July 15, 2025 • 20 mins
Interested in being a guest? Email us at admin@evankirstel.com
The analyst world has long been dominated by commercial giants with rigid publishing schedules and predetermined agendas, but FourCasters is breaking that mold. This groundbreaking platform, launched in March 2023, provides independent analysts and boutique firms a dedicated space to share their unfiltered, future-focused insights without commercial constraints.
Roberta Gamble, drawing on her impressive 25-year tenure at Frost Sullivan, explains that FourCasters fills a critical void in the B2B technology landscape. While LinkedIn and personal websites serve their purpose, independent voices often lack visibility despite their deep expertise. Four Casters solves this by creating a professional, curated environment where forward-thinking content can thrive without pushing product recommendations or sponsor-driven narratives.
The platform's name—FourCasters—reflects its multidimensional approach to content through focus, region, industry, and analyst perspective. Content spans diverse timeframes, from immediate forecasts to long-term predictions addressing challenges like the approaching "2038 problem" (a Y2K-like issue many organizations are underprepared for). Quality remains paramount, with an editorial board ensuring all submissions maintain professional standards while staying future-oriented.
What truly distinguishes FourCasters is its commitment to authentic human insight in an increasingly AI-saturated content environment. As Gamble notes, the platform prioritizes genuine expertise over the volume-for-volume's sake approach that plagues both technology solutions and marketing content today. Currently strong in enterprise communications and cybersecurity, Four Casters plans to expand into healthcare and financial technologies while enhancing its multimedia capabilities.
Curious about where B2B technology is heading? Explore Four Casters to discover authentic, forward-thinking perspectives from the independent analysts who are reshaping how we understand and prepare for our technological future. Their unfiltered insights might be exactly what your organization needs to navigate tomorrow's challenges.
More at https://linktr.ee/EvanKirstel
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:02):
Hey everybody.
We're talking about forecastingthe future today of B2B tech,
in any case, with forecasters.
Roberta, how are you?
I'm great.
Evan, how are you Doing well?
Thanks so much for joining.
You've had quite a journey inthe enterprise tech analyst
world, among others.
Before that, maybe talk aboutyour journey to Forecaster as a
(00:26):
relatively new venture, I think.
How did Forecasters come about?
What was the problem you weretrying to solve?
Speaker 2 (00:35):
Yeah, yeah, sounds great.
Thanks for the setup.
Great questions.
So, yes, I started at FrostSullivan about a quarter century
ago.
It was a great experience.
I actually began in the energyand environment side and as an
analyst and then went up througha business unit later.
But sometime, maybe about seven, eight years ago, I was a
(01:01):
partner at Frost and joined adifferent department on the
brand and demand side, where Iworked a lot with helping
basically use the informationand content to help clients
promote their message and myfocus there, and that's when my
focus really switched tocustomer experience, employee
(01:24):
experience.
There's always tech, right.
I mean, even in the energyenvironment side, we were
talking about AI andmanufacturing 10, 15 years ago,
of course, or more, but then itreally pivoted to enterprise and
communications and otherrelated areas is.
(01:49):
So then, back at the start ofthis year, I left there to join
a new company called FourQuarters.
That has emerged from some of mycolleagues who created this
spinoff or I shouldn't say somespinoff, but created this new
organization as basically doingsomething similar.
Four Quarters and we'll get toFour Casters in a second is a
marketing agency that, insteadof just working with one company
, we can represent a network ofindependent analysts and
(02:13):
boutique firms, so that nowthere's a lot of different
voices that are creating thiscontent and the messaging for
our clients In comes forecasters.
So forecasters, written F-O-U-Rcasters, as in the number four,
because we look at content infour different ways by focus, by
(02:35):
region, by industry and byanalyst.
But really what it is is it isa B2B content hub, it's a
content platform for independentanalysts and small boutique
firms to showcase their work,showcase their research.
We felt that the industrylacked a truly non-commercial,
(03:03):
third-party point of view basedplatform or location where these
analysts could promote theirwork.
Yeah, you can promote onLinkedIn, you can promote on
your own website, Absolutely.
You know those things are great, they all have their place, but
this is one where you know youcan really get that really
future forward, or rather,excuse me, future focused
(03:28):
content that again doesn'treally have that commercial
aspect.
We're not trying to promote askanybody to promote a certain
product or a certain brand.
We want to know what you thinkthe future holds for your market
and we thought this would be agreat platform to help both the
analysts that are in our network, but even just really any
independent B2B analyst, to getsome visibility.
Speaker 1 (03:51):
Brilliant, and you just described the platform as
future-focused.
So how far in the future do youlook?
What does that mean?
Is it a month, a year, fiveyears out?
It's difficult to forecastanything these days.
Five years out, it's difficultto forecast anything these days.
Speaker 2 (04:05):
Absolutely, oh absolutely.
I'm just thinking of thedeep-seek roller coaster in the
back of my mind.
You know how that's gone up andback down.
It's over from this last yearand what we thought would change
and what didn't change and whatit may be changed Really,
whatever the market would bear,whatever the analyst feels needs
to be talked about.
We have a lot of content, youknow, independent content that
(04:33):
just really just looking at therest of this year, that's
looking at next year.
We had some great pieces thatwere recently put on the site
that are saying hey, justpretend it's already 2027, you
got to plan for 2030, 2030, oryou know there's the 2038
problem.
That's not that far away.
What are you doing about thatnow?
So yeah, in some way everythingchanges week for week and other
ways.
(04:53):
You know it's easy to get miredin the day to day and then you
got to have a longer term view.
So we're not putting anemphasis on one or the other.
We just want it to be.
You know, we just want peopleto come to that site and feel
like they're going to get ataste of the future.
Speaker 1 (05:08):
Love it.
And how do you decide or choosewhich analysts or topics make
it onto the platform and youknow what's the bar for quality
in your point of view.
Speaker 2 (05:19):
Yeah, that's a great question.
We do have an editorial boardthat will review all the content
.
We want it to be againfuture-looking.
We want it to be professionalin nature.
We don't want anything that isinflammatory.
That's again commercial, that'spolitical.
Nothing that's going to be wayout there.
(05:40):
Focus on your industry, focuson those technologies.
Look at what the players aredoing.
Give your opinion.
That's all great.
Give some data.
We love data, but make itserious and B2B and business and
professional.
So really that's what we'relooking for.
It can even be content thatwill be published elsewhere.
There's a lot of great othercontent hubs out there, but
they're usually a lot morerestrictive.
(06:01):
You can only publish on theirsite, for example, and for a
reason they're commercializingthat platform.
You know they want to be thatfirst to market.
They want to be the only tomarket with that particular
content.
This is not our intent, so wedon't have that level of
restriction, but of course, wedon't want anything crazy on
there either.
Speaker 1 (06:18):
Got it.
So you have quite an insider'sperspective on the industry.
25 years at Frost Sullivan it'squite a run.
So what makes the content heredifferent from what you'd find
on Gartner, forrester and thelong laundry list of analyst
firms out?
Speaker 2 (06:34):
there.
Yeah, sure, sure, no.
Those are good examples.
You know what we really wantedto.
It's a couple different things.
Partly it's really who'sposting.
So if you are, you know, ananalyst with Gartner, with
Forrester, you have that, thestrength of that enormous name
and platform behind you.
You know, we have that brandbehind you.
If you're an independent, ifyou're, let's say, ex-gartner or
(06:58):
you're launching your own, oryou've been, you know, a market
industry expert for 20, 30 plusyears, you might still want that
additional visibility.
So I think that's the biggestthing is that we well, two
things One is that we arepromoting that independent
analyst and that small boutiquefirm.
(07:18):
So it doesn't just have to beanalysts.
We have, you know, small firmsthat also will use, you know,
collaborate with us to helptheir visibility.
The other thing, too, is thatyou know, collaborate with us to
help their visibility.
The other thing, too, is thatyou know we are opening the
format and the topic.
So, if you're at a gardener,you're at a forester, wherever
you are, you're going to haveyour program, you're going to
have your plan for that vertical.
This is the content you'regoing to create this year.
(07:40):
This is what you're going tohave to pay to access that
content.
These are the people who areallowed to publish it.
We don't really have thoserestrictions.
So if you have some greatresearch, a podcast, even
yourself, that you want to linkback to, or a video or an
infographic, we are not creatinga set agenda.
(08:04):
Yes, we have to publish in thesecategories.
I mean, we definitely have,because it is very new.
We just launched in March.
I want to say we definitelyhave.
Yeah, so it's very new.
We already are publishing.
We're publishing content everyweek.
We've got a great following.
We have a lot of contributorsacross enterprise, communication
, cybersecurity.
In these areas, we want toexpand.
(08:25):
We've got some financialservices work on there.
We've got some environment.
We've got some healthcare workon there, but largely it's on
the tech side right now.
We want to expand, so we havesome verticals and so forth, but
we don't have, I guess, ascript for the year on this is
who's going to publish what andwhen.
Speaker 1 (08:43):
Got it.
Love the approach.
Do you have any favoritearticles or predictions that
come to mind that might bemaking waves?
Don't want you to pick anyfavorite children.
Oh, it's so hard.
Speaker 2 (08:54):
I mean the last one I mentioned.
You know we had Dr ChaseCunningham, aka Dr Zero.
He published that really coolarticle on basically the one.
That was a fascinating guy.
I don't know if you know him,but background in military,
background always incybersecurity, so he's published
some great stuff.
I actually just justinterviewed him for the site as
(09:16):
well, so we have an interviewthat talks a little bit about
his background.
But he's also published contentas well.
He's recently written a book,so he's got some great stuff on
there.
Jonah Till Johnson with companyshe's the founder of Emerities.
She's got that really coolarticle about the 2038 problem,
which is basically Y2K, but alot less prepared.
(09:36):
Just for the snippet of it, Ithought that was quite
interesting.
You know the snippet of it.
I thought that was quiteinteresting.
Seth Vedder he's acybersecurity and healthcare
market and analyst.
Yeah, he's got a great articlein there about how different
countries are approaching, areusing technology to improve
(10:00):
their healthcare outreach andoutcomes.
And you know, yeah, experiences, both payer excuse me, both
provider and patient experiences.
So yeah, so there's a gooddiversity.
Those are three that come tomind but, like I said, we're
putting new stuff up every dayor every week.
Speaker 1 (10:16):
Wonderful.
So, beyond being a greatdestination or social club for
smart people, how do you tracksuccess?
And you know, is it views,engagement, business impact or
how do you think about that?
Speaker 2 (10:29):
Yeah, all of the above, Definitely views,
definitely engagement.
Right now we're really courtingthe analyst community.
We're trying to get a snowballeffect going and saying, hey,
this is cool, get on board, youknow, help us promote this.
So I think the volume andcontent and so forth, but
definitely views.
We want to make sure that thenthe industry starts reading it
(10:50):
too right, and so it's thatcombination of the two.
So it's pretty early, but yourstandard website metrics, of
course, are things you're goingto look at as well as social
media.
Speaker 1 (11:02):
Got it and you've, of course, worked with who's who
of major brands over your career.
How do you your classicquestion of keeping analyst
voices authentic when there's asponsor involved?
What's your philosophy or yourapproach there?
Speaker 2 (11:17):
Well, we, if there is a sponsor involved, we don't
want it to be front and center.
It's not going to be.
There's no recommendation.
So we really that's what I meanwhen I keep harping on the fact
that it's not commercial.
So if we're going to have acontent on there, it's not going
to be.
There's never going to be arecommendation, probably not
even really.
The only mentioning ofcompanies is going to be in the
(11:38):
context of what they're doing,if it's interesting, more of a
journalistic take rightComparison, maybe some examples.
But we don't really wantsponsored content on there, so
to speak, like from the analysts.
We really want their fresh, newcontent.
Now, we're analysts, we reusestuff, we have insights.
You know, on a project you getsome great insights.
(11:59):
You're going to maybe republishthose insights, package them
and say, hey, this is the reallycool stuff that's going on.
But make it really cool stuffabout really cool stuff that's
going on, don't make it aboutwhat the sponsor did.
That's not something that wewant on the site.
Speaker 1 (12:11):
There's plenty of other sites for that.
Speaker 2 (12:12):
Put that on LinkedIn.
Speaker 1 (12:14):
Yeah, the whole internet basically.
Exactly, you work with so manythought leaders out there and
analysts, media, journalists.
I mean what are the biggestchallenges from your point of
view when trying to breakthrough the noise and get your
message out there, get seen, getheard?
It's pretty chaotic, prettynoisy.
Speaker 2 (12:33):
Yeah.
So you know, especially thesedays with AI right and I'm sure
you have the same as you keep upwith the market you get the
same kind of cringe factor, thatuncanny valley, when you start
reading something and you seethe dash or you see the list of
three things and youautomatically know it's AI Right
.
So I think a big thing is thehuman voice.
(12:53):
So knowing that you know,reading, writing it,
communicating it such that itfeels authentic, feels genuine,
feels human, I mean that'sreally important.
And I know it's getting harder,you know.
I mean most of the things thatare coming to my mind like oh,
you know, used to be you wouldsay the top three are great ways
(13:14):
to do this.
Well, that now can start tosound a little artificial.
So you got to really be carefulhow you present these things,
how you present your work.
Speaker 1 (13:24):
Totally.
Speaker 2 (13:24):
So, yeah, I think the most important thing is to be
genuine, to be human.
Now, to get to that point wherethey read you and know that
you're genuine and human, that'sits own challenge.
And definitely if you're ananalyst starting out or you
don't have the name brandrecognition, you might put a
little bit of legwork into that.
But I think that's just themost critical thing is just
(13:45):
really write well.
Speaker 1 (13:48):
Write.
Well.
Well, it's becoming more andmore difficult with AI to figure
out what's real and what's not.
Speaking of trends, anyparticular B2B trends that might
be overhyped at the moment,what's nonsense versus what's
real?
Or what's your take on thelandscape and all the keywords
(14:10):
that we're all following thesedays.
Speaker 2 (14:14):
Yeah, I think there's a couple things and it depends
if you're talking about from,like, the industry perspective
or the marketing perspective.
You know, I kind of have a bitof a foot in each.
I have a couple of toes in themarketing side.
Most of me is on the industryside.
You know.
(14:36):
The volume question, right, you?
Just if you keep pumping outvolume and that's whether you're
talking about it applies tomarketing.
Somebody putting out a ton ofcontent but maybe it doesn't
resonate, doesn't have the valueor isn't targeted enough.
Or somebody with a greatdashboard that they're using in
their contact center but they'refilling it with a bunch of
(14:56):
information that nobody's goingto be looking at or you know is
overwhelming.
So I think the volume question,just because you can do it
doesn't mean you should, right,I'm not trying to get to
Jurassic Park here, but justlike you know, like so, so
volume for volume's sake, over,you know, overwhelming the user
again, whether it be a customeror a prospect or you know any,
(15:21):
any, you know, user of marketingcontent, user of a dashboard, a
user of technology withinsights and information they
don't need, and really sortingout and getting to the kernels
that they do need.
I think that's an importantthing.
I know we see this a lot on theEX side, employee experience
side, where you know you'regiving your employees a ton of
(15:44):
different tools and they'restill going to go use Slack or
Gmail to get something done.
You're like, no, no, you got touse this, you know, and that, I
think, is just, it's just acommunication challenge.
It's it's not connecting, it'sunderstanding what they're
trying to use it for.
So I think that that's sort ofone of the overhyped things is
(16:04):
which I think we're starting torecognize, though I mean, I
don't think this is necessarilygroundbreaking.
I think marketers recognizethis.
I think your top companies,your top suppliers of technology
and solutions are recognizingthis.
You know, insight over volume.
But I still think there's kindof a little bit of a whiz bang
temptation there that I can doit, so I'm going to present it.
Speaker 1 (16:24):
Yeah, lots of shiny objects being chased and lots of
overused buzzword.
What's your least favoriteoverused buzzword?
I'll start game changer.
If I read another press releaseabout a game changer, I'm going
to change the channel or changethe game, but you must have a
few of those that you yeah,that's a good one.
Speaker 2 (16:42):
I've been doing dynamic along similar.
Yeah, it's the one that alwayshops into my mind.
Speaker 1 (16:49):
There's so many, Too many, too many.
So where do you guys anticipategoing next?
Any new features or ideas onthe horizon?
I've looked at the site greatwritten content, maybe video
content, or what are yourthoughts on things you could be
doing?
Speaker 2 (17:06):
Yeah, we're still working out some of the ways
that we can support and promotevideos, for example, directly on
the site, or other types ofmultimedia.
Right now we're certainly ableto link back to somebody's video
, let's say, or other aspects ofmultimedia, but you know we're
still working out thatfunctionality.
So we got, you know, we got thearticles, the blog posts,
(17:26):
infographics, those types ofstatic stuff's down.
The other stuff you know it'sgoing to be linked.
So that's good.
On technology side, definitelythe site's going to evolve over
time.
Right now, as I mentioned, it'sforecasters because of those
four areas and so you can sortby those four areas.
I think over time we're goingto do more with those four areas
(17:47):
so that you can go to theenterprise communication page,
you can go to the cybersecuritypage, you can go to the
healthcare med tech page, to thecybersecurity page, you can go
to the healthcare med tech page.
But that you know we want tohave a certain critical mass of
content before we can startdoing that.
So that's another.
So that's on the functionalityside.
On the content side, again,we've got a lot of enterprise
communication, cybersecuritystuff.
I think in the next year or sowe really want to double down on
(18:10):
finance and healthcare, whetherthat be services into, like
FinTech or you know, newhealthcare markets or even, but
you know, expanding a little bitbeyond that.
And again, we are using ananalyst network.
So we are using, you know, uh,there are at this point already
we have dozens of wonderfulindependent analysts and a few
small boutique firms that wework with.
Um, that's going to grow,that's going to expand on the
(18:33):
four quarters side, um and uh,that's just going to enable us
really to provide our servicesto a broader audience.
So I think Forecasters is goingto kind of grow and parallel
with that and reflect that overtime.
Speaker 1 (18:46):
Interesting.
So outside of the analyst world, there's a universe of people
like me who are content creators, podcasters, other commentators
, TV hosts, all kinds of things.
What role, if any, do you seefor folks like that in this
model?
Speaker 2 (19:02):
Well, I feel like there's a real merging.
I mean, you're an influencer.
You talk to a lot of peopleabout technology, about AI,
about where things are going.
I'd love to have your contenton our site.
You're a brand, you're aninfluencer.
Yeah, I mean, that is great.
Sign me up.
Speaker 1 (19:15):
I'm in.
Speaker 2 (19:17):
So happy to share.
Speaker 1 (19:18):
It's always good for promotional purposes and would
love to play a part, so lookforward to the journey.
Speaker 2 (19:28):
Wonderful.
Well, that would be great.
And yeah, and you know, as wesee, analysts I mean themselves
are becoming, I think I saidinfluencer I want to pull back a
little bit on that term becauseit has certain connotations but
they have to become moremultimedia, more media savvy,
and we see a lot of analysts, alot of great people out there,
have their own podcasts, tend tobe more specific to a vertical
industry, for example, but yeah,on the media side, I think it's
(19:51):
a great.
Like you said, it's a greatmarriage.
It's a great ability toco-promote and co-educate.
Right, you know, bring some newideas to the table.
Speaker 1 (19:59):
Fantastic.
Well, thanks for sharing anupdate.
Can't wait to watch yourprogress and it'll be a busy
year this year in the analystworld back-to-back-to-back
analyst meetings so good luckwith that all.
Speaker 2 (20:11):
Thank you, Evan.
It's been a pleasure to be here.
Thank you so much.
Speaker 1 (20:14):
And thanks everyone for listening and watching and
sharing, and be sure to checkout our new TV show now on Fox
Business and Bloomberg attechimpacttv.
Thanks everyone, bye-bye.
Hey everybody.
We're talking about forecastingthe future today of B2B tech,
in any case, with forecasters.
Roberta, how are you?
I'm great.
Evan, how are you Doing well?
Thanks so much for joining.
You've had quite a journey inthe enterprise tech analyst
world, among others.
Before that, maybe talk aboutyour journey to Forecaster as a
(00:26):
relatively new venture, I think.
How did Forecasters come about?
What was the problem you weretrying to solve?
Speaker 2 (00:35):
Yeah, yeah, sounds great.
Thanks for the setup.
Great questions.
So, yes, I started at FrostSullivan about a quarter century
ago.
It was a great experience.
I actually began in the energyand environment side and as an
analyst and then went up througha business unit later.
But sometime, maybe about seven, eight years ago, I was a
(01:01):
partner at Frost and joined adifferent department on the
brand and demand side, where Iworked a lot with helping
basically use the informationand content to help clients
promote their message and myfocus there, and that's when my
focus really switched tocustomer experience, employee
(01:24):
experience.
There's always tech, right.
I mean, even in the energyenvironment side, we were
talking about AI andmanufacturing 10, 15 years ago,
of course, or more, but then itreally pivoted to enterprise and
communications and otherrelated areas is.
(01:49):
So then, back at the start ofthis year, I left there to join
a new company called FourQuarters.
That has emerged from some of mycolleagues who created this
spinoff or I shouldn't say somespinoff, but created this new
organization as basically doingsomething similar.
Four Quarters and we'll get toFour Casters in a second is a
marketing agency that, insteadof just working with one company
, we can represent a network ofindependent analysts and
(02:13):
boutique firms, so that nowthere's a lot of different
voices that are creating thiscontent and the messaging for
our clients In comes forecasters.
So forecasters, written F-O-U-Rcasters, as in the number four,
because we look at content infour different ways by focus, by
(02:35):
region, by industry and byanalyst.
But really what it is is it isa B2B content hub, it's a
content platform for independentanalysts and small boutique
firms to showcase their work,showcase their research.
We felt that the industrylacked a truly non-commercial,
(03:03):
third-party point of view basedplatform or location where these
analysts could promote theirwork.
Yeah, you can promote onLinkedIn, you can promote on
your own website, Absolutely.
You know those things are great, they all have their place, but
this is one where you know youcan really get that really
future forward, or rather,excuse me, future focused
(03:28):
content that again doesn'treally have that commercial
aspect.
We're not trying to promote askanybody to promote a certain
product or a certain brand.
We want to know what you thinkthe future holds for your market
and we thought this would be agreat platform to help both the
analysts that are in our network, but even just really any
independent B2B analyst, to getsome visibility.
Speaker 1 (03:51):
Brilliant, and you just described the platform as
future-focused.
So how far in the future do youlook?
What does that mean?
Is it a month, a year, fiveyears out?
It's difficult to forecastanything these days.
Five years out, it's difficultto forecast anything these days.
Speaker 2 (04:05):
Absolutely, oh absolutely.
I'm just thinking of thedeep-seek roller coaster in the
back of my mind.
You know how that's gone up andback down.
It's over from this last yearand what we thought would change
and what didn't change and whatit may be changed Really,
whatever the market would bear,whatever the analyst feels needs
to be talked about.
We have a lot of content, youknow, independent content that
(04:33):
just really just looking at therest of this year, that's
looking at next year.
We had some great pieces thatwere recently put on the site
that are saying hey, justpretend it's already 2027, you
got to plan for 2030, 2030, oryou know there's the 2038
problem.
That's not that far away.
What are you doing about thatnow?
So yeah, in some way everythingchanges week for week and other
ways.
(04:53):
You know it's easy to get miredin the day to day and then you
got to have a longer term view.
So we're not putting anemphasis on one or the other.
We just want it to be.
You know, we just want peopleto come to that site and feel
like they're going to get ataste of the future.
Speaker 1 (05:08):
Love it.
And how do you decide or choosewhich analysts or topics make
it onto the platform and youknow what's the bar for quality
in your point of view.
Speaker 2 (05:19):
Yeah, that's a great question.
We do have an editorial boardthat will review all the content
.
We want it to be againfuture-looking.
We want it to be professionalin nature.
We don't want anything that isinflammatory.
That's again commercial, that'spolitical.
Nothing that's going to be wayout there.
(05:40):
Focus on your industry, focuson those technologies.
Look at what the players aredoing.
Give your opinion.
That's all great.
Give some data.
We love data, but make itserious and B2B and business and
professional.
So really that's what we'relooking for.
It can even be content thatwill be published elsewhere.
There's a lot of great othercontent hubs out there, but
they're usually a lot morerestrictive.
(06:01):
You can only publish on theirsite, for example, and for a
reason they're commercializingthat platform.
You know they want to be thatfirst to market.
They want to be the only tomarket with that particular
content.
This is not our intent, so wedon't have that level of
restriction, but of course, wedon't want anything crazy on
there either.
Speaker 1 (06:18):
Got it.
So you have quite an insider'sperspective on the industry.
25 years at Frost Sullivan it'squite a run.
So what makes the content heredifferent from what you'd find
on Gartner, forrester and thelong laundry list of analyst
firms out?
Speaker 2 (06:34):
there.
Yeah, sure, sure, no.
Those are good examples.
You know what we really wantedto.
It's a couple different things.
Partly it's really who'sposting.
So if you are, you know, ananalyst with Gartner, with
Forrester, you have that, thestrength of that enormous name
and platform behind you.
You know, we have that brandbehind you.
If you're an independent, ifyou're, let's say, ex-gartner or
(06:58):
you're launching your own, oryou've been, you know, a market
industry expert for 20, 30 plusyears, you might still want that
additional visibility.
So I think that's the biggestthing is that we well, two
things One is that we arepromoting that independent
analyst and that small boutiquefirm.
(07:18):
So it doesn't just have to beanalysts.
We have, you know, small firmsthat also will use, you know,
collaborate with us to helptheir visibility.
The other thing, too, is thatyou know, collaborate with us to
help their visibility.
The other thing, too, is thatyou know we are opening the
format and the topic.
So, if you're at a gardener,you're at a forester, wherever
you are, you're going to haveyour program, you're going to
have your plan for that vertical.
This is the content you'regoing to create this year.
(07:40):
This is what you're going tohave to pay to access that
content.
These are the people who areallowed to publish it.
We don't really have thoserestrictions.
So if you have some greatresearch, a podcast, even
yourself, that you want to linkback to, or a video or an
infographic, we are not creatinga set agenda.
(08:04):
Yes, we have to publish in thesecategories.
I mean, we definitely have,because it is very new.
We just launched in March.
I want to say we definitelyhave.
Yeah, so it's very new.
We already are publishing.
We're publishing content everyweek.
We've got a great following.
We have a lot of contributorsacross enterprise, communication
, cybersecurity.
In these areas, we want toexpand.
(08:25):
We've got some financialservices work on there.
We've got some environment.
We've got some healthcare workon there, but largely it's on
the tech side right now.
We want to expand, so we havesome verticals and so forth, but
we don't have, I guess, ascript for the year on this is
who's going to publish what andwhen.
Speaker 1 (08:43):
Got it.
Love the approach.
Do you have any favoritearticles or predictions that
come to mind that might bemaking waves?
Don't want you to pick anyfavorite children.
Oh, it's so hard.
Speaker 2 (08:54):
I mean the last one I mentioned.
You know we had Dr ChaseCunningham, aka Dr Zero.
He published that really coolarticle on basically the one.
That was a fascinating guy.
I don't know if you know him,but background in military,
background always incybersecurity, so he's published
some great stuff.
I actually just justinterviewed him for the site as
(09:16):
well, so we have an interviewthat talks a little bit about
his background.
But he's also published contentas well.
He's recently written a book,so he's got some great stuff on
there.
Jonah Till Johnson with companyshe's the founder of Emerities.
She's got that really coolarticle about the 2038 problem,
which is basically Y2K, but alot less prepared.
(09:36):
Just for the snippet of it, Ithought that was quite
interesting.
You know the snippet of it.
I thought that was quiteinteresting.
Seth Vedder he's acybersecurity and healthcare
market and analyst.
Yeah, he's got a great articlein there about how different
countries are approaching, areusing technology to improve
(10:00):
their healthcare outreach andoutcomes.
And you know, yeah, experiences, both payer excuse me, both
provider and patient experiences.
So yeah, so there's a gooddiversity.
Those are three that come tomind but, like I said, we're
putting new stuff up every dayor every week.
Speaker 1 (10:16):
Wonderful.
So, beyond being a greatdestination or social club for
smart people, how do you tracksuccess?
And you know, is it views,engagement, business impact or
how do you think about that?
Speaker 2 (10:29):
Yeah, all of the above, Definitely views,
definitely engagement.
Right now we're really courtingthe analyst community.
We're trying to get a snowballeffect going and saying, hey,
this is cool, get on board, youknow, help us promote this.
So I think the volume andcontent and so forth, but
definitely views.
We want to make sure that thenthe industry starts reading it
(10:50):
too right, and so it's thatcombination of the two.
So it's pretty early, but yourstandard website metrics, of
course, are things you're goingto look at as well as social
media.
Speaker 1 (11:02):
Got it and you've, of course, worked with who's who
of major brands over your career.
How do you your classicquestion of keeping analyst
voices authentic when there's asponsor involved?
What's your philosophy or yourapproach there?
Speaker 2 (11:17):
Well, we, if there is a sponsor involved, we don't
want it to be front and center.
It's not going to be.
There's no recommendation.
So we really that's what I meanwhen I keep harping on the fact
that it's not commercial.
So if we're going to have acontent on there, it's not going
to be.
There's never going to be arecommendation, probably not
even really.
The only mentioning ofcompanies is going to be in the
(11:38):
context of what they're doing,if it's interesting, more of a
journalistic take rightComparison, maybe some examples.
But we don't really wantsponsored content on there, so
to speak, like from the analysts.
We really want their fresh, newcontent.
Now, we're analysts, we reusestuff, we have insights.
You know, on a project you getsome great insights.
(11:59):
You're going to maybe republishthose insights, package them
and say, hey, this is the reallycool stuff that's going on.
But make it really cool stuffabout really cool stuff that's
going on, don't make it aboutwhat the sponsor did.
That's not something that wewant on the site.
Speaker 1 (12:11):
There's plenty of other sites for that.
Speaker 2 (12:12):
Put that on LinkedIn.
Speaker 1 (12:14):
Yeah, the whole internet basically.
Exactly, you work with so manythought leaders out there and
analysts, media, journalists.
I mean what are the biggestchallenges from your point of
view when trying to breakthrough the noise and get your
message out there, get seen, getheard?
It's pretty chaotic, prettynoisy.
Speaker 2 (12:33):
Yeah.
So you know, especially thesedays with AI right and I'm sure
you have the same as you keep upwith the market you get the
same kind of cringe factor, thatuncanny valley, when you start
reading something and you seethe dash or you see the list of
three things and youautomatically know it's AI Right
.
So I think a big thing is thehuman voice.
(12:53):
So knowing that you know,reading, writing it,
communicating it such that itfeels authentic, feels genuine,
feels human, I mean that'sreally important.
And I know it's getting harder,you know.
I mean most of the things thatare coming to my mind like oh,
you know, used to be you wouldsay the top three are great ways
(13:14):
to do this.
Well, that now can start tosound a little artificial.
So you got to really be carefulhow you present these things,
how you present your work.
Speaker 1 (13:24):
Totally.
Speaker 2 (13:24):
So, yeah, I think the most important thing is to be
genuine, to be human.
Now, to get to that point wherethey read you and know that
you're genuine and human, that'sits own challenge.
And definitely if you're ananalyst starting out or you
don't have the name brandrecognition, you might put a
little bit of legwork into that.
But I think that's just themost critical thing is just
(13:45):
really write well.
Speaker 1 (13:48):
Write.
Well.
Well, it's becoming more andmore difficult with AI to figure
out what's real and what's not.
Speaking of trends, anyparticular B2B trends that might
be overhyped at the moment,what's nonsense versus what's
real?
Or what's your take on thelandscape and all the keywords
(14:10):
that we're all following thesedays.
Speaker 2 (14:14):
Yeah, I think there's a couple things and it depends
if you're talking about from,like, the industry perspective
or the marketing perspective.
You know, I kind of have a bitof a foot in each.
I have a couple of toes in themarketing side.
Most of me is on the industryside.
You know.
(14:36):
The volume question, right, you?
Just if you keep pumping outvolume and that's whether you're
talking about it applies tomarketing.
Somebody putting out a ton ofcontent but maybe it doesn't
resonate, doesn't have the valueor isn't targeted enough.
Or somebody with a greatdashboard that they're using in
their contact center but they'refilling it with a bunch of
(14:56):
information that nobody's goingto be looking at or you know is
overwhelming.
So I think the volume question,just because you can do it
doesn't mean you should, right,I'm not trying to get to
Jurassic Park here, but justlike you know, like so, so
volume for volume's sake, over,you know, overwhelming the user
again, whether it be a customeror a prospect or you know any,
(15:21):
any, you know, user of marketingcontent, user of a dashboard, a
user of technology withinsights and information they
don't need, and really sortingout and getting to the kernels
that they do need.
I think that's an importantthing.
I know we see this a lot on theEX side, employee experience
side, where you know you'regiving your employees a ton of
(15:44):
different tools and they'restill going to go use Slack or
Gmail to get something done.
You're like, no, no, you got touse this, you know, and that, I
think, is just, it's just acommunication challenge.
It's it's not connecting, it'sunderstanding what they're
trying to use it for.
So I think that that's sort ofone of the overhyped things is
(16:04):
which I think we're starting torecognize, though I mean, I
don't think this is necessarilygroundbreaking.
I think marketers recognizethis.
I think your top companies,your top suppliers of technology
and solutions are recognizingthis.
You know, insight over volume.
But I still think there's kindof a little bit of a whiz bang
temptation there that I can doit, so I'm going to present it.
Speaker 1 (16:24):
Yeah, lots of shiny objects being chased and lots of
overused buzzword.
What's your least favoriteoverused buzzword?
I'll start game changer.
If I read another press releaseabout a game changer, I'm going
to change the channel or changethe game, but you must have a
few of those that you yeah,that's a good one.
Speaker 2 (16:42):
I've been doing dynamic along similar.
Yeah, it's the one that alwayshops into my mind.
Speaker 1 (16:49):
There's so many, Too many, too many.
So where do you guys anticipategoing next?
Any new features or ideas onthe horizon?
I've looked at the site greatwritten content, maybe video
content, or what are yourthoughts on things you could be
doing?
Speaker 2 (17:06):
Yeah, we're still working out some of the ways
that we can support and promotevideos, for example, directly on
the site, or other types ofmultimedia.
Right now we're certainly ableto link back to somebody's video
, let's say, or other aspects ofmultimedia, but you know we're
still working out thatfunctionality.
So we got, you know, we got thearticles, the blog posts,
(17:26):
infographics, those types ofstatic stuff's down.
The other stuff you know it'sgoing to be linked.
So that's good.
On technology side, definitelythe site's going to evolve over
time.
Right now, as I mentioned, it'sforecasters because of those
four areas and so you can sortby those four areas.
I think over time we're goingto do more with those four areas
(17:47):
so that you can go to theenterprise communication page,
you can go to the cybersecuritypage, you can go to the
healthcare med tech page, to thecybersecurity page, you can go
to the healthcare med tech page.
But that you know we want tohave a certain critical mass of
content before we can startdoing that.
So that's another.
So that's on the functionalityside.
On the content side, again,we've got a lot of enterprise
communication, cybersecuritystuff.
I think in the next year or sowe really want to double down on
(18:10):
finance and healthcare, whetherthat be services into, like
FinTech or you know, newhealthcare markets or even, but
you know, expanding a little bitbeyond that.
And again, we are using ananalyst network.
So we are using, you know, uh,there are at this point already
we have dozens of wonderfulindependent analysts and a few
small boutique firms that wework with.
Um, that's going to grow,that's going to expand on the
(18:33):
four quarters side, um and uh,that's just going to enable us
really to provide our servicesto a broader audience.
So I think Forecasters is goingto kind of grow and parallel
with that and reflect that overtime.
Speaker 1 (18:46):
Interesting.
So outside of the analyst world, there's a universe of people
like me who are content creators, podcasters, other commentators
, TV hosts, all kinds of things.
What role, if any, do you seefor folks like that in this
model?
Speaker 2 (19:02):
Well, I feel like there's a real merging.
I mean, you're an influencer.
You talk to a lot of peopleabout technology, about AI,
about where things are going.
I'd love to have your contenton our site.
You're a brand, you're aninfluencer.
Yeah, I mean, that is great.
Sign me up.
Speaker 1 (19:15):
I'm in.
Speaker 2 (19:17):
So happy to share.
Speaker 1 (19:18):
It's always good for promotional purposes and would
love to play a part, so lookforward to the journey.
Speaker 2 (19:28):
Wonderful.
Well, that would be great.
And yeah, and you know, as wesee, analysts I mean themselves
are becoming, I think I saidinfluencer I want to pull back a
little bit on that term becauseit has certain connotations but
they have to become moremultimedia, more media savvy,
and we see a lot of analysts, alot of great people out there,
have their own podcasts, tend tobe more specific to a vertical
industry, for example, but yeah,on the media side, I think it's
(19:51):
a great.
Like you said, it's a greatmarriage.
It's a great ability toco-promote and co-educate.
Right, you know, bring some newideas to the table.
Speaker 1 (19:59):
Fantastic.
Well, thanks for sharing anupdate.
Can't wait to watch yourprogress and it'll be a busy
year this year in the analystworld back-to-back-to-back
analyst meetings so good luckwith that all.
Speaker 2 (20:11):
Thank you, Evan.
It's been a pleasure to be here.
Thank you so much.
Speaker 1 (20:14):
And thanks everyone for listening and watching and
sharing, and be sure to checkout our new TV show now on Fox
Business and Bloomberg attechimpacttv.
Thanks everyone, bye-bye.
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