Yesterday, I had lunch with someone who I predict is on a fast track to becoming a rock star analyst. His name was Jacob Morgan of Chess Media Group. We had met on Twitter a while back and had agreed that it would be great to meet in a non-virtual sense. Lunch in San Francisco was the perfect venue.
Jim Lundy, Don Kibler and Jacob Morgan
We hit it off immediately because we have similar views on both technology and people. In fact, we had a great discussion about one of my holiday twitter topics: fake analysts and fake analyst firms (the ones that hire people and call them analysts but don’t train or coach them). In our discussion, it became apparent that there is a trend that the haters (fakers) out there don’t like it when someone (such as Jacob or myself) has a better idea or a contrarian opinion. I formed Aragon Research because I knew there was a better way to help clients than the FG* way (*FG = Forrester, Gartner).
Similarly too, in a world today that features an overall industry analyst population that is aging fast, smart, young talent like Jacob Morgan is a breath of fresh air. It is clear from our interactions that Jacob does his homework and that is always something a great analyst does. So, in the midst of a fun lunch, an alliance was formed. Stay tuned….