Two stories in as many days? Wassup?
A video podcast (see above) sparked thoughts I’ve shared with very few others so here goes.
The players in the video are well known to me from my time extensively reporting and analysing the goings on at SAP. They’re good people. Their POV matters albeit I will push back on certain elements of what they say.
In this story I’m cherry picking a few points but I recommend listening to the whole. It’s a worthy time investment.
Even before retiring, my appetite for in-person events was on a steep decline so for me the pandemic was a welcome relief. Let me explain.
I’d spent years traveling around the world, often to the US. but also to South Africa, Malaysia, Singapore, South Korea, and Australia At one point my travel schedule was so crazy that I moved to the US for several years rather than (almost) never being at a base I could call home.
Put another way, when you can earn elite flight status on two or more airlines inside the first three months of three years on the bounce, racking hundreds of thousands of air miles in the process, then you’re flying too much.
Once in the US, the pace didn’t let up, it just became tolerable as the time spent on individual flights didn’t need to exceed five hours and I could get home most weeks for at least a few days.
When I finally returned to the U.K. I vowed not to travel unless there was an exceptionally compelling reason. That drew raised eyebrows but made almost zero difference in my ability to do what I needed. It didn’t make any difference to my perceived impact on the market (such as it might have been), nor my ability to get interviews with firms’ executives or their customers. If anything I’d argue it made me sharper because I needed to do more desk research rather than at least partially relying on serendipitous meet-ups at an in-person event.
Like many others, I’d grown up in the belief that in-person events are essential to assess the nuances behind a company and the messages it wants to promote. Looking back I’d argue that’s only partially true and even then the value extracted is ephemeral.
In the video, Bill Wohl makes the point that momentum, as adjudged by analysts, is largely learned from attendance at in-person events. Momentum is valued because it helps enhance a firm’s reputation. Really? In whose mind?
Sorry to pick on him but Bill also suggested that the ability to have large numbers of media and press at an event matters. Again, I’d argue, really? Who cares?
Having attended countless media and analyst sessions, I can count (sic) on the fingers of less than two hands the number of questions I’d regard as ‘challenging.’ Most are mere queries on reported facts. Bill knows what I mean. But to Bill’s unsaid point, if large numbers of folk regurgitating your message is a measure of success then he has a point.
Some argue that media and analysts save their tough questions for small group or one-on-one sessions. I don’t know if that’s true or whether it’s a myth but I’ve never seen anything approaching what I’d consider piercing questions in those sessions coming from the majority of participants.
The only time I saw a group take a firm to task in a way that led to meltdown was when a group of genuine non-media experts in the firm’s technology took issue with a specific position. It was ugly but useful for everyone as it helped clarify what the firm needed to do. The extent of that interaction was never reported by me because to do so swerved into the realms of tabloid reportage and serves no useful purpose.
On the other hand, I fully accept there can be times when an on-person interaction offers a tidbit of value that’s worth pursuing. But those occasions are rare and often uncover situations that are specific to the case in question rather than being of general interest.
The only time I recall where a major issue emerged was when a Siebel implementation was undertaken in two divisions by two SI’s using two different database schemas leading to a situation where neither system could communicate with the other. This was an undiscovered problem with wide potential impact. And it came from a customer phone call.
I’ve seen plenty of situations where relatively small areas of functionality needed particular implementation requirements of broad interest but these were almost always known or easily discovered. I’ve also seen plenty of stuff that just didn’t work as advertised but these issues are easy to discern and made widely known.
Where in-person or rather one-on-one is valuable comes in product demos. But as Chris Powell points out in the video, those can readily be done online. There is one exception and that’s where another person has been evaluating the solution and is able to point out deficiencies or omissions as a way of understanding development timelines.
So, does in-person attendance by media and analysts really matter? I see a few situations where it does.
People who may be new to a firm or it’s technology almost always benefit from asking colleagues their opinion. Media and analysts are rarely short of those and you can guarantee lively conversations among those who hold different positions.
On occasion, you will stumble across terrific examples of customers who have stretched the vendor and achieved outsized results. They might not share specifics but it’s possible to learn enough that’s worthwhile passing along.
The problem vendors face is that of perception. In my experience, marketers are slow to recognise that the perfect firm does not exist and it is important that areas of potential improvement are worthy of discussion. Marketers want the garden to be 100% rosy but even the most optimistic quietly acknowledge that is a bullshit view. The in-person event provides opportunities to burnish reputations but it rarely works as the vendor perceived.
Vendors place far too much emphasis on the perceived value of media and analysts. As one colleague repeatedly reminds me, individually, we are but one point of perceived influence in a chain of decision making that extends to hundreds of steps. We need to be humble enough to recognise that.
The same holds true at the media or analyst firm level too. The big brands in those markets may think they have power but I am firmly convinced that any power they do hold is in the hands of those media and analysts who actually do the work to understand the market in the broadest sense. Brand matters but I often view brand as over emphasised to the detriment of mundane but essential execution.
Customers argue that taking the analyst view is vital as they are recognised experts. If a tick in the box is needed then yes. I think it is wrong for vendor marketers to believe that analysts’ primary audience is the customer. For proof they only need look at the media and analysts revenue mix. It is the vendor community from which these businesses draw the majority of their income. But I can equally understand the vendor desire to get the analyst’s ear over a Michelin star dinner, on the golf course or sharing a Mai Tai on a Hawaiian beach. It works…on occasion.
The overarching question comes back to one that Steve Mann put - are in-person events worth the vast expenditures involved for tech firms? I can’t answer that except to say that despite global lockdown, the tech sector generally did far better than anyone expected. Whether there’s a decline going forward has yet to be determined. In that regard I appreciate Bill Wohl’s desire to see a return to in-person. I just think that the media component needs re-invention around lessons learned about virtual events. And there are plenty there. My ex-colleague Jon Reed has plenty to say there. Here’s an example.
I want to be clear. I’m not saying that in-person events are dead, nor am I saying they can always be replaced. Instead, I am asking the question - where is the value and who benefits? In that context, how do vendors reframe events to maximise value for everyone while keeping the CFO happy?
I know plenty of analysts who like nothing better than to be on the road. I’m not one of them and haven’t been for some years. But what do you think? Is it an efficient use of time? Is the effort expended worth the outcomes? Are we wishing for a return to a dewy eyed, gilded age? Are we wanting to pander to the wishes of those who love travel or who are too lazy to do the desk work? Or, am I simply positing an anti-social view?
A couple of important points on this for me in haste:
- I don't have time to watch hours of stream of consciousness talking head videos.
- I don't have time to travel to vendor events to be glad handed, grin f*¢kd and be broadcast to
What is critically missing for the client side is *brevity*. If a FTE is working 80 hours+ a week trying to break concrete ERP foundations so more modern systems/ modules can coexist with legacy tech they have v little time to attend live events, live video streams or any other time suck.
Most people realize bigTech analyst budget is run by the people who run marketing, ergo a great deal of 'analysis' by analysts is a blend of pr, strengths and weakness overview and evaluation of market position because that's what vendors want to pay for.
The great thing about blog posts is you can skim them and read if you think there is substance there. I'm not going to take a chance on a live event in case it's good, nor am I going ot watch hours of video in case I find a nugget.
No time. Got to go