listening to it

More than 80% of the senior IT decision makers I’ve talked to have said that when they are getting ready to select a vendor and purchase a product, they want to talk to a bad reference. “Bad” as in a customer where things didn’t always go smoothly, who had rough patches with the vendor or product.

A bad reference is important to the decision maker because it shows how the vendor responds when a project hits a rough patch (which is going to happen). Also, IT decision makers want to understand the full picture — including the potential pitfalls — as this reduces their risk and makes unwanted surprises less likely. They want insight on where a product is strong and where it’s weak —  and all products have strengths and weaknesses.

The funny thing is that a bad reference, or simply one who discusses the bumps in the road of a project or product along with the highlights, could actually win the deal for a vendor. But IT decision makers can never (or very, very rarely) find a vendor reference who is teed up to share the full story.

The vendors, understandably, won’t offer “bad” references. Ultimately, they should. What vendors should understand is it’s the references who are willing to talk openly about shortcomings along with all the good stuff that will truly leave an impression on their potential customers. In fact, it’s a breath of fresh air, not something to fear.

As I have been listening to senior technologists, I have repeatedly heard they don’t trust vendors anymore. This sentiment is remarkably, surprisingly consistent across individuals, geographies, job responsibilities  (e.g., Architects, Directors, CISOs, VPs, Senior Project Managers), industries, and technologies (e.g., IT security, identity management, virtualization, help desk). On the one hand, having been a software vendor for a number of years, this stings. On the other hand, it is in part what led me to launch Wisegate: the belief that there had to be a better way to serve information to people, to customers.

Here are direct quotes I have heard of late (names removed, of course.)

“I have given up on vendors.”

“It’s all PR and marketing these days.”

“I can’t get unvarnished information on what the product really does today and how long it will really take to deploy.”

“I have a lot of angst from disinformation from salespeople and vendors.”

“Now I ask vendors how many successful deployments they have instead of how many customers – there’s a big difference.”

The pain that this disinformation causes is real, including higher purchase risk in an environment that many senior technologists characterize and “zero tolerance for failure.” Also, unexpected problems popping up during implementation and much higher costs than planned are very real pain points that disinformation in the sales cycle causes.

What about you? Do you trust your technology vendors? I’d like to hear your story.

It’s good to be back. In the IT industry, I mean.  After a long career working for some great IT vendor companies – from startups to established vendors – I took some time off to consider what I wanted to do next. I knew only that it needed to be different and to help improve things somehow, particularly for people in the companies that buy and use our products.

Through the Listening to IT blog, I’ll share my personal observations and ideas about how to improve the state of IT – with a little help from my friends.

Over the last year, I have had the privilege of spending hundreds of hours interviewing and listening to senior-level technology professionals.  I did this as part of creating Wisegate, the first private, invitation-only peer network for corporate IT professionals.

What I have learned has been eye-opening, funny, enlightening, frustrating, inspiring – often all of the above.  I thank everyone who has spoken with me for their time, their trust and their candor. It’s been an amazing experience  – and we’re just getting started.

I believe the collective wisdom of corporate technology professionals is the richest and most untapped resource in IT. These people daily bet their careers and reputations on buying, deploying and managing technology successfully – often very complex products and sometimes not-ready-for-prime-time technology. The world would be a much better place if only (1) vendors would listen to corporate technology professionals more carefully and (2) if corporate technology professionals could more easily listen to each other.

IT vendors provide the “what” – the technology products and conceptual ideas about their application. But corporate IT professionals provide the “how”: the hands-on experience with making technology products actually work in real businesses. In a perfect world, the relationship between the IT industry and corporate IT professionals would be a yin-yang relationship. But in reality the amount and tenor of information emanating from vendors keeps the yin-yang circle in a permanent spin – creating a confusing, treacherous world for corporate IT professionals.

For example, a Director of Information Security who I particularly like to listen to recently said to me, “I have a lot of angst from disinformation from salespeople and vendors.” Yup, he said “angst.”

The Listening to IT blog eavesdrops (preserving anonymity, of course) on what some of the world’s most experienced and pressured corporate IT professionals are thinking.  Here, I will talk about topics such as:

• What technology trends corporate IT professionals are thinking about
• How to improve the IT vendor-IT buyer relationship
• Practical advice for making better buying and deployment decisions

I hope you will find these observations useful and will follow or visit occasionally. As well as share your observations – and argue with me when you think I am wrong.