This is the next interview in the continuing series of Computing Canada’s (CC) Blogged Down (BD) feature which is highlighted here in the Canadian IT Managers (CIM) forum.

This week we talk with top-ranking executive, Merv Adrian, Senior Vice-President of Forrester Research. Today I put this question to Merv:

SI: Merv, you have a remarkable and compelling history of successes. We thank you for taking time out of your demanding schedule to do this interview.

MA: Thanks for the kind words. It has been a hectic month!

SI: As a top-ranking international executive in the business technology industry, can you profile your four current challenges, how you are solving them, and the lessons that you want to share?

MA: CHALLENGE 1: Balance

Solution: Anyone in the research industry is here because we love the play of ideas, the constant change and renewal that our industry has shown ever since its inception. It’s hard to keep up with all the things I try to follow and still step back from it and take the time to “have a life.”

Lessons: I’m blessed with a wife who understands the demands it puts on me (and that I put on myself), and two sons who have grown into strong, independent young men – they are both in college. I’ve learned that I do my best work when I’m NOT working all the time – you need the other parts of your life to keep an even keel. And I’ve learned to focus – although I’m interested in many things, I don’t have time to keep up with them all. The good news is that since I work for a research company, I don’t have to! I have the luxury of following the work of the best people in the business.

CHALLENGE 2: Relevance. What should I focus on?

Solution: It turns out that this is easier than it seems. My instincts seem to be good based on feedback from Forrester’s clients. I publish a bi-weekly summary of Forrester’s work that represents a very personal take on what is most meaningful, useful, provocative, etc. and their response to it is very positive.

Lessons: Listen to your customers. Within Forrester, we have a mantra: for whom? It centers us and reminds us that everything we do is for someone, not for ourselves. If it will help them, it’s good. It’s that simple. And more and more of our research, and mine, is done in direct response to their input – we actually have a voting process called Client Choice that allows our clients to tell us what they want us to work on.

CHALLENGE 3: Staying connected

Solution: Basic professionalism in communications. I’m frankly astonished how many people have answering machines with “system messages” on them that provide no information about where the person is or when I should expect a response. People need to find you. I learned early on to set and meet expectations. This interview is a good example – we’ve had some challenges getting it done, and I missed a deadline or two – but I always tried to make sure you knew where I was and when I expected to complete it.

Lessons: Communicate clearly and frequently. Check in, set milestones for longer projects, make sure your correspondents know how to find you. And with respect to balance above – set boundaries too. It’s OK to be unavailable in personal time if your contacts are not unaware of when and where you will be available. And some obvious stuff – use wireless email and scan everything every day; do triage – respond to everything that needs a response, even if just to say, “I’ll get back to you in 2 days.”

CHALLENGE 4: Accuracy

Research people have the challenge of being expected to know about everything in their field – and most of the fields we cover are vast. As commercial beings, we are eager to see our names and our companies’ names in the press, so we place a high value on responding to requests for comment. In such an atmosphere, it’s easy to get it wrong sometimes.

Solution: Use your network and always verify information before you act on it.

Lessons: Be clear about what you know and don’t know. It’s OK not to be expert on everything. This applies to anyone who has to make a call – rushing to judgment often leads to bad decisions. Don’t base things on one source, and use the growing power of social computing to leverage a network of trusted source before you make major leaps. At Forrester, we have been adding Leadership Boards to our mix – facilitated peer groups of people with similar job responsibilities – because they get great value out of talking to one another, not just us, about key problems and challenges. They give us great direction, push us towards topics that matter, and help us to refine our own work.

Mervyn Adrian’s Profile:

During 2004 and 2005, Merv was responsible for overseeing and facilitating collaboration of all Forrester research efforts within the Application Development and Infrastructure, Computing Systems, Enterprise Applications, Information Delivery, IT Management & Services, and Telecom & Networks research teams. His role now focuses on developing Research offerings to address the go-to-market challenges of high-tech vendors. He maintains high-level relationships with numerous user and vendor clients including IBM, Hewlett-Packard, SAP, Oracle, and Microsoft. Merv's former areas of coverage as an analyst include data management, application architecture, IT industry trends, and vendor strategies.

Merv came to Forrester through its acquisition of Giga Information Group. He has more than 25 years of experience in IT, including six years with Giga as an analyst, research leader, and manager. He served as a Chairman of the GigaWorld conference from 2000 to 2003. Previously, he was senior director of corporate marketing at Sybase, where he also worked as director of marketing for data warehousing and director of analyst relations. Prior to Sybase, Merv served as marketing manager at Information Builders, where he founded and edited a technical journal and subsequently was involved in all aspects of corporate and product marketing. In his earlier career, he taught technical training programs on language technologies and databases, and spent a decade building systems in the securities, banking, and transportation industries in New York. In the mid 1980s, Merv was editor of the New York PC User Group magazine, and he has served on the Board of Advisors of the International Data Warehouse Association. His early analysis of the micro-to-mainframe market and its impact on decision support, The Workstation Data Link, was published by McGraw-Hill in 1988.

Merv holds a B.A. in business administration with a concentration in finance from CUNY's Baruch College.

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Look this week for more of Merv’s insights. On Tuesday, Merv will discuss the five biggest issues facing the business technology industry and their solutions.

I also encourage you to share your thoughts here on these interviews or send me an e-mail at sibaraki@cips.ca.
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Computing Canada (CC) is the oldest, largest, most influential bi-weekly business / technology print publication with an audience that includes 42,000 IT decision makers in medium-to-large enterprises. For more than 30 years, Computing Canada continues to serve the needs of Canada’s information technology management community—you can request your free subscription at: http://www.cornerstonewebmedia.com/plesman/main/Subscription.asp?magazine=CCA.

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Thank you,
Stephen Ibaraki, FCIPS, I.S.P.