Hurwitz & Associates is a leading business consulting firm based in Greater Boston that provides actionable strategic advice to top technology firms on product planning, marketing, and positioning.

Companies including IBM, HP, CA, Informatica, and Avaya rely on Hurwitz (a Topaz client) for objective information that confirms or refutes assumptions and uncovers valuable insights.

Each December, Hurwitz & Associates President Judith Hurwitz offers an annual list of predictions for the coming year. It’s a valuable road map offered by a veteran analyst with a unique perspective on things.

I recently talked to Judith about her predictions. You can hear the audio interview below:

Here are some excerpts from Judith Hurwitz’s Top Ten List for 2008:

1. There will be two hot buzzwords this year: innovation and ROI … companies are nervous about investing in technology. They want assurances that there will be a return on their investment — quickly.

2. Here come the clouds! I think that cloud computing, one of the latest versions of virtualization, will become one of the hottest trends of 2008.

3. Software as a Service goes mainstream … add a social networking twist and things really get interesting.

4. The world gets more virtual … There will be three virtualization market segments: client, server, and application. I can’t decide which one I think is more important. How about all three!

5. More vendors will make more acquisitions (that’s another one you can take to the bank). Yes, Oracle will certainly make more acquisitions, but I don’ t think that BEA will be in the mix. Nor will HP buy BEA. However, I do predict that BEA will probably go private.

6. This is the year when Microsoft’s server/enterprise business will get the respect it deserves. Therefore, I expect to see Microsoft continue to make small but strategic acquisitions that will fit into the forthcoming Oslo strategy.

7. Online goes off-line. Companies like Zoho are starting to gain traction because they can provide both online services combined with offline usage.

8. This is the year that Service Oriented Architectures (SOA) moves from IT strategy to business strategy. Therefore, SOA will officially move out of the hype cycle and into mainstream.

9. Google will continue to move into any market that leverages the advertising revenue model — including collaboration software and various cloud computing options.

10. Partner ecosystems will reach a new level of intensity this year. Enterprise software leaders will be working hard to make sure the most popular emerging players support their platforms.

You can read Judith Hurwitz’s full list of 2008 high-tech predictions on her blog, jshurwitz.wordpress.com.

Welcome to the PRobecast, Episode 42 of Topaz Partners’ weekly
PR-related podcast.

Todd Van Hoosear, Doug Haslam, Rob Capra, Wendie Larkin, Sandy Kalik and Tony Sapienza discuss:

1. A look ahead to 2008 predictions, riffing on the predictions already proffered by Paul Gillin and David Strom of “Tech PR War Stories.” Will tech coverage become fragmented? will the WSJ go free? Will relationships become more important for PR?

2. The best of 2007: what changed– or didn’t– in PR in 2007?

Comment: email bmoc@topazpartners.com, call 781-404-2419

MP3 File

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Technorati Tags: PRobecast, publicrelations, PR, socialmedia

We have finally come to the final installment of the roundtable critique of Jonathan Crow of ThinkFree’s Social Media Experiment. First of all, I want to thank Jonathan for the opportunity once again to participate and exchange thoughts with such a great group of communication smarties. Also, thanks to the late Marc Orchant for helping start put the band back together, and of course to Aaron Brazell for initiating the original roundtable. Let’s do it again, folks!

The final discussion centers on advice for feedback mechanisms. I focused on what can you do to get responses? I don;t think the answer is chained to social networking, but I hope you find it useful. The full question and my response are below. For the full post please go here to read everyone’s answers. Also, look back to Jonathan’s original post explaining how he began his experiment.

The premise:

Jonathan used several social networking sites to try to expand his business reach, and was curious what people think of his results, and his methods. To that end, he brought in fresh pairs of eyes:

• Chris Brogan
• Aaron Brazell
• Cathryn Hrudicka
• Brian Solis
• and me (Doug Haslam)

Question 5:
How can I build better mechanisms into the framework to increase feedback?

Doug Haslam
Feedback is the hardest part of social media and social networking (or any marketing campaign). One thing to remember is that the things you say (ok, your “messages”) get heard far beyond the folks who actually respond. A recent personal example: I posted some videos to my blog (and via Twitter, YouTube and Seesmic in my own little experiment) about my horrid commute (gratuitous link).* I got some comments, maybe a few more than usual, but not many. However, I found when I ran into people from my peer group a t a Boston Social Media Breakfast a few days later, almost everyone greeted me with “I saw your video.” So, message received; but how to call people to action? Here are my thoughts:

• Ask: did your outreach specifically ask people to do something? Go to a Web site? Answer a question? Provide advice? Begging can work as well (how did you get your Pownce beta invite?), but let’s not call it that.
• Offer: What do people get if they act? A free trial? A gift? Membership in a group? Think about what would motivate people to respond back. Let’s not go overly cynical and call this a bribe, but when I was in market research you could not get a survey completed, even with your own panel, without offering incentives for completed questionnaires. Sure, a nice outward message, a great product or service, and a stellar reputation helps, but sometimes people just want something.
• Give Value: Dialing back the cynicism and bribery theme a bit, let’s invoke the Golden Rule: treat others as you would like them to treat you. This goes back to participation, and becoming a part of the group you have joined or started. Do you answer the questions others pose? Do you check out there links and offer feedback? If you don’t, should you really expect others to do for you?

So, if you want something; ask, have something they want in return, and reciprocate (or “pre-reciprocate”). Plus, don’t forget all the people that didn’t respond. They’re probably not ignoring you.