Wisdom of the crowd vs. wisdom of the analysts?

Euan Semple rightly hails Jeneane Sessum‘s idea as "cracking". The idea? Well, frustrated by an inability to access tech analyst data she’s calling for a "Wikipedia of research":

The model now with the big analyst firms holding the high-priced keys
to the kingdom of research needs an overhaul. At the same time,
enterprises wouldn’t have to pay tens of thousands of dollars have a
report done on their offering/product.

It’s the sort of concept that sends a shiver up your spine. First citizen journalists, now citizen analysts? 

If one were to create such a thing it would be incredibly useful, especially in an age where there are so many smaller and single-cell corporate organisms out there in the business eco-system. The current analyst model doesn’t work for them because they don’t have the scale to be able to afford access to the data.

So what will happen. Will the likes of Ovum, Gartner and Forrester respond with new models of sharing information, take part in this project with their public information, or will an alternative be established, an alternative that has the potential to disintermediate them to a certain extent?

What do analysts think about this, I wonder? I’m not sure, but I’ll ask a man who does…

: : Reading a couple of comments that are on Jeneane’s post already there are some people willing to muck in on such a project. Someone else points out there is a great deal of free data made available already by tech analyst houses.

3 responses to “Wisdom of the crowd vs. wisdom of the analysts?”

  1. Anthony, I’m glad you referenced that some tech analyst houses give research away for free. My firm, MWD, is only small – three analysts today, started a year ago – but we make ALL our research reports available free to anyone who subscribes to our site. The idea is that if our insights are valuable, people will pay us to work with them one-to-one. This is a part of our business model which is a recognition that most “user” organisations don’t want to pay for research – they only do so because it’s the entry ticket they need to talk to the analysts. – Neil

  2. Sounds like a good model, Neil – I hope it’s working out for you. And I’ve signed up!

  3. its a model we have been pushing for some time. interesting to see bloggers finally calling for it – in my experience, so far, we have been ignored by many bloggers about the need to push for more open research models. i just thought the industry analyst business wasn’t considered “cool” enough to want to disrupt.

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