Upcoming Research Calendar

Special note
If you’re just reading my blog to get my insight but don’t want to hear about my day job (I get criticized whenever I talk about it) then you can skip this post. It’s a tough line to walk as if I don’t talk about it, (I’ve been sucked into the paywall), and criticized if I do talk about it (I’ve become a corporate shill). Regardless of the rift, I’m going to continue to provide a well rounded view to what’s going on in my worklife regardless of a few resentful comments.

Conversations in my coverage
I’m attempting to be very transparent in my day to day job as an analyst, and I’d like to share with you some of my upcoming research projects that I’ll be completing over the next year. If you’re watching my closely you’ll realize that some of these topics I talk about here on my blog, or on twitter, it’s natural to really envelope the topic with both arms, in many cases, it helps me to develop an idea, framework, or thesis before I get started. There are over 500 analysts at Forrester (Update a few hours later: I just learned that the actual number is 331 research professionals which include analysts, researchers, RAs, etc.) , with many different focuses primarily for decision makers in IT or Marketing (I’m focused on the interactive marketer or social media manager).

Upcoming Research
The title analyst leads to much discussion, as a more functional title would be researcher and advisor. Over the next few months I’ll be doing research on Social Networks (white label too), Online Communities, Community Managers, and widgets/open social. Writing reports is the toughest part of my job, each report takes a few months, and each sentence has to be defensible by insight, interviews, data, experience, or knowledge, unlike blog posts, there’s little room for uncertainty. Honestly, and I told this to our CEO, I think that writing them is a real pain in the ass. So if you’re working in areas that I mentioned, I’ll be reaching out to some of you for interviews or data as I approach each report.

How does this blog play into this?
While the final output (reports) are limited to Forrester clients (it’s our product, just as you have yours at your company) you’ll find tons of juicy bits on my blog that act as a supplement, and information, interviews (my videos are often done after I interview someone for research, I like to “bring you along” with me) and also includes data and case studies that get cut from the reports, all which I hope you’ll find helpful…at no cost. Keep in mind that I was partly hired for this web strategy blog, but I am not paid for it, everything you read and watch is above and beyond my duties in the day job. My measurement goals do not include this blog, and anything I do here is out of pure passion (I’ve blog for 2 hours before 6am nearly every day), quite frankly, I could quit blogging and I’d still get paid, but that’s not the point –it’s damn fun.

Coming soon
Also, in the near future, I plan to write some posts to help you make your interactions with analysts easier such as: when and how to brief an analyst. Just wanted to share with you all as I approach my fourth month into this role.

Love to hear your feedback, questions, or comments.