Briefings (Part 1): What they are, why they are important.

This is going to be a two part post. In part 1, I’m going to talk about the notion of an analyst briefing and why they are important. In part 2, I’m going to mention some companies that briefed me, but I had neglected to write about them.

With this two parter, I bring closure to one element of my blogging activities this past year – where I mention interesting vendors who have briefed me about their products. Since I’m no longer an analyst for hire, I’m not going to be taking analyst briefings. So I’m not going to be writing about other vendors in any formal sense. Sure, I’ll continue to meet many people and I enjoy networking in my industry. But briefings are on hold for now.

What is an analyst briefing?

Briefings are one of the important ways analyst get information. The set-up is a very clever win-win dance that allows us to get information before you do. This helps make us appear to be smart. Here’s how they work: a CEO or CMO meets with the analyst for about an hour and shares their story: e.g. the product vision, company aspiration, and successes stories. Briefings are usually arranged by AR folks – Analyst Relations (Simplistically put: PR folks who are attuned to the peculiarities of the analyst community. Realistically it bit more than that.) Large companies employ AR directly; smaller ones retain the services via a PR/AR firm. Sometimes an analyst requests a briefing (to prepare for a report of a client who indicated they are interested in a particular vendor). Most times, AR folks contact us hoping to keep us up to date with their latest news.

Briefings enable analysts to meet important people and to get tons of information they need for their clients and reports. There are formal and informal rules of the trade when it comes to information disclosure. CEOs are very candid. Analysts can ask probing questions, and don’t have to give any advice – but we typically do. CEOs want to be on our radar. They might get free advice, free press on our blogs and reports, and free introductions to our clients. There are various levels of maturity in the relationship that an analyst can forge with a CEO or CMO at a briefing. Sometimes it’s a boring flip through slides where CMOs claim to be “world class provider” of something and the analyst will say (or think) something snarky about the emptiness of that claim. Sometimes the briefings foster a strong connection, with joint business opportunities that result. The very best AR folks are strategic about who and how they manage their matchmaking. AR is a quite an art, and although analysts don’t make money directly this way, it’s really important for us to stay on top of the news – even before it happens.

Briefings are also a way to measure our perceived relevance. If everyone wants to brief you, that means that the AR community sees you as an important and influential voice. Briefings take time to set up, and involve the most senior people the vendor has available.

When I started off on my own last year, I was concerned was that once I was no longer employed by a well-known analyst firm, I’d ignored by the AR community. With only one exception (which I later learned was an oversight), A/R folks returned all my calls and were reaching out to me as much as before, or more. In irony, I discovered that my traffic and relevance to my audience increased dramatically after my Forrester days. Great for me; not such a good omen for the model of a traditional analyst firm. Having a healthy personal blog was a big reason for this virtuous cycle.

Important note: My blog policy states getting briefed does not guarantee a blog post. This was for both practical as well as principle issues. Practically speaking: briefing is a service that is rendered on an honor system. No quid pro quo. Money is not passed – I don’t charge to be briefed, I don’t pay to be briefed. So no guarantees. Moreover, sometimes I was too busy to blog. Or I was totally unimpressed, and did not want to write a negative blog only to invite defensive comments by the company who would then accuse me of not understanding their message. I’d rather tell them privately what things to work on before someone like me would have something positive to say. This was far more my style than being a snarky blogger. Moreover, if I blogged every briefing, I’d have every AR/PR person calling to get free press for her client. It would cheapen this blog too.

There is also a principle: good analysts are not vendor shills. Just ‘cuz vendors think they have a great idea does not mean we think they do. I might know that their competitor is about to release something even better next week – so why blog small news when I could wait and blog something better. But, A/R folks knew that if I found something really interesting, I’d share my clients (some of whom hired me to help them select products), and maybe posted something on this blog. Moreover they would get a good amount of feedback from me – which would help them out. Sometimes we even converted the conversation to business.

If you have been reading me here, you’ll know that I covered many vendors (search for blog posts tagged with “tool” or “vendor”). These were results from great briefings.  And I appreciated them.  But many vendors briefed me and did not get mentioned here. In the next post, I’m going to correct my omission my mentioning some of the companies that should have been covered here in the past.  In the meantime, now you know a little secret about analysts.  We know stuff ‘cuz important people tell us stuff.  They tell us stuff ‘cuz it’s in their best interest to.

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Tagged as: analysts, tool