The Internet is an amazing medium for anyone looking to articulate an opinion. Everyone should practice writing and expressing themselves, as it's a great tool to build throughout life. The ability to publish information is everyone's right. However, credibility is a whole different challenge. Why do we trust what is published in the New York Times, but don't trust what is published in the tabloids? It comes down to rigor in journalistic practices. In research, it's also tied to a strict methodology or process.

During my time at Gartner, I learned a great deal about the differences between analyst firms, mostly by meeting and discussing things with friends at other analyst firms. I quickly learned which firms will write a whitepaper, and which firms will not create marketing materials for software companies for pay.

In the case of Gartner, the analyst has the freedom to publish anything, if they follow the extremely rigorous research process and can defend the opinion they are creating as an analyst. The process for analysts to publish branded documents, such as a Magic Quadrant, is over 30 pages, but publicly a small subset of this is disclosed. Clients get another deeper look in this document (Gartner subscribers only).

During the publication process for any document, there is rigorous peer review, management review, and editing to handle any issues in process or the fact base. Aside from this process and methodology, the analyst speaks with hundreds of end users of a particular technology through the year on phone calls and at conferences. This allows the analyst to comprehend the reality of a market versus what vendors may care to share with an analyst.

When witnessing small analyst firms attempting to assess markets without end user perspective and without speaking to all the vendors in the research — while blatantly requesting and collecting money directly from vendors before research is even drafted — the red flags come up. I discourage any organization from participating in these blatant acts of extortion. When vendors sponsor and fund this research, it just enables the lie to persist, year after year. This is clearly a major violation of journalistic integrity. The vendors who pay continually jam this poorly crafted research down end users' throats, and avoid the questions about where it comes from. This occurs regularly.

The violations don't just stop there, but clearly there are researchers who infringe on specific research formats, whether it's the Gartner Magic Quadrant, the Forrester Wave, or the IDC MarketScape. The lawyers of the respective firms get involved in these disputes, but small single person "analyst firms" seem to do this regularly and get slapped with cease and desist letters.

Leading researchers in the public domain should be able to publicly discuss, dispute, and learn from others in public forums. You'll see top analyst firms participate in conferences, panels, LinkedIn groups, Twitter, and other public forums. If a researcher is going to build a fact-based opinion of something, they should be able to participate and defend that position. Many of these smaller analyst firms or independent researchers avoid doing so, continually hide, or many times do not even have a name associated with research. I give big kudos and credibility to the researchers and analysts who stand behind what they publish.