Gartner: Does Analysis Register?
July 23, 2021
I read “Where on Gartner’s Hype Cycle is Gartner’s Hype Cycle?” This is a very insightful write up which raises some interesting issues about misinformation, disinformation, and fact reformation. The principal interrogatory pivots on the phrase “hype cycle.” If you are not familiar with “hype cycle”, it is a curve that looks like this:
The curve with labels on the x and y axis looks like this from the Matplotlib here just without numbers. Do mid tier consulting firms generating billions each year need numbers? Obviously not.
What is the “information payload” of a Garter hype cycle I found from the Yandex Web index:
Notice the x axis is time and the y axis is the subjective “expectations.” Is this consulting “science”? I do like the tag “SmarterWithGartner.” More examples of the Gartner content can be found at this link to the Yandex image search service.
What does the Register’s opinion column address? Please, read the original. I have identified three points which I found interesting; your mileage may vary, particularly if you are one of the Gartner confederation of whiz bang experts.
Gartner’s business positioning
I quote from the characterization of an information company and consulting services firm:
Gartner is an odd fish.
Validity of the information in the hype cycle
I quote from a passage referencing hype cycles for a five year period:
if search engines or ARM chips or OLEDs are in there anywhere, I missed them. Whatever happened to that Google thing, anyway?
Expertise
I quote from what is a discussion of self-referential marketing and feedback sales:
Gartner absorbs the reportage and opinion about how well corporate portals are doing this year, slaps them in or not, and the result gets reported in the press with more or less reaction. Which is duly noted, and fed back into the next time, all the while carrying the name of Gartner through the media with a strong whiff of broad, deep tech mastery.
Accuracy
I quote from the value of the information arrayed in a hype cycle graph without “numbers” or apparent verifiable data:
Gartner would do well to appoint a proper historian, and perhaps a proper ethicist, in recognition of some of the truths about itself that never appear in a PowerPoint deck. The world is ready for a bit less flannel.
My take is that numbers are helpful. Also, I hope the Register take a look at the number free Gartner Magic Quadrant; for instance, the apparently subject examples at this link on Yandex.
I think that the word “flannel” means:
Collins’ Dictionary of Slang says that the noun “flannel” has been used to mean “rubbish, albeit plausible rubbish” since the 1920s, and the verb “to flannel” has meant “to talk nonsense in a soothing, plausible manner, esp for the purposes of charming a woman one wishes to seduce” since the 1940s.
Has Gartner been called out? PT Barnum allegedly said, “I don’t care what people say about me as long as they say something.”
A perfect complement to self-referential information marketing? Smarter with Gartner is a compelling coda.
Stephen E Arnold, July 23, 2021
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