Gartner and other Soothsayers
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Does anyone know of a tracking service on these organisations - one that tracks their performance in respect of the accuracy of there predictions. I suspect it's similar to the fortune tellers who habituate farmers markets and gentrifying inner city districts. I know folks who hang on their every word, mainly in the managerial class.
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Does anyone know of a tracking service on these organisations - one that tracks their performance in respect of the accuracy of there predictions. I suspect it's similar to the fortune tellers who habituate farmers markets and gentrifying inner city districts. I know folks who hang on their every word, mainly in the managerial class.
I think it's typically a wise bet to, well, bet against them.
cheers, Chris Maunder
CodeProject.com : C++ MVP
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I think it's typically a wise bet to, well, bet against them.
cheers, Chris Maunder
CodeProject.com : C++ MVP
if i were a betting man i'd do that, but i'm wise enough not to bet on anything, but a rich man i neither be.
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Does anyone know of a tracking service on these organisations - one that tracks their performance in respect of the accuracy of there predictions. I suspect it's similar to the fortune tellers who habituate farmers markets and gentrifying inner city districts. I know folks who hang on their every word, mainly in the managerial class.
Just Google phrases like Gartner saved our company millions or Forrester's research helped us beat our competition. Not getting as many hits as you expected given their media glory? That should tell you something right there. Cynic, n.: A reformed consumer of marteting snake-oil and other malicious fabrications, who has decided that companies wanting his money overpromise and underdeliver far more regularly than the opposite. See also realist, technical manager, non-commissioned officer.
Jeff Dickey Seven Sigma Software and Services Phone/SMS: +65 8333 4403 Yahoo! IM: jeff_dickey MSN IM: jeff_dickey at hotmail.com ICQ IM: 8053918 Skype: jeff_dickey
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Just Google phrases like Gartner saved our company millions or Forrester's research helped us beat our competition. Not getting as many hits as you expected given their media glory? That should tell you something right there. Cynic, n.: A reformed consumer of marteting snake-oil and other malicious fabrications, who has decided that companies wanting his money overpromise and underdeliver far more regularly than the opposite. See also realist, technical manager, non-commissioned officer.
Jeff Dickey Seven Sigma Software and Services Phone/SMS: +65 8333 4403 Yahoo! IM: jeff_dickey MSN IM: jeff_dickey at hotmail.com ICQ IM: 8053918 Skype: jeff_dickey
It's occurred to me that the media (commercial and public alike) would be the biggest losers if we were to see the demise of the gartners etc - who else would write their copy for them. Incestuous I'd say.
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It's occurred to me that the media (commercial and public alike) would be the biggest losers if we were to see the demise of the gartners etc - who else would write their copy for them. Incestuous I'd say.
Exactly. Journalism in the mainstream and technical media, as we knew it, is dead. Open up any tech magazine, flip to the "new products" listing, ad find one article, just one, that isn't a vendor-supplied, pregurgitated press release. EULAs (enforceable in the former US and other similarly-benighted places) routinely prohibit negative reviews, often any review of a product without prior authorization and approval. Between EULAs, the DMCA, the MCA, and the MAFIAA, creativity - or the ability to discover, discuss and enjoy it - is essentially dead. Kaput. An ex-parrot stapled to the perch with 100,000 volts being applied in a vain attempt to make it look alive, by a media-legal complex that bets its entire existence, let alone power, on continuing to make people believe what the MLC says rather than what people can see with their own two eyes.
Jeff Dickey Seven Sigma Software and Services Phone/SMS: +65 8333 4403 Yahoo! IM: jeff_dickey MSN IM: jeff_dickey at hotmail.com ICQ IM: 8053918 Skype: jeff_dickey
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Exactly. Journalism in the mainstream and technical media, as we knew it, is dead. Open up any tech magazine, flip to the "new products" listing, ad find one article, just one, that isn't a vendor-supplied, pregurgitated press release. EULAs (enforceable in the former US and other similarly-benighted places) routinely prohibit negative reviews, often any review of a product without prior authorization and approval. Between EULAs, the DMCA, the MCA, and the MAFIAA, creativity - or the ability to discover, discuss and enjoy it - is essentially dead. Kaput. An ex-parrot stapled to the perch with 100,000 volts being applied in a vain attempt to make it look alive, by a media-legal complex that bets its entire existence, let alone power, on continuing to make people believe what the MLC says rather than what people can see with their own two eyes.
Jeff Dickey Seven Sigma Software and Services Phone/SMS: +65 8333 4403 Yahoo! IM: jeff_dickey MSN IM: jeff_dickey at hotmail.com ICQ IM: 8053918 Skype: jeff_dickey
And so say all of us whose these dudes - DMCA, the MCA, and the MAFIAA. At least the MLC ain't got nukes, unlike the MIC.
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And so say all of us whose these dudes - DMCA, the MCA, and the MAFIAA. At least the MLC ain't got nukes, unlike the MIC.
(OBA, not to be confused with the OBE[^]...) The US once was a relatively free country; that has changed due to the influence of certain laws and organizations, including...
- The DMCA is Digital Millenium Copyright Act[^], which in practice has been used to strip the concepts of "fair use" and "purchased right of ownership" from American law. The EU has their own version, the EU Copyright Directive[^].
- The MCA is the Military Commissions Act of 2006[^], which icluded the removal of habeas corpus[^] from American citizens (and essentially anyone else in a position to care), thus annulling one of the great advaces of common law dating back to the twelfth century and recognized by all "free" cultures since.
- Finally, the term MAFIAA is an informal, largely countercultural reference to the Recording Industry Association of America[^], or RIAA, the Motion Picture Association of America[^], or MPAA, and similar cartels[^], which have increasingly adopted legal and social tactics reminiscent of the Mafia[
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Does anyone know of a tracking service on these organisations - one that tracks their performance in respect of the accuracy of there predictions. I suspect it's similar to the fortune tellers who habituate farmers markets and gentrifying inner city districts. I know folks who hang on their every word, mainly in the managerial class.
My own observation for many years is that Gartner and Forrester are usually wrong more than they are right. They simply make lots of contrarian predictions and then capitalize on the few that end up being right. (This is what most economists do.) Six years ago, the company I worked at contracted Forrester to do a market analysis. They were close to 100% wrong on every bit of their analysis (at least half their conclusions were wrong at the time, the rest proven wrong over time, but which we believed were wrong.) It was obvious that they simply told the company what they wanted to hear and then charged them a few hundred thousand dollars.
Anyone who thinks he has a better idea of what's good for people than people do is a swine. - P.J. O'Rourke