This entry was posted on Monday, August 24th, 2009 at 5:10 am and is filed under Age Factors, Business Factors, Change Factors, Choice Factors, Disruptive Factors, Economic Factors, Human Factors, Individual Factors, Industry factors, Influence Factors, Knowledge Factors, Leadership Factor, Market Factors, Media Factors, Relationship Economy, Rules of Engagement, Strategic Factors, Systemic Factors, Technology Factors, cultural factors, jay deragon. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
08 24th, 2009
Forrester seems to have a problem retaining its top talent. Among some of the high profile associates which have left include Charlene Li and now Jeremiah Owyang. All are the most recent high profile analyst to leave Forrester after just two years.
Given the draw of these high profile names it would seem evident that their value to Forrester goes beyond their day to day duties and in reality folks like these are the celebrities of Forrester, or they used to be.
Are Celebrities Wanted?
Every business has stars who are recognized by the marketplace as the profile players of the business. A “star” can be a challenge for a business since stars usually get most of the attention.
Attention fuels power and power fuels bigger influence and influence has its price. Influence creates a brand and now high profile figures within an organizational brand can become a brand within themselves.
Which Brand Is It?
Charlene Li and Jeremiah Owyang were able to gain profile and influence as a result of their signature work at Forrester and the propagation of their perspectives.
Forrester is a brand with significant talent and reach. They hire smart people who are enabled to tap into the entire pool of talent and create perspectives, insights and all backed up by extensive research. Each of these individuals, and others, also created their own brand and drew influence and an audience using social media. Whether Forrester or any other major institutional brand the new challenge is managing conflicting brands, the people vs. the organization.
A Conflict of Wants And Needs?
High profile individuals within organizational brands can and do create significant value for their employer, the brand. However when the high profile people start to become brands themselves the challenge for the organization is managing potential conflicts between the individuals wants and needs and that of the organization. This issue has always been a challenge for organizations with public stars but today the challenge is even greater given the power of social media which enables individuals to become a brand within a brand.
The more influence an individual gains the greater influence they have over a market. As the influence grows so does the individuals profile and subsequent opportunities. Opportunities can fill wants and needs that existing employers cannot. Most organizations want to help employees fulfill their wants and needs and the successful ones do so consistently. The challenge of doing so just went up several notches.
Social media enables individuals to create a brand that attracts opportunity and this attraction may present the fulfillment of wants and needs that existing employers cannot or will not fulfill for whatever reason.
There is a new organizational risk arising as a result of social media. The risk of not fulfilling or being able to fulfill wants and needs of high profile talent which have become a brand within themselves.
Maybe Forrester should consider doing a study that provides recommended solutions that other organizations could use to mitigate the increased risk which is being fueled by high profile talent creating their own brand using social media. Then Forrester could use their own study to retain their own top talent that have and will continue to become a brand. Just a thought.
What say you?
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August 24th, 2009 at 5:40 am
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Why Do They Leave Forrester?: Maybe Forrester should consider doing a study that provides recommended solutions .. [link to post]
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August 24th, 2009 at 5:47 am
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RelationshipEcon: Why Do They Leave Forrester?: Maybe Forrester should consider doing a study t.. [link to post]
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August 24th, 2009 at 5:49 am
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[link to post] There is a new organizational risk arising as a result of social media … via @JDeragon … thought provoking
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August 24th, 2009 at 5:58 am
It’s always interesting to see when stars emerge out of existing brands. Scoble out of Microsoft for example. How much is the individual? And how much of the fame is the company they work for?
I see this a lot with Wall Street firms. If you are a trader at Solomon Brothers or Morgan Stanley and you’re trading a billion dollars of your firm’s capital based on your firm’s reputation in the market, are you worth ten million a year in compensation?
Lots Gartner and Forrester analysts have reached celebrity status and then left. But many of them find it is tough going when they do not have the famous firm behind them. Same is true of traders. Can you make ten million a year as a trader on your own? Can you still book keynote speaking gigs with “former” in front of the analyst firm name in your bio?
August 24th, 2009 at 6:27 am
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Why Do They Leave Forrester? [link to post]
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August 24th, 2009 at 7:03 am
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August 24th, 2009 at 9:38 am
Sorry to bust up the party, but this is NOT a new issue.
Study mutual funds in the late 80’s and early 90’s (Peter Lynch, etc.). The firms that embraced the superstar model became household names. There are several mutual funds that had better track records but not the stories surrounding the people. I think Fidelity did OK if my memory serves me right.
August 24th, 2009 at 9:47 am
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Daily Deragon Dose: Why Do They Leave Forrester? [link to post]
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August 24th, 2009 at 2:48 pm
[...] people have now written, and written well, about high-profile Web 2.0 and Enterprise 2.0 analyst Jeremiah Owyang leaving [...]
August 24th, 2009 at 4:02 pm
Hi,
Good post about the relationship aspect. However there are a few points I want to disagree with.
I agree with David Dalka that superstars leaving firms is not a new trend brought on by social media. From the early 80’s on superstars have left Gartner, Yankee, IDC, etc to form firms that became prominent in their own right (e.g., Forrester itself was launched by a Yankee Group superstar) or successful single practitionerships. While social media can make it easier for an individual to develop a person brand, there is no guarantee that they will be successful in launching a business based on that brand.
To a certain extent, maybe the firms do not want to retain superstars. There is no discussion in your post about the economics of employee retention – superstar, star or good old solid analysts – for analyst firms, especially public companies like Forrester and Gartner. There is always the tradeoff between revenue growths vs. margins erosion when those firms think about making an offer to retain talent. You can see more detail in…
http://sagecircle.wordpress.com/2009/08/24/large-advisory-analyst-firms-and-superstar-analysts/
Your comparison between Jeremiah’s blog and Forrester.com (which I also did a month ago for a different reason see http://sagecircle.wordpress.com/2009/07/31/dont-underestimate-the-analyst-visibility/) is not an apples-to-apples comparison. Web Strategy by Jeremiah, which he has brilliantly promoted, is an open forum for anybody to read. Forrester.com is a corporate website that only has promotional content freely available while the “good stuff” (e.g., research notes) is available only to clients with a password. As a consequence, there is a logical ceiling for unique visitors to Forrester.com whereas a blog has no limit to the number of visitors.
The other point I want to make is that this is focused only on the social media aspect. If firms like Gartner or Forrester only sold written research they would be toast. What they really sell is convenient access to analysts for personal advice. For example, the largest advisory firms conduct over 350,000 phone-based inquiries and 150,000 formal 1-on-1s at their conferences every year. See…
http://sagecircle.wordpress.com/2009/08/06/dont-discount-business-value-of-phone-based-inquiries/
I am a huge proponent of social media and work with many clients to help them incorporate social media into their AR plans. However, social media is only one facet of the complex web of interactions within the analyst ecosystem.
Cheers, -carter j
Carter Lusher, Strategist
SageCircle, “analysts of the analysts” and analyst relations best practices
http://www.sagecircle.wordpress.com
August 24th, 2009 at 11:21 pm
[...] Why Do They Leave? | The Relationship Economy…… [...]
August 25th, 2009 at 8:07 am
[...] Why Do They Leave? | The Relationship Economy…… http://www.relationship-economy.com/?p=5861 – view page – cached The risk of not fulfilling or being able to fulfill wants and needs of high profile talent which have become a brand within themselves. — From the page [...]
August 25th, 2009 at 8:43 am
you did not mention Ray wang who just left Forrester. In recent conversations with Ray, he went through a similar thought process like I did 10 years ago while at Gartner. Our comp was less than 10% of revenues we could show a role in generating or delivering. Differently from Wall Street, because the analyst firms have direct sales forces, that is where much of the comp gets directed. So, as in so much of tech very little actually goes into “product” and much more towards SG&A – which helps neither buyer nor investor. Large gross margins which could be passed along in lower pricing to buyers or in higher investor returns get pissed away.
August 25th, 2009 at 9:16 am
[...] Why Do They Leave? | The Relationship Economy…… [...]
August 29th, 2009 at 9:10 pm
[...] Why Do They Leave? | The Relationship Economy…… [...]
September 3rd, 2009 at 9:36 pm
[...] Why Do They Leave? | The Relationship Economy…… [...]
September 4th, 2009 at 9:00 pm
[...] Why Do They Leave? | The Relationship Economy…… [...]
November 20th, 2009 at 10:42 am
[...] google reader nos ha dado un aviso sobre el peligro que supone para las empresas norteamericanas que sus directivos o profesionales desarrollen fuertes marcas profesionales que puedan entrar en conflicto con la propia marca de sus empresas. Traducido a lenguaje pre-marca, [...]