The “amplifier” may be the most important channel of influence that an analyst can have, but it’s pretty much impossible to measure with any accuracy, even for the analyst himself or herself. Also it’s a confusing thing, because it depends to a degree on brand and brand is a slippery thing. I’m unusual among analysts because my name is a brand. I’m not blowing a trumpet here, I’ve noticed this and also been told this. Your name can act as an amplifier if it’s a brand, and if not then the brand you work through (Gartner, Forrester, etc.) is the major amplifier. But irrespective of this, what you get quoted as saying can act as an amplifier.

So what do I mean by “amplifier”?

The Marketing Amplifier

If an analyst gets quoted in a magazine then a number of people will read that. If the magazine has, say, 10,000 readers, then maybe 10 percent will read it and most of those readers will forget what they read in 3 days or so. That doesn’t amount to much influence on its own. But some readers wont forget it. The ones who won’t forget are the marketing folk who keep an eye on everything written about them or their competitors. They add it to their collection of press clippings.

Marketing folk are amplifiers. If they work for a company that makes ploughs, then a statement like “Robin Bloor says a plough is a ground breaking product” is a big deal for them. They may use this statement in brochures and presentations. If you said it was their plough that was groundbreaking, they’ll send the article to all their salesmen and they’ll tell everyone they meet. They amplify the message. If you say something negative about their product then no matter, their competitors’ marketing folk will do the amplifying.

And they don’t just amplify the message, they also amplify the brand. They want everyone to think that the man (or analyst company) who said that their plough that was groundbreaking was pretty much the most important plough commentator on the planet.

The Journalistic Amplifier

Aside from direct influence on journalists, through contact and conversations, analysts can have indirect contact. The amplification here can be much bigger than you might expect. I discovered this back in the 1990s when a communicatons consultant told me that some survey or other showed me as having a high influence on software purchases in Germany. How could that be, when in that year I had not been interviewed even once by a German journalist about anything?

The answer is that journalists in foreign countries, especially those not speaking English, raid the US and UK technical press for stories. As copyright is virtually unenforceable across languages it would not matter much if they simply translated the whole news piece word for word. They usually don’t, but they are happy to lift a quotation from some commentator or other – and they do.

This acts as a very strong amplifier.

The Internet As Amplifier

Internet postings get partially plagiarized on a regular basis. They also get partially syndicated – with some aggregation sites just taking the headline and first 2 paragraphs then linking through to the site or blog. This blog is a particularly effective amplification channel, both direct and indirect. Several journalists have asked me directly, if it is OK for them to use my blog as a source of stories and opinions (to which I answer “yes”). Others don’t bother to ask, they just do it. So a story appearing on by blog can provoke other stories. The extent of this is hard to track – especially if it moves into other languages.

Ultimately, analysts are supposed to be experts and their considered opinions are supposed to be amplified. Unfortunately the extent of the amplification is difficult to measure for any specific analyst.

Note: This posting is one in a series of postings that covers the topic of dealing with analysts. Click here for links to other postings in the series.