Research Analyst: A Dirty Job, But Somebody Has To Do It – Episode 60

John Mark Troyer – The Geek Whisperers

Stu Miniman on a panel at the vBrownbag Opening Acts at VMworld 2014

We talk with Stu Miniman, research analyst at Wikibon, about the daily practice of being an analyst.

Some of the topics we covered:

• Financial analysts vs research analysts
• Journalists vs analysts – no suit vs suit?
• Analysts provide tools to figure out how to adopt new technology.
• Stu’s focus is to say something that is useful to the end IT user
• Amy asks: Are analysts from the Dark Side of the Force? Or are vendors?
• Wikibon has services for vendors that fund their business and they are open about where their revenue comes from – they try to take money from all sides.
• Wikibon also tries to leverage the wisdom of the crowd
• If everyone has an asshole and an opinion, can they also be an analyst?
• Difference between a journalist and an analyst: journalists want information; analysts give a lot of feedback back to the vendors they talk to.
• Stu started as an engineer – and has done customer support, inside sales, outside sales, gotten an MBA, engineering & operations, worked at the Office of the CTO at EMC
• Vendor technologists can’t share most of what they’re working on; research analysts can share much more.
• The best stories are from IT peers. Look for those taking the early leaps.
• Social connections and his network help keep Stu informed.
• Stu is trying to spend more time with fewer people – better signal to noise.
• A Day In The Life Of An Analyst: it’s a lot of talking. Digging around, talking to vendors and end users. A lot of reading. A lot of internal debate. There’s no week that’s the same. Could be a lot of reading, could be on the road at conferences with theCUBE.
• Stu covers a range of technologies – helps mix up the conversations and keeps it interesting.
• A fair amount of travel is involved: Stu does 25%, but most analysts do much more.
• Wikibon is hiring! If you’re interested. They are looking for folks with domain expertise.
• If you don’t have a thick skin, don’t be an analyst. Vendors don’t like it when you tell them their baby is ugly. You never are going to please everyone. You’ve got to want to learn.
• At Wikibon, they try to make information free and shared to all.
• They talk to both marketing teams and product teams.
• Find Stu on Twitter @stu, at Wikibon.org and SiliconAngle.tv

The Geek Whisperers getting ready to record this podcast at VMworld 2014. Amy is taking the picture.