Yesterday, I wrote a blog post about Mzinga. Although I had the best intentions, I posted without complete enough information, which was a mistake on my part.
I apologize to Mzinga for any problems this has caused for them. As soon as I get the complete information from Mzinga, I will share it with you.
I know that I have influence in the space and need to make sure that I do so responsibly.
The comments are open, and I will continue to read and absorb all of the thoughtful and tough feedback, I’m listening.
Well done
After reading that “apology”, it wreaks of:
“I have been asked by my employer to write something, but do not believe that I an in the wrong”.
Jeremiah
We all make mistakes. You are a respected and valued member of our community. Your apology was well done.
Keep your chin up.
Hmm… pundits paid by software companies to rate them and paid by clients to advise them, and we’re only NOW crying foul?
Cry me a river, and score one for transparency in the scheister analyst business.
I think your brief apology might be better seen as Truth if you follow up and disclose the reasons for your original post.
Why did you say what you said? Why did you feel it was imperative to post so quickly? By your own admission on your “about” page, you need to improve your focus and time management. I hope you see this incident as a message to you, personally, to slow down, pay attention . . . hopefully leading to less twittering and more insight.
Finally, if you want to shape this blog as a “career blog” then leave your “clients” and buying advice out of your posts. That is your “day job” . . . this (as you claim) is your night job. Best of success in your journey.
-Scott Lawson sml at qad dot com
I honestly don’t know which is more disappointing, JKO’s barely-an-apology or the mystifying chorus of “well done”s from folks here.
Jeremiah thinks the problem was that he posted “without complete information.” That was only partly it; the real item of concern (that he evidently still doesn’t get) is that he used his position in what appears to be a petty and vindictive way (irked that they hadn’t called him back), and that he misused his power **as a Forrester analyst** to try to shut down a company’s sales.
There’s also no real acknowledgment here (either from the glad-handers or from JKO himself) about how JKO’s blog, despite disclaimers, **does** speak for Forrester when he references “his” clients and “his” Wave product. It’s not just that he has “influence in the space”; it’s that when he speaks about social media anywhere, he **is** a Forrester spokesperson, plain and simple. How can people not get that?
I’m sure I’ll get jumped on for throwing rocks here, but hey, if we don’t all collectively learn the necessary lessons, more comments are in order.
Jeremiah, I think your apology here is warranted. As I was watching your Tweets yesterday along the lines of “Somebody from Mzinga better get in touch with me now because I’m hearing bad things about you”, I did think to myself – ‘getting a little full of himself.’
I actually found the original blog post to be less of a problem than the tweets. One thing to consider with your stance of holding the interests of clients foremost is that your reach goes far beyond just clients – you’ve got 36K plus followers on Twitter and god knows how many readers of your blog.
Letting your clients know that you have concerns about Mzinga’s stability would have been one thing – broadcasting it to the world with a “prospects and clients stop what you’re doing” was an abuse of your reputation.
So yes, good to apologize, but better look through your analysts lens before jumping to conclusions and sounding an alarm.
Objectivity comes in a couple different flavors. There is objectivity in practice – Jeremiah’s “We must maintain objectivity for clients as we would non-clients,” and objectivity in fact. Taking money from vendors you’re supposed to be even-handedly covering makes you, as a matter of fact, incapable of being objective.
Jeremiah’s WAVE report, like all publications from analysts that take money from vendors and clients alike, should be taken with a lot of salt.
@CharityHisle ~ “Your apology was well done.”
I have to disagree with this. There was absolutely no emotion behind this “apology”. At least none that I could feel. Like Peter said above, you have yet to address the real issues in your previous blog. It’s easy to apologize when you are hiding behind a monitor, but imagine the employees that could end up losing their job based on your recommendation to your clients. We are already in a tough economy. Why make things worse for EVERYONE!? Congrats on impacting the lives of many. You should be canned for such negligence. Kudos for the apology, but I’m sure the real lives that are affected by this wouldn’t accept it.
JO ~ “I know that I have influence in the space…”
If you already knew this, then why be the person to start all the rumors in the first place? Why write a very poor blog based on your own rumors? Why “demand” a response from the company? What were your motives???
Disgusted and feeling sorry for the company involved.
“I know that I have influence in the space and need to make sure that I do so responsibly.” This is a valuable lesson for an analyst to learn. I won’t add to the beat down, but just agree with the above that the folks most impacted by communications such as yours are the non-executive employees. This is the audience we often forget about while we opine.
Now you have something else to write in your profile section “What I need to Improve on.”
I wish you luck going forward, but I reserve most of my concern for those hurt most by your mistake.
Forrester Research or Forrester Rumor ?
Just what are clients paying for ?
Forrester is a very well respected firm.
Let’s all be honest Mzinga should of answered the call from the only analyst that is taking the time to follow these companies.
Someone dropped the ball at Mzinga. For a company that is trying to spread open communication they seem very hard to talk too.
I am curious as why you wrote the entry? Was it an ego thing? Genuine Concern?
This is the price of a very narcissistic occupation. I do not feel one ounce of ‘sorry’ for Jeremiah. From what I see, Forrester is leading the charge among research firms – to tarnish the value of quality research in a social media world.
In fact, Jeremiah is not the only analyst at Forrester to engage in such poor, immature, inexcusable behavior (via blog, twitter, etc.).
Merv Adrian (a former Forrester analyst) is starting a great discussion on this issue in a blog post titled: “Analyst Bloggers – Threat or Menace?” http://mervadrian.wordpress.com/2009/03/19/analyst-bloggers-threat-or-menace/#comments
When will Forrester management realize that their brand is greater than that of any individual analyst? This behavior is a slap in the face of ‘research’ and will continue to hurt Forrester in the long run unless they take serious and immediate action to govern how their analysts use personal blogs for conducting and syndicating ‘so called research’ outside of traditional research processes. Totally inexcusable and I hold Forrester management more accountable than any analyst – because they SHOULD KNOW BETTER. They have been conveniently ignoring these issues for months.
Here’s another example of a young and impatient “analyst” not being willing to receive information on the terms of the people who own it–his impatient demands for Mzinga’s management to update him, and his subsequent decision to offer Mzinga’s prospects and clients advice to “wait” before buying more products or services is stupid at best, criminal at worst. Executives go to jail for making “forward-looking” statements that can affect stock prices; maybe we should consider similar treatment for brash men and women whose blog postings of innuendo and subtext cause businesses to undergo cash strapping…
At the very least, Forrester needs to have him on closely supervised probation–and at the next whiff of trouble like this, show him the door.
The reporter is NOT the news, and the reporter does not MAKE the news. Reporters who forget that simple rule can’t be trusted, and need to be removed from positions where they can influence public trust.
Jeremiah,
Did you ever get a chance to have that follow up meeting with Mzinga? If you did what are your thoughts on it?
-Stephanie
Jeremiah,
Did you ever get a chance to have that follow up meeting with Mzinga? If you did what are your thoughts on it?
-Stephanie
So what are some thoughts on Mzinga now — a year later? Anyone know who is using their Flash Chat application?