vendors are much more open than others. SAP is waaay more accommodating than Oracle.

[more "fingerprints" redacted]
CurtMonash 11:24 am
I’m not sure I’d get any Oracle access at all if I didn’t have a multi-decade, intense-consulting, double-date-with-Larry-Ellison kind of history with the company.
Best thing they do in influencer relations is not clamp down on the Kevin Clossons or Greg Rahns of the world.

1.  The terms “ethics” and “ethical” are used somewhat inconsistently, along a spectrum from:

There are procedural rules of good behavior, and if you violate them that’s bad. That’s the essence of ethics.

to

Unless the motive was impure, an act was not unethical.

Either extreme, in my opinion, quickly leads to nonsense.

2. Actually, I think calling that a spectrum is a bit misleading. I’d prefer to say an act is unethical if:

• It is (too) likely to have bad effect AND
• The perpetrator was guilty of bad behavior in not acting differently.

Thus, somebody can make an error in the area of ethics and still be fully ethical if, upon realizing it, they straightforwardly correct it. On the other hand, a pattern of such “errors” can suffice to convict them of unethical behavior.

3.  In particular, I stand by the following views from the post and comment thread that set this all off:

• Oracle behaves unethically by repeatedly foisting off sponsored analyst content as independent research.
• Merv Adrian is a fine, ethical guy.
• One reason I believe Merv is an ethical guy is because when I pointed out a screw-up to him, he characterized it as an oversight (I believe him) and said he’d move quickly to correct it.
• Commenters in that thread who suggested I shouldn’t even have mentioned Merv’s error were out of line. When you make an innocent mistake, you may suffer some embarrassment as a result.

4.  Merv’s analysis of white paper ethical issues was excellent, and supersedes mine. Continuing the oneupsmanship , I’ll now try to synthesize by saying: 

• White papers should never give a misleading view of the analyst’s opinion. Therefore:
  • They should always be prominently labeled as to sponsorship.
  • They should never be quoted out of context (a longstanding rule of mine that Merv thankfully also enforces).
  • They should always be clearly dated (a point I forgot to mention before).
• Merv points out that many companies have the same specific failing I lambasted Oracle for. While I think Oracle is particularly egregious, I don’t dispute his general observation. What’s more, since a white paper has many possible routes to get to an individual’s desk, the only reliable protections are those embedded within the paper itself.

5. In my post on white paper ethics, I confessed that I knew little of practices in sponsored podcasting. Eric Kavanagh helpfully filled me in on how he does it, tweeting

DM Radio is not pay-2-play; sponsors get leads & commercial but no editorial preference; enforced by tag team of me & Ericson.

and

Several rules: no product promotion; we talk business, tech, architecture, how-why-when stuff; I do a pre-call with ~all guests.

and

The policy is unscripted dialogue; in the pre-call, I tell guests to think of 3-4 key points they’ll make; no questions banned!!

6. I am generally appalled by the behavior of certain companies toward analysts, and their efforts to control what analysts say. Practices include:

• Demanding a review cycle on anything the analyst writes about them, sponsored or otherwise.
• More generally, heavily tailoring access not just according to an analyst’s importance (by whatever measure of importance or influence makes sense to them) but also pliability.
• As noted above, mischaracterizing the nature of analyst research.
  

Oracle is generally reputed as the worst offender, but while I agree with the criticism in general, I’m somewhat mellowed by the fact that I, personally, still have good access to key Oracle product people at important times.

As for Microsoft, on the other hand … well, let’s just say the best insight I’ve gotten from my back channels to date has been to find out exactly what falsehoods were being circulated about me in internal Microsoft communications. I also frankly am steamed at the moment that a Microsoft exec had the nerve to tell me that I shouldn’t post about ethical issues (a dictum I obviously have no intention of adhering to).

7.  It absolutely is possible for companies to change their analyst relations practices, both for better and for worse. The most dramatic positive change I recall is when, in the mid-1990s, Sybase went fairly quickly from utter dishonesty to having one of the best analyst relations guys ever (Dave Taber, when he had that role for them). In a slower evolution, IBM — which once filed a $7.5 billion lawsuit naming a Gartner Group analyst as co-defendant — has become pretty reasonable (even if large and bureaucratic) to deal with.

The post that kicked this all off, by Gideon Gartner and Barbara French, basically asking whether and how small analyst firms could rise to challenge the big ones like Gartner Group and Forrester Research. An extremely rich comment thread ensued. Implicit in the original post was a definition of “analyst” work that seemed to include both proprietary published research and quick-hit advisory services, fitting the traditional big-firm subscription model. More diversity, however, was shown in the post comments.

Long ago, Gideon probably based his model on his prior career at stock research firms, which to this day model their business somewhat like big IT analyst firms. Some of the main differences are:

• Payment levels and services provided sort of just happen, rather than being precisely negotiated.
• Payment style is wonky, mainly consisting of a certain share of a client’s high-margin rather-commodity-service stock trading business.
• SEC regulations insist that you not say anything material in personal advisory services you haven’t first put out in writing (there’s been decades-long uncertainty as to just what is or isn’t “material”).

Note: I used to be a stock analyst myself. Indeed, I once was ranked #1 on the Institutional Investor All-Star Team. This may be only the 3^rd year in the past 29 that I get $0 revenue from investment research – and it’s not over yet.

My immediate reason for writing this post is that Ray Wang of Altimeter Group asked me to retweet his post on the best way to set up a new analyst firm, broken down into “7 Tenets”. The implicit model he’s using of analyst firm seems to be one that does a lot of advisory services, probably sells subscriptions, has “proprietary IP”, and gives a lot of research away via blogs and other public outlets. I.e., it’s similar to Gartner/Forrester, but not quite as rigid. Anyhow, I know Ray isn’t really that dogmatic, because – as he tweeted recently – he’s exploring a possible “trade association” of independent analyst firms, and I’ve talked with him about who might be in or out.

In my own business, I follow a more extreme form of the “freemium” model. In line with my stock analyst background, I feel anything I know that’s sufficiently important should be published openly, technology insight and general methodology alike. Advisory services are for:

• Teaching people how to use the information.
• Being the middleman for 1-to-1 NDA vendor/user discussion.

I’ve figured out how to offer quasi-subscription retainer vendor services even so, but find it easier to sell user services on a project basis.

Of course, I don’t really publish EVERYTHING openly, for three main reasons:

• Nobody has time to write up everything they know.
• Much of what I know is NDAed.
• My best advice is reserved for my paying customers.

But that held-back advice is not apt to be a market trend or analytic methodology. Rather, it is likely to be a more specific “Due to threat, opportunity or trend X, you should do Y,” where X is something I’ve actually been writing about publicly for a while.

Jonny Bentwood, meanwhile, goes to the opposite extreme from Gideon et al., defining an analyst by

if someone is independent and directly influences technology procurement then they are an analyst

That leads, for example, to him ranking Dennis Moore as a top-100 analyst tweeter. Now, I have no problem with mentioning “Dennis Moore” and “top-100 analyst” in the same sentence. But if Dennis has any analyst business model at all, it’s one of the stealthiest ones in the whole IT industry.

Finally, there was a webinar by French, Bentwood, Ray’s partner Jeremiah Owyang (who’s #1 on most of Bentwood’s lists, except for the ones Ray’s #1 on), and Carter Lusher on analysts’ use of social media. I haven’t listened to the recording, but two of the four bullet points listed below it say analysts can or should:

Develop personal networks, career brands, that carry with them further than reports under an umbrella brand.

Finally realize they are also media in addition to their traditional roles.

I agree, and in fact believe analysts are a huge part of the media ecosystem, already now and even more going forward.

So what are the implications? If you’re a vendor, I think:

• Analysts (defined broadly) are an increasingly important part of the overall set of influencers. In particular, as traditional media business models collapse, we’re playing some of the role trade press reporters used to.
• You need flexibility in how you deal with influencers. Everybody is different. (Quick worst-practice story: Oracle tells me it won’t give analyst-relations support to anybody who doesn’t let it see what they write before it goes out – a process they use both for fact-checking and general last-ditch opinion-lobbying. But I know they enforce that rule selectively. And I’m not getting good PR support from Oracle these days either.)
• Understand that different analysts can give you good advice in different ways. E.g., numerous clients tell me that they go to Gartner to find out what mainstream enterprises are saying, and to me for actual marketing or strategy advice. (Conveniently, that lets them also be giving money to and getting attention from what they judge to be two of the top influencers in their area.) Other analysts might assist them in yet other ways, even beyond general influencer-relations value.

If you’re a user, please note that:

• There are numerous good providers of free information and insight.
• Many (not all) providers of free information can also be hired as consultants.

Sorry if those bullet points at the end — or for that matter the rest of the post –  sound a bit self-serving, but this overview is in fact informed by thinking about my own business.

Or, to put it another way:

• What I think about the analyst business in general
• How I structure my own business in particular

are, for rather obvious reasons, closely in alignment.