Over the weekend, a molehill has started to become a mountain. Or, in the view of some, a mountain became an even bigger mountain.

SageCircle posted a claim that Forrester Research will restrict its analysts from having personally-branded research blogs, implying that the policy will reduce the risk of analysts building their personal brands before bolting from the firm, taking their audiences with them.

Use of social media has become second nature to many, but one look at the range of comments on the SageCircle post reflects how strongly people still feel about the dichotomy of personal/professional social media usage and the tension around a company’s ownership of a worker’s intellectual property. Cries of Big Brother, paranoia and censorship abound, tempered by other statements that it’s good business practice or simply a matter of whose servers hold the data.

Source: speedy2

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As 2010 begins, Gartner bolsters its position in the IT analysis market.

Gartner and Burton Group both announced that Gartner, Inc. has agreed to purchase Burton Group for $56 million in cash. This marks Gartner’s second acquisition since Dec. 1, 2009 when it acquired AMR Research.

Gene Hall, Gartner’s chief executive officer, stated, “…Burton Group is a great strategic fit for Gartner and should enable us to offer a more complete solution to every level and functional expert within an IT organization.  By leveraging our scale and worldwide distribution capabilities, we expect to significantly grow Burton Group’s business over time.”

It will be interesting to see how this affects companies’ perceptions of independent firms and individuals. Will companies be comforted by the massive size and resources of the Gartner conglomerate, or could there be backlash and a fear of receiving cookie-cutter consulting, particularly among smaller organizations with limited research budgets?

My two cents: More than ever is it important to pay attention and engage with independents via blogs and other channels such as social media. For example, former Forrester analyst Jeremiah Owyang’s Web Strategy blog is an excellent resource for technology insight.

The Gartners of the world may continue to dominate the business of research. The independent analysts and firms, however, are on the rise, and they’ll stand a fighting chance if they have the connections and ability to deliver more focused insight for companies in important niche markets.

Anyone who’s written for an audience can attest to the humbling experience of having one’s work edited. A Ragan.com feature titled “Black and white and red all over” is an assortment of communicators’ recollections about the first time they experienced the wrath of the red pen.

The advice ranges from the stylistic, like avoiding Gonzo journalism and questionable metaphors, to the emotional - not falling in love with your own words.

That may be the toughest advice to take, as that love can be as enduring as your very first crush. (In my case, “baseball Brad.”) Painful as it may be, though, it is still vital instruction to follow in order to communicate effectively with your audience by using language that is meaningful to them rather than your ego.

This leads us to another item of interest: Americans are consuming more information overall.

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The wave of acquisition and consolidation continues, this time in the world of research.

Gartner and AMR both announced today that Gartner, Inc. has agreed to purchase AMR Research for $64 million in cash, Lord willing and the creek don’t rise.

Bruce Richardson, Chief Research Officer for AMR, offered an explanation of what it might mean for its clients and analysts.

He also noted some key assets Gartner has to offer, including a bigger audience, global reach, presence in more vertical markets, access to many more research resources, and a focus on quality writing.

I’m curious to see what this will mean not only for these firms but for the competitive landscape as well.

We found this recent post by Justin Siefert especially interesting and valuable.  Not a day goes by where we aren’t having to defend our use and support of Twitter as a communications channel for our clients and for us, as a matter of fact.  Despite skepticism from late Twitter bloomers…end users are using this medium as a way to get info…and so are influencers.  Thanks for the insight, Justin…hope your eyes are better.

If I see one more quote claiming that all companies should jump into social media because its free…I’m going to poke my eyes out.  So when I read this morning’s post on the Future Changes blog I couldn’t help but share the insight.  The quote below…and the heart of the post succinctly depicts the issue with why people think social media is free…and why it is not.  A distribution channel or channel for engagement is only as good as the content being distributed or shared.  Yes the channels are free…the content…especially the most valuable kind is most likely not.  Thank you Stewart Brand.

Information Wants To Be Free. Information also wants to be expensive. Information wants to be free because it has become so cheap to distribute, copy, and recombine—too cheap to meter. It wants to be expensive because it can be immeasurably valuable to the recipient. That tension will not go away. It leads to endless wrenching debate about price, copyright, ‘intellectual property’, the moral rightness of casual distribution, because each round of new devices makes the tension worse, not better.

Seems like every week we get asked by a client about social media monitoring tools.  Like us, they’re being deluged with messages about the latest and greatest tool for tracking brands and conversations online.  Everyone knows that conversations are happening online but they’re unsure how to stay on top of what’s being discussed and by whom.  The questions we hear from clients include who are the influencers who matter in my market?  What topics matter most?  How much is our company being covered compared to our competitors?  And what are these online influencers saying about our brand? These are not necessarily easy questions to answer but they’re the right ones to ask.  And they’re the questions we’re asking ourselves as we build influencer strategies and engagement programs for our clients.

But, with what seems like thousands of tools out there claiming to track and provide  answers to those questions, where do you begin? Which tools or tools are the best fit? We’ve tackled the challenge of researching the myriad of useful tools out on the market so you don’t have to, and here is what we found.

• From low-end DIY tools to high end services, tools cover the gamut of needs from identifying influencers to measuring sentiment to simply tracking volume of social media chatter. The key is determining your true end goals and needs  – why you want to have better insight into social media coverage in the first place.  Without that base, you can spend hours walking down the wrong paths.

• So far there is no single solution that does it all, or at least does it all well.  There are solutions that address pieces of the puzzle very well and some that handle a couple of things adequately.  The combined power of using a few of these tools together, however, can really speed the tracking process to give our teams more time to add our knowhow and historical perspective to the mix, giving our clients better insights.

• Take the time to hone your searches and carefully craft the questions you are going to ask. There’s no replacement for applying critical thinking to the challenge before jumping in, overlaying an understanding of a particular market and customers, as well as the movers & shakers and what makes them tick.

• There will be surprises along the way – and that’s a good thing!  In fact, if you aren’t surprised by something you’re learning through a deep influencer review process, you’re probably missing something.  But no matter what tool or tools you choose to use, be prepared to use the most important tool of all — your brain — because that’s what makes the difference between just tracking social media and really understanding where and how influence is happening in your market.

So before you jump in and drink from the social media fire hose, take a few sips with us.   In some cases, it might make sense for you to piggy back on the work the agency is doing because we’re investing in the tools and can make those resources available to our clients.  At the very least, we’re happy to share insights into the tools we’ve become familiar with and to help you reach a better understanding of what people are saying about your brand online.

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Charles Lindbergh, his mother and President & Mrs. Coolidge

Several years before Charles Lindbergh’s famous flight across the Atlantic and before the publication of a little modern novel called “The Great Gatsby,” the American Society of Newspaper Editors met to establish some ethical guidelines in the “Canons of Journalism.”

The code of ethics states that the primary function of newspapers is “to communicate to the human race what its members do, feel and think.” In 1922, the ASNE may never have dreamed of such developments as Facebook or Twitter, but if that first sentence doesn’t scream “social media,” I don’t know what does.

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By Katie Zeiser

As the newest witch of Eastwick I’m still learning about being a professional or, as my best friend and I call it, a “real person.” Because I am still learning about PR – or “real life”- I’m sticking to something surprisingly useful that I know through and through: Facebook.

Today, Facebook is a giant, it’s taught in college curriculum, it’s the focus of numerous webinars, and it’ll be part of PRSA –SF’s Young Professionals mixer hosted by Eastwick Communications on October 15^th at 6pm. (Shameless plug #1)

But, before all the “bling bling” – the apps, widgets and the fan pages, there was “thefacebook.com,” a social network solely for college students. In only five years, Facebook has changed the game of communications and penetrated the “real world.” It shaped my college experience, so I want to pour a little out for my homies and represent for the recently graduated. This is a throwback to Facebook circa 2005.

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William Safire

I was sad to hear of the passing of William Safire over the weekend.  I didn’t share his politics but I admired his love of language.   As he wrote in one of his columns, “I take my phrasedick assignments seriously.”

Here’s a snippet from one of my favorite columns, focused on the phrases “aha moment” and “senior moment.” In tracing the roots of the aha moment, he cites the Canterbury Tales and Mary Tyler Moore, almost in the same breath.

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