Alan Pelz-Sharpe, from CMS Watch, has written some great advice for Analyst Relations professionals in an article called “Advice for vendors dealing with independent analysts.” The only thing I would add to his list of dos and don’ts is to use the information from the evaluation to make the product better.
One of the nice things about writing about open source software is that many of the products that I cover do not have analyst relations people. Instead, I talk to developers, committers, and CTOs. The big difference is this… AR people’s job is to make the product look good, a developers job is to make the product be good. Nearly all of the products that I reviewed in Open Source Web Content Management in Java were extremely gracious with the criticism. Part of it is that they are grateful for the coverage. But a bigger part of it is that they are used to interacting directly with the community and getting direct feedback. Most open source developers know that software doesn’t get better by convincing yourself that it is great. It gets better through continuous improvement that uses criticism as a catalyst for creative solutions.
It doesn’t make sense for software vendors to reject (essentially) free feedback that can be used to make their product better and pay “tier one” analyst firms to try to delude themselves and the market with their own hype. In the end, the truth (as experienced by the user) always comes out. In a Web 2.0 world where everyone has a voice, it comes out even faster.
Related posts:
- The Content Here Map of the Information Market I generally dislike the “map of the market” approach...
- The J. Boye Short List Today J. Boye posted a shortlist of vendors that...
- Back up is not archiving Alan Pelz-Sharpe has a great post on the CMS...
- More Users = Simpler CMS I just read James Robertson’s short article “More Users...
- Honest Open Source I just read Kris Buytaert’s blog post “Honest Open...
I also thought Alan provided a very insightful posting with good recommendations. One comment,
I disagree with Point 6 – Never say “we provided an X% ROI to our client in less than six months etc etc. .It’s a little like Home Depot claiming that they dug my vegetable garden for me, when all they did was sell me a spade.”
True the software doesn’t make your content better or improve your business process by itself. The shovel you buy at HomeDepot does, however, allow you to dig your garden X time faster than if you did it by hand, allowing you to get more done is less time. Stating ROI isn’t bad IF you make appropriate claims.
As always any information from a vendor or an analyst should be used as just a point of reference in your overall process. Product companies are out to sell product and analysts are out to sell reports. Do your research, but don’t skip the step of evaluating the product yourself.