What is this blog about and why was it created?

This blog is designed primarily as a vehicle to provide insight and commentary on the workings of the industry analyst community, particularly the community of smaller players in the market that live alongside the large global firms such as Gartner, Forrester, IDC, etc. As the broader nature of influence within the IT and communications industry provides an important context for the activities of all analyst firms, large and small, I also anticipate getting into that topic quite a bit as we move forward.

The blog itself was prompted by an invitation for me personally to reply to a point raised during a review of the industry analyst market that appeared on the analyst relations (AR) blog ARmadgeddon. This got me thinking about the need to balance the views being expressed on such blogs in a more structured manner, as input via comments attached to a blog post tend to be defined and categorised by the title and nature of the original post itself. Using a separate vehicle allows a discussion point or, indeed, a direct challenge (which is not uncommon in AR circles), to be dealt with by coming at the topic from a different angle. This is often necessary in a changing world when trying to counter preconceptions based on history, traditionally accepted wisdom, and/or the personal experience and position of others participating in a debate.

I have chosen not to use my main blog, Keeping IT Grounded, to deal with the topic described above for two reasons. Firstly, that blog is aimed squarely at the IT user and buyer audience, with posts reproduced in a number of online publications, so there is a need to keep it coherent and focused. It would not be appropriate to confuse things by mixing it up with content aimed at a different audience – i.e. people within the IT and media sectors.

The second reason for a separate blog is make room for other contributors. I’ll get it going with just me, but if there are any other analysts out there that would like to join in, just drop me a line and I’ll give you direct access. There will be no censorship and the only condition is that you write under your own name. While I appreciate the need for pseudonyms if you are working for a large organisation and do not want to be constrained in the way you express yourself, it is not a practice I want to encourage.

I’ll make one last point, and that is to say that maintaining this blog is going to be more of a sideline rather than a core activity, so you’ll have to forgive me if there are extended gaps between postings.

Better to get my apologies in at the beginning :-)