Self-Service IT Research

by Jeff Tash

Explaining what ITscout is…

How much are you paying for research from Gartner Group, META Group, Forrester, IDC, AMR Research, Yankee Group, Robert Frances Group, Jupiter, Seybold, Summit Strategies, Butler Group, Aberdeen, Zona Research, Standish Group, and other research providers? 

What have you gotten when you’ve purchased from these research firms? Information? Ideas? Analysis? Predictions? How much did it cost you? How much value did you receive? How much was the research worth? 

Are you cutting back on your research expenditures? Apparently, many have. The research industry has been going through some very turbulent times. Forrester just concluded its acquisition of GIGA Group. Hurwitz Group is now defunct. It wouldn’t be surprising to see more such consolidations and failures.

A major concern, if you’re one of the many research firms still out there, is the possibility that the web itself has become a disruptive technology, especially at the low end of the market. According to Harvard Professor Clayton Christensen, author of The Innovator’s Dilemma, what we’re seeing has all the indications of a classic type of disruptive innovation. The web, with its innate ability to support self-service IT research, now competes in the established market, albeit at the bottom end.

Although the pundits say dot coms have all morphed into dot bombs, it’s still not possible to overstate the magnitude of the impact caused by the original emergence of the web. The web -- which only began back around 1995 -- is still less than a decade old! It’s hard not to be amazed by just how much internet access has improved over such a short span of time -- or how ubiquitous the web has become. 

Today’s web is the most immense information repository imaginable -- a wealth of knowledge at your finger tips. All you need is a web browser, internet access and infinite time and patience. The problem, of course, is sifting through the huge volumes of available information in order to discover the rare nuggets of knowledge that exist but are often hard to find. 

How do people typically do self-service research? They usually start at Google. Now don’t get me wrong. I think Google is great. I think Google is fantastic. In fact, one of the cooler features of ITscout is that a user is never more than one click away from a context-sensitive Google search. How does that help? Because one of the problems users sometimes experience with Google is not knowing what term to search for. Why? Because there’s no context. That’s where ITscout comes in. ITscout’s taxonomies deliver context -- in essence a roadmap -- so that users can see where they’re at and where they’re heading. 

The ITscout Roadmap taxonomies capture the richness, intricacies and complexities of the IT universe in a way that’s easy for people to comprehend. ITscout’s taxonomies are paired with graphical diagrams. Being visual helps people better understand, and better remember, the underlying models. 

Each taxonomy provides a tree-structured breakdown of product categories. Also included are listings of individual products that compete in each category.

Posters have three limitations. First, posters themselves are physically flat and two-dimensional. Second, space on posters is very limited. Third, listings on posters are out-of-date the moment the ink hits the paper.

From within ITscout, a visitor can enjoy a three-dimensional, interactive, always up-to-date, virtual poster experience. A user can freely switch between a forest view of the IT landscape to a tree view of an individual product. Navigation is simple, natural and powerful. Users can explore on their own -- discovering and collecting all kinds of knowledge nuggets along the way -- all for free.

How does the quality of information compare between self-service research at ITscout versus the research you’re currently buying? You be the judge.

Inside ITscout

What you get inside ITscout is a collection of models -- models that depict the essence of the IT industry by focusing on the markets where products get bought and sold. Each ITscout taxonomy is a model of an IT market: the IT infrastructure products market; the application development tools market; the COTS application packages market; and the business intelligence tools market.

One valuable feature ITscout includes is grading. Users can personally and privately assign grades to individual products. ITscout automatically tracks grade point averages so visitors can see at a glance how various offerings have been rated by the public. 

The quality of the ITscout taxonomies is measured by how easy it is to catalog information. If you can’t find what you’re looking for then the taxonomy is lousy. If you can locate a product or category quickly then the taxonomy is great.

ITscout’s goal is to have the industry’s best, most robust, IT product taxonomies. There is definitely an art to creating these taxonomies. It’s like fitting together the pieces of a jigsaw puzzle except you’re not quite sure what the final image is supposed to look like. I’ve been in the IT industry for almost thirty years. I’ve been programming since 1965. Computers are both my vocation as well as my avocation. I’ve been developing and publishing graphical taxonomies since 1994. More than a million of my Roadmap wall posters have been distributed worldwide. 

The Roadmap models have each evolved over time, continuously improving with each new iteration. The relentless pace of technological progress requires the ITscout taxonomies to continuously evolve. Feedback is solicited from enterprises modeling their internal technology portfolios. Because the ITscout taxonomies are bundled inside the FlashAtlas technology portfolio product, the information I receive from FlashAtlas customers is especially invaluable in helping me to refine and improve the quality of the ITscout taxonomies. Also, inside ITscout, visitors are always just a click away from sharing with me their recommendations and suggestions on how to improve the ITscout taxonomies.

Sign-up now at www.ITscout.org and start doing your own self-service research.