Curated for content, computing, and digital experience professionals

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What is your experience using technology analyst firms?

If you use analyst firms to inform your technology strategy you have a lot to choose from. Analyst firms come in all shapes and sizes and their individual strengths and weaknesses, especially in terms of technology expertise, is not constant. They have the same keeping-up-with-new-technology “whack-a-mole” problem everyone else has. Even worse, analyst firm business models leads to a “create-a-category” challenge, which is further complicated by the needs of their technology product customers who have their own ideas about product categories and trends.

Companies that can afford it wisely hedge their bets by working with multiple analyst firms. But whether you work with one or many choosing them can be intimidating. One useful tool is the annual Analyst Value Survey conducted by Kea Company. They have a detailed report you can buy, but they also publish useful findings and commentary in press releases and their blog.

The Analyst Value Survey (AVS) is the only public survey into how people value different analyst firms like Gartner, Forrester and dozens of mid-sized firms. The survey has been annually held since 2000.

Buyers of analyst services use the results of the AVS to see which firms are perceived as delivering the highest impact on their IT decision making.

Technology Providers use the AVS to improve and justify their prioritisation of relationships with analysts who impact their business.

Research Firms use the AVS to understand how they can deliver more value and overtake their competition.

See more information about their survey, or share your own experience by taking the survey now.

 

What’s new at Gilbane Group

We have a lot going on here at Gilbane Group these days. Here’s a quick summary of recent activity:

First, a few current complimentary resources you may not be aware of:

For marketing, language, and content professionals evaluating the role of automated translation in their global business communications:

Take our online survey on Machine Translation Attitudes and Adoption. You don’t need to be a user of machine translation to participate. Less than ten minutes – we promise! Participants will receive the aggregated survey results and the executive summary of the analysis. Take the survey now.

For content professionals and IT managers dealing with large-scale content applications:

A new Gilbane Beacon publication on overcoming technical barriers to effective, efficient processing of high volumes of data and content in disparate formats. The paper describes new approaches to leveraging open data – whether for open government, open publishing, or open enterprise.

Download Enabling the Promise of Open Government: Addressing Large-Scale Integration, Storage, and Access of Complex Information by Dale Waldt

For web content managers and publishers struggling to manage social content:

A new Gilbane white paper examines the Drupal social publishing platform, developed and maintained as an open source project. The discussion illustrates how a variety of organizations – commercial, non-profit, and government – are deploying social publishing to build presence on the web and manage interactive experiences that foster communities of contributors.

Download Social Publishing with Drupal: Building Social Businesses on the Web with a Framework for Content and Community by Geoffrey Bock

For commercial publishers needing to stay on top of technologies and trends in digital publishing:

Note our recently announced research partnership with the Book Industry Study Group.

For anyone involved in interactive marketing, IT, or content, web, or collaboration applications:

Check out our annual San Francisco conference coming up May 18-20 at the Westin Market Street hotel, where you can meet many of the team in addition to learning about the latest strategies for using the web and social software for connecting with customers.

See our latest info on the conference in our new video series on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/Gilbane.Group

Keep up-to-date with all our new publications and activities at https://gilbane.com or on Twitter.

Gilbane Group joins Outsell

Gilbane Group joins Outsell, Inc., Deepens Coverage of the Technologies Underlying the Transformation of the Information Industry

Burlingame, CA, Cambridge, MA and London, UK—February 9, 2010—Outsell, Inc. of Burlingame, CA and London, the leading research and advisory firm for the information and publishing industries, and Gilbane Group, the leading analyst and consulting firm covering content technologies, today announce that The Gilbane Group, based in Cambridge, MA, has joined Outsell.

The addition makes Outsell the only research and advisory firm with 360-degree coverage of the information industry—established and disruptive information providers, users, enterprises, advertisers, libraries and the technologies underlying the industry’s evolution.

“This event joins two leading analyst firms and broadens Outsell’s coverage in a very important area, where content meets technology,” said Anthea Stratigos, Outsell’s Co-founder and CEO. “In the next decade, the information providers who succeed will ensure content is accessed and experienced in new and unique ways. Technology is fundamental to this strategy, and The Gilbane Group is the acknowledged authority in this important area.”

Founded in 1987, Gilbane provides fact-based, vendor-neutral coverage of advances and trends in content technology, looking at such areas as web content management, multilingual content, enterprise search, enterprise social media, publishing, XML, and XBRL. It also sponsors conferences on content and information management technologies in North America and Europe, including the upcoming Gilbane San Francisco conference (http://gilbanesf.com), and publishes reports on the same subjects that are read worldwide.

The organization will now operate as The Gilbane Group, a division of Outsell, Inc., under the leadership of founder Frank Gilbane, who will remain President. He will be joined by the full team of Gilbane analysts and consultants, led by Mary Laplante, Vice President Client Services and Senior Analyst, and Bill Trippe, Vice President Content Strategies and Lead Analyst.

“As a result of our two firms coming together, Outsell will be better able to serve our core markets of publishers, information providers and enterprises making content technology decisions, as well as investors looking at emerging content technology companies,” said Greg Chagaris, Outsell’s Co-founder and Corporate Development Officer.

“We have enormous respect for Outsell as one of the first firms to define the information industry, and predict the radical transformation in content delivery and consumption patterns that the Internet would bring. We’re delighted that by combining our industry and technology expertise and resources, we’ll be able to deliver even deeper, richer and more complete solutions to our clients,” said Frank Gilbane.

This is the third transaction that Outsell has completed since its 1998 founding. In 2006, Outsell acquired EPS (Electronic Publishing Services Ltd) of London, broadening its global coverage. In 2008, the firm also acquired the Business Research Division of Eduventures to strengthen its coverage of educational content and technology providers.

The Gilbane Group will remain in Cambridge, MA. With Gilbane, Outsell will now have a professional staff of 50 worldwide, in addition to nearly two dozen affiliate analysts and consultants.

See posts by Anthea Stratigos and Frank Gilbane.

ABOUT OUTSELL, INC.
Outsell is the only research and advisory firm focused on advancing the publishing and information industries. Our international team provides independent, fact-based analysis and actionable advice about competitors, markets, operational benchmarks, and best practices, so our clients thrive and grow in today’s fast-changing digital and global environment. Outsell tracks and analyzes over 7,000 information industry companies, as well as the needs, habits, and spending patterns of advertisers, enterprise information buyers, and end users. Outsell’s headquarters are in Burlingame, CA, with offices in London and in Cambridge, MA. Visit us at www.outsellinc.com.

About The Gilbane Group
The Gilbane Group is an analyst and consulting firm that has been writing and consulting about the strategic use of information technologies since 1987. We have helped organizations of all sizes from a wide variety of industries and governments. We work with the entire community of stakeholders including investors, enterprise buyers of IT, and technology suppliers. We have organized over 60 educational conferences in North America and Europe. Our next event is Gilbane San Francisco, May 18-20, 2010 – gilbanesf.com/. Information about our widely read newsletter, reports, white papers, case studies and analyst blogs is available at https://gilbane.com.

More on Gilbane Group plus Outsell Inc.

Many of you have seen the unofficial advanced coverage on Twitter yesterday, announcing that Gilbane Group has become part of Outsell Inc. Today is the day of the “official” announcement. You can also read a post from Outsell CEO, Anthea Stratigos. Here I provide a little additional information in the form of FAQs. Feel free to send me additional questions.

FAQs

Q. Why did Gilbane Group and Outsell decide to do this?
A. Gilbane Group and Outsell have been tracking each other for years, as we have served slightly different segments of the information industry; Outsell is focused on the business of information, and Gilbane Group is focused on the technology of information. Outsell co-founders Anthea Stratigos and Greg Chagaris and I often talked about how complementary our businesses were, and we finally decided it was time to do something about it. Why now? The simple answer is customer demand. Not that our customers were telling us to join together, but they were asking us for a broader set of services, that our new combined organization will be able to deliver.

Q. Why Outsell specifically?
A. We complement in other in many important ways:

Topic coverage – Outsell focuses on the business of content we focus on the technology of business content.

Customers – Outsell’s customers are about 70% information providers and 30% Enterprise information consumers and managers, Our customer base is 75-80% enterprise IT and information managers, and 20-25% content providers. Together we provide the full spectrum of business and technology. Also, Outsell’s customers are largely C-level executives, Gilbane customers are mostly VP, Director, and Managers of IT and line of business units, so we are now able to help organizations at multiple levels, and help coordinate far-reaching information strategies or technology deployments.

Products – Outsell revenue is mostly from subscription advisory services and C-level councils, and research on information usage and business model trends. Gilbane revenue is mostly from strategic consulting projects advising on technology usage, practices and trends.

Business Model – Both companies have a combination of complementary revenue streams, and utilize both deep in-house expertise, complemented by a broad base of expert affiliates.

Ethics: We have the same commitment to business ethics. Outsell’s published Ethics policy expresses the same values that our customers, partners and competitors are used to receiving from us.

Q. What does this mean to Gilbane Group personnel?
A.
All Gilbane Group personnel except for finance and HR remain in their current roles.

Q. What does this mean to Gilbane Group customers?
A.
All Gilbane Group customers will continue to receive all the products and services they have signed up for and are used to receiving, and all coverage areas will continue. Additional products, services, resources and coverage areas will be available as we move forward.

Q. What does this mean for the Gilbane conferences?
A.
The Gilbane Group will continue to partner with Lighthouse Seminars to produce the Gilbane events. (Our next conference is Gilbane San Francisco, May 18 – 20).

Work at Gilbane Group!

Administrative Assistant & Marketing Associate

Description:
We are a small but well-known international technology analyst firm covering web information technologies trends and practices. We provide advisory and strategic consulting services, organize conferences, and write reports. Our clients include mostly medium to large businesses and government organizations. See https://gilbane.com to find out more about us.

We are looking for someone to assist management with company operations and communications with our analysts and consultants, partners, customers, and suppliers, and who wants to grow with our company. A large part of the job involves updating our websites and blogs. We are small enough that this position provides exposure to all aspects of a contemporary, high-energy, growing professional services business. There are opportunities to learn about web, collaboration and information technologies, sales and marketing, being an entrepreneur, analyst, or consultant.

We are located in Cambridge with easy access to the Red Line. Travel is mostly not required. Currently, one trip a year to our San Francisco conference, and 3 days on-site for our Boston conference (if you live outside metro Boston).

Experience & Education:
A college degree and at least 2 years full time work experience in a business environment is required.

Responsibilities:

  • Update websites and blogs (You don’t need to be a webmaster, but you do need some basic web skills)
  • Office management
    • Work with our suppliers and partners
    • Schedule conference rooms and meetings
    • Manage corporate phone and email systems
  • Maintain customer lists, databases and project information
  • Communications
    • In addition to internal and customer communications, assisting with marketing activities including press releases, email programs, collateral and report production.
  • Events
    • Managing conference speaker communications before, during and after our events.

Skills & characteristics:

  • Organization
    • Organizational skills, self-discipline, and initiative should come naturally.
  • Communication
    • strong interpersonal skills, verbal and written
    • customer sensitivity and responsiveness are critical
  • Computer
    • Proficiency with Microsoft Office software, especially Word and Excel, Adobe Acrobat & Dreamweaver, and browsers and search engines. Movable Type experience a big plus.
    • Comfortable with basic use of Adobe Illustrator, Google applications, Zoho CRM, Intuit Quickbooks, and various other web and applications.
    • Basic familiarity with HTML is very important.
    • Need to be able to use Apple and Windows machines.

Hours: 25 – 40

Location: Cambridge, MA

Competitive Salary & Benefits

Interested? Send resume and/or questions to hr@gilbane.com

No phone calls and no recruiters please.

Best of luck Fal

Contributing Enterprise Content Management Analyst Fal Sarkar is moving on to the vendor side of the aisle. Fal has always been a pleasure to work with, and I expect we’ll be working together again before long, just in a different way. Fal has a great new job that looks like a perfect fit for him. He is "… responsible for marketing EMC’s Content Management and Archiving products (Documentum, Captiva, Document Sciences, etc.) in a geography that ranges from Pakistan to the Philippines. The largest market in the region is India." Fal’s Gilbane email address will continue to work for a while, but his new contact info is below.

Fal Sarkar
Head of Marketing South Asia
Content Management and Archiving
EMC Corporation

UPDATE:
Oops!
Sarkar_Falguni@sun.com
should be Sarkar_Falguni@emc.com
Direct: +91 80 66228013
Mob: +91 9742264725

Welcome Neal Hannon

In case you missed yesterday’s announcement, I am happy to announce that Neal Hannon has joined us as Senior Consultant, XBRL Strategies. XBRL has been coming for a while, but with mandatory XBRL reporting requirements now kicking in, companies really need to get serious both with reporting requirements and internal use of XBRL. XBRL requires more than XML expertise, and Neal’s financial background and involvement in XBRL provide deep domain expertise, and are a great complement to our existing XML strengths. Neal will be working with Bill as part of the XML Practice. Neal’s bio is posted at:

Neal’s email is: neal@gilbane.com and his phone extension is 155.

Welcome Neal!

Blog integration – you may have been redirected

In case you are looking for the CTO Blog, the Web Content Management Blog, the Collaboration Blog, or the Publishing Practice Blog, don’t worry, you have come to the right place.

We have integrated the content from these blogs into this, our main blog. All the original content, categories, tags, comments, and trackbacks have been preserved, and all the original permalinks still work (via 301 redirects). Anyone following one of the older links will be automatically re-directed to the exact same content at the new address on this blog. If you are looking for a particular post, you should be able to find it by using our blog search function or exploring the categories or tags, or archives.

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