Analyst Relations

There are usually a number of articles I see every day that don't really fit into The Daily Incite. I have all good intentions to do separate posts, but then I get caught up in whatever I'm supposed to be doing and it never seems to happen.

Hopefully this week I'll be able to catch up a bit when I take a breath or two from jamming on the book. This article is Laurie McCabe's advice to vendors relative to how she wants to be treated. There are some good thoughts here, so read them if you job is to interface with analysts at all. Not all are relevant to me (I tend not to fly somewhere for an analyst shindig, for example), but they are pretty good rules of the road.

I've also written about what really pisses me off (here), so don't do that stuff either.

But I'm not done. There are a couple of other things that annoy me about dealing with vendors, so let me get those off my chest and then I can get on with the rest of my day.

1. Presentations on WebEx - At any given time, I may be on my PC in the office or on my Mac somewhere else. WebEx works like crap on the Mac. I've never gotten Microsoft's PlaceWare to work on it either (shocker). If you absolutely have to do a demo, then make sure you can help me get it running on my Mac. Also have Plan B if it's not working. But if you aren't doing a demo, then just send me a PDF of the slides. There is no reason to require WebEx for a bunch of slides.
   
   
2. Send the slides ONCE - Speaking of sending me slides, don't do this: One poor sap had an email problem and ended up sending me a 6 MB presentation 6 separate times before my hosted Exchange offering ran out of space and started sending mailbox full responses to everyone. I know it wasn't really his fault directly, but it still pissed me off when my email was shut down.
   
   
3. Don't spend time on your background - In 90% of the cases, I've trolled your website before our briefing. So I've read the executive bios. You don't have to tell me you did this or did that. I pretty much don't care. If there is something interesting in your background that I want to discuss, I'll bring it up. I'm not a bashful guy.
   
   
4. Where's the beef? - Especially if we've spoken before, just get right to it. You've asked for my time, so don't waste it by telling me stuff I already know. Give me a 2 minute update on your business (which may take longer if I have questions or want clarification) and then tell me why I care about your news or ask for my advice on something you are thinking about. Not much annoys me more than hearing stuff I already know.
   
   
5. Don't send me press pitches - I get a lot of press advisories and offers to "interview" someone in my inbox. Cut that crap out. I'm not a beat reporter. I'm not going to call your "expert" to talk about the latest laptop theft or Microsoft zero-day exploit. You can send me a press release, but save your pithy little pitch letters for someone that cares.
   
   
6. It's OK to ask my opinion - If you see something interesting and I didn't comment on it in TDI, by all means drop me a note and ask me what I think. The only thing I can pretty much guarantee is that I'll have an opinion. I'll probably start doing some kind of mailbag type of post if the questions are relevant to others, but I'll respond.
   
   
7. Understand that I want to help - Part of almost every briefing I have with vendors (and my calls with users as well) is me providing feedback. I do my best to be constructive and offer advice and ideas on how to make it better. There is no reason to be defensive. Perhaps you've already considered what I'm saying. Then tell me that. Or perhaps it's a decent idea, tell me that too. And if something that I've told you in the past was useful, let me know about that as well. It makes me happy if you've been able to take something out of a call with me.

I'm sure there are more, but it's time to get back to the grind. Enjoy your holidays (for those in the US anyway), and over time I'm sure we'll all get a better feel on how to work together.