Kudos to you for grading the analysts and provoking some conversation on this topic.

I don’t believe enterprises use these reports, however. What are assistants for, if not to research? Maybe they buy some reports from time to time, but I doubt an annual membership.

In all honesty, I use Aberdeen and my personal assistant to get at any information I need.

In recent post Sam Lawrence, CMO of Jive Software, raised the question “Will insightful and credible people from (the) Blogosphere make analysts irrelevant?” Good question, Sam. As my father used to say, let’s take some think time on this…

I should be clear that as it applies to you guys, it’s not about the analysts. You guys are super smart and are doing your thing.

Most of what seems to be broken is the processes and fatty tissue on the relationship side. All that said, this is just a point in time. I spoke to your Sales reps today and I think they understand the issues, so hopefully productive stuff will come out of it.

A small point of information: Gartner first covered Jive Software back in August 2006, mentioned in my overview report on corporate blogging technology, now dated but still available at http://www.gartner.com/DisplayDocument?id=495227

Can’t speak for others, but speaking for myself, I am always interested in talking to customers and end-users about their use of social software. I probably have about five hundred such conversations in the course of a year, mostly through the inquiry process but also through other means such as formal one-on-one sessions and informal conversations at vendor/industry conferences.

There are now other colleagues at Gartner who are spending more time than me covering the category of enterprise social software. However, I am still interested in hearing about your company, its products and relevant customer experiences. Let’s keep the conversation going.

Theoretically possible, I suppose. But it would require client brains akin to the best sponges out there, and clients with unlimited amounts of time.

Analysts provide the knowledge absorption and capacity of hours, allowing clients to actually run their businesses.

As I mentioned on Stowe’s post, It’s going to be interesting to see how the Analyst market evolves faced with social software and the changing landscape of expertise. Personally, I think they have a massive opportunity to engage in a wholly new way and like many companies, some will embrace and others won’t.

The truth is, most companies don’t track social software nearly as much as our echo-chamber does and they will put value on *people* who are credible analysts to provide further insight. Who those people are and how they plan to deliver it is what seems to be in flux.

Analysts are freaking smart. Many have insight the rest of us, don’t. They get to talk to vendors, customers, media, and gain perspective that only those relationships (along with data) could provide.

The trick is, how to open up, include and fully engage with others. This whole thing is about relationships now–typical and atypical. They’re no idiots, creme rises to the top.

I agree that transparency is a good thing for our industry. Analysts should be engaged in broader community conversations - it benefits all involved.