| Constellation Research

Wordfence Launches Cyber Attack Activity Report

Founder
Disruptors Co

Gavin is the Founder of Disruptors Co, one of Australia’s leading independent strategy and innovation companies. Gavin advises firms on strategy, marketing, product development and innovation. He is also a member of the Orbits program, the influencer network of award winning analyst and advisory firm, Constellation Research. Gavin advises boards and leadership on innovation strategy, marketing, data-driven product development and corporate venturing. Gavin is on the board of Vibewire, a youth-led social enterprise based in Sydney, Australia and on the Technology Advisory Group for Good2Give – the workplace giving platform. ...

No matter whether you run a personal blog or a professional website, you will find yourself at some stage, the victim of a cyber attack. These cyber attacks, often referred to incorrectly in the mainstream media as “hacking” can take a variety of forms including:

DDOS – distributed denial of service attacks engage networks of computers to bombard your server with requests
Brute force attacks – where the attacker attempts to guess your login details usually using an automated system that can send hundreds if not thousands of requests very quickly
Malware / spyware – where a piece of malicious code is inserted into your system which allows another person (or a program) to take over your computer
Ransomware – where a small program activates on your computer, encrypting all your data requiring the payment of ransom before you are sent a key to unlock your own machine.

Despite the relative openness and transparency on the web, few people or firms openly talk about cyber attack. This means it is difficult to gauge just how widespread these cyber attacks actually are and whether we should be personally or professionally concerned about this phenomenon.
Now, each month, creator of the WordPress firewall plugin, WordFence, have begun producing a regular report on cyber attacks. This report collates attack information based on the plugin’s install base (WordPress powered websites and blogs all around the world). And while this is just a subset of websites and platforms that live on the internet, it provides a great insight into cyber attacks, including:

The IP address from which the attack originated
Country of origination
Number of attacks launched
Types of attacks.

This first report reveals that 13 out of the top 25 IP addresses originate in the Ukraine. France comes in second with 7. As the report explains:

Most of these originate from Iliad Enterprises. Iliad is a large organization with many subsidiaries and over 4000 employees. They tried to buy T-Mobile in the USA 2 years ago. The netblock for these IPs is registered to Iliad, but the attacks may originate from one of many subsidiaries of Iliad, like the ISP ‘Free’ in France.

So, how many attacks are we seeing? The report states that there were:

63 million complex attacks – attempts to exploit weaknesses in your website code, plugins or database
67 million brute force attacks – attempts to guess your passwords and user IDs.

What can you do about your WordPress / web security?

One of the biggest holes in your website / WordPress security will be patches. Make sure you are:

Regularly patching your site – updating it with the latest changes
Regularly updating your plugins – turn off the plugins and functionality that you don’t use, and update the ones you do.

There are also some basic security approaches that you should implement, including:

Complex user passwords – require that your users all have complex passwords that consist of upper and lower case characters, numbers and symbols and have a substantial length (more than 8 characters)
Put in place a mechanism that blocks users after a small number of unsuccessful login attempts
Add a web firewall to monitor and protect your code from unauthorised updates.

Why should you care?

Even if you are running a small business, cyber security is an issue for you and your brand. Sites that are affected by malware, for example, will find themselves blacklisted by Google. That means that every time someone searches for your business or tries to visit your webpage, Google will step in and ask you whether you want to proceed to an “insecure” website. And then, of course, there are other issues – from loss of files, customer data and more.

Quite simply, these days, brands simply cannot afford to be lax. The good thing is, that there are a growing number of integrated solutions and plugins for most platforms. Take the time to secure your site and hopefully you won’t have to make the time to clean up a problem down the track.

Next-Generation Customer Experience Chief Customer Officer Chief Marketing Officer

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Virginia Tech Fights Zika With High-Performance Prediction

Doug Henschen

Former Vice President and Principal Analyst
Constellation Research

Doug Henschen is former Vice President and Principal Analyst where he focused on data-driven decision making. Henschen’s Data-to-Decisions research examines how organizations employ data analysis to reimagine their business models and gain a deeper understanding of their customers. Henschen's research acknowledges the fact that innovative applications of data analysis requires a multi-disciplinary approach starting with information and orchestration technologies, continuing through business intelligence, data-visualization, and analytics, and moving into NoSQL and big-data analysis, third-party data enrichment, and decision-management technologies. Insight-driven business models are of interest to the entire C-suite, but most particularly chief executive officers, chief digital officers,…...

Here’s how Persistent Systems aided the Biocomplexity Institute of Virginia Tech in using analytics to predict and help prevent the spread of infectious diseases.

What’s the best weapon to fight the spread of infectious disease? For the epidemiologists at The Biocomplexity Institute of Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University (BI-VT), it’s data.

BI-VT helps U.S. government agencies such as the Department of Defense, National Institutes of Health, and Center for Disease Control to predict, prepare for, and prevent the spread of infectious diseases such as Ebola and Zika. With help from Persistent Systems (Persistent), BI-VT has dramatically increased the speed, scalability and accuracy of its analytical modeling and simulation environment.

@PersistentSys, #Anaytics, #HPC, @BiocomplexityVT, @virginia_tech

The Biocomplexity Institute’s EpiCaster app, which was co-developed by Persistent
Systems, is an intuitive, public website for tracking flu and other diseases.

The collaboration between BI-VT and Persistent is the topic of my latest case study research, Persistent Systems Helps Virginia Tech Accelerate Predictive Simulation. This 14-page case study should be of interest to any analytics professional interested in using high-performance computing, speeding time to analysis, tapping new data types, or opening up analysis capabilities to non-technical users. With help from Persistent, BI-VT achieved all of the above.

With leadership from Professor Madhav Marathe, Director of the Network Dynamics and Simulation Science Laboratory (NDSSL) at the Biocomplexity Institute, BI-VT has pioneered graph simulation techniques that have vastly improved the prediction and prevention of disease outbreaks. But you don’t have to be an epidemiologist to appreciate the obstacles BI-VT had to overcome. For example, the simulations initially required complex, manual coding for each one of scores of high-performance computing jobs. What’s more, iterative analyses took a day or more to run, and the analytical tools were usable only by the few experts. Sound familiar?

The first step to addressing these challenges was creating a middleware layer that abstracted and automated the coding and iterative complexities of BI-VT’s data-analysis environment. The software engineers at Persistent helped turn a slow, manual workflow into a streamlined, reliable and resilient production system. Persistent also developed graphical user interface applications (such as the EpiCaster app seen above) that have made the system accessible to non-technical analyst and even the general public.

Over more than a decade of tracking diseases ranging from H1N1 and SARS to, more recently, Ebola and Zika, BI-VT has been able to simulate and recommend data-supported interventions and containment steps, many of which have been implemented by government agencies. Examples include administering antiviral drugs to emergency personnel, inoculating the young and aged, spraying pesticides to curb mosquito populations, and encouraging the public to stay indoors.

To find out more about BI-VT, winner of the Constellation Research 2016 SuperNova Award in the Data-to-Decisions category, click on the "download excerpt" button on this page. The excerpt includes the table of contents, executive summary and introductory section of the case study.

Have a few minutes to spare? Take Constellation's 2017 Digital Transformation Survey. Constellation will send you a summary of the results.

Data to Decisions Tech Optimization ML Machine Learning LLMs Agentic AI Generative AI AI Analytics Automation business Marketing SaaS PaaS IaaS Digital Transformation Disruptive Technology Enterprise IT Enterprise Acceleration Enterprise Software Next Gen Apps IoT Blockchain CRM ERP finance Healthcare Customer Service Content Management Collaboration Chief Information Officer Chief Digital Officer Chief Technology Officer Chief Information Security Officer Chief Data Officer

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Slack Adds Threaded Conversations

Alan Lepofsky

Vice President & Principal Analyst
Constellation Research

Alan Lepofsky - VP and Principal Analyst, Constellation Research. With almost two decades of experience in the collaboration software industry, Lepofsky helps organizations improve the way their employees work together to get their jobs done. Lepofsky’s primary research area The Future of Work, focuses on: integrating collaboration and business processes (Purposeful Collaboration), structuring work via Social Task Management, leveraging analytics and digital assistants to work more productively, the strategic impact of mobile computing on business transformation, and measuring workforce culture based on Digital Proficiency instead of age. Twitter: @alanlepoLinkedIn: https://ca.linkedin.com/in/alanlepo     , Title: Big IdeasIntelligent Collaboration: The Intersection of…...

Today team collaboration vendor Slack announced the addition of threaded conversations to their group messaging application. Slack customers will be very happy to see this addition, as this has been one of the most requested features since the product's original launch. What is a threaded conversation? It's when a message has replies directly linked to it, rather than each reply just being posted on it's own in a "flat" chronological order. Think of it this way, instead of having a dozen people in a room all talking over each other at the same time making conversations nearly impossible to follow, people tend to discuss one topic, then move on the next, etc. If you want to go back to an older topic, people say "Remember when we were talking about so and so?" Structure is important in conversations, as it helps reduce the clutter and the chaos that can occur in a channel when there is no organization.

You start a thread by hovering over a message, and clicking the new "Start a thread" icon. Given Slack's focus on user design, friendliness and fun, I'm a bit I'm surprised by the choice of the rather technical term "thread" versus something more natural like conversation, reply or comment, but naming aside, threads are a very welcome addition.

This opens the message on the right hand side of the screen, which Slack calls the Flexpane. There you can read the entire conversation and add new replies.

After you send the reply, the original message is updated indicating the number of replies.

Better Late Than Never

You may wonder why it's taken Slack a while to add threaded conversations. Slack spent almost 2 years working on several designs, testing both internally and with a few customers to make sure they released a design that is both simple and effective. There were many design elements to consider, including:

How many levels of nested replies should they allow? Meaning should there just be replies to the initial message, or should you be able to reply to a reply?
How should threads be displayed in the main stream? Should they be expanded or collapsed by default?
Should posts with new responses be bubbled up to the top of the stream, or just kept in line with when they were originally created?
When and how should people be notified about replies?

It's interesting to note, there is very little consistency in the answers to these questions across the various enterprise software vendors. Threaded conversations are handled differently in Facebook, IBM Connections, Salesforce Chatter, Microsoft Teams, etc. So far there does not appear to be a specific "right answer". For Slack's part, rather than cluttering up the main stream with replies, they allow people to open the conversations they want on the right. This is similar to scanning through a long list of email subject lines, then opening the email you want to read in a preview pane on the right. Slack's approach here is similar to IBM Connections, which also shows conversations on the right instead of inline in the stream like Facebook and many others. Time will tell how Slack's customers react to this.

One of the things I like the most about Slack's threaded conversations is the addition of the "All Threads" view. This view allows you to easily see all the conversations (sorry, threads) that you started, replied to, or you've been mentioned in - across all your channels in one place. You can also manually choose to follow threads that don't automatically meet one of those 3 criteria. The All Threads view enables you to easily keep up with the threads you're engaged in, without having to jump between several screens of information.

A Crowded Space

The group messaging market is very competitive, with offerings coming from several directions including:

standalone vendors like Glip, HiBox and HipChat (see the Constellation ShortList™ Enterprise Group Messaging: Standalone)
traditional UCC/PBX vendors like Cisco Spark and Unify Circuit (see the Constellation ShortList™ Enterprise Group Messaging: Unified Communication)
enterprise collaboration/social networking vendors like Microsoft (Yammer and their new Teams product), Salesforce Chatter, IBM (the upcoming Watson Workspace) as well as Workplace by Facebook

Slack's addition of thread conversations eliminates one of the talking points these competitors have been using when selling against Slack.

It's clear Slack put a great deal of thought and testing into this feature, and Constellation Research looks forward to speaking with customers about how they are using it.

Future of Work

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NRF Big Show 2017 Spotlights Data-Driven Imperatives

Doug Henschen

Former Vice President and Principal Analyst
Constellation Research

The National Retail Federation Big Show 2017 underscored the importance of better, data-driven understanding of customers to fend off competition from Amazon.

Retailers don’t just want to survive in the age of Amazon; they want to thrive. That much was clear at the super-busy January 15-17 National Retail Federation Big Show 2017 in New York.

Throngs of retail executives gathered at this year’s Big Show in search of emerging trends, tactics, technologies and related advice on how to innovate, compete and win in a challenging environment. Invariably, better, data-driven knowledge of customers is the key to competitive advantage, whether it’s through predictive marketing or smart, personalized recommendations driven by machine learning. Here’s my video takeaway from the latest installment of NRF’s annual Big Show.

NRF Big Show Spotlights Data-Driven Imperatives from Constellation Research on Vimeo.

Innovation & Product-led Growth Data to Decisions Future of Work Tech Optimization Next-Generation Customer Experience Digital Safety, Privacy & Cybersecurity Event Report Executive Events ML Machine Learning LLMs Agentic AI Generative AI AI Analytics Automation business Marketing SaaS PaaS IaaS Digital Transformation Disruptive Technology Enterprise IT Enterprise Acceleration Enterprise Software Next Gen Apps IoT Blockchain CRM ERP finance Healthcare Customer Service Content Management Collaboration Chief Customer Officer Chief Information Officer Chief Supply Chain Officer Chief Digital Officer Chief Technology Officer Chief Information Security Officer Chief Data Officer Chief Executive Officer Chief AI Officer Chief Analytics Officer Chief Product Officer

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ADP Acquires The Marcus Buckingham Company to Expand Talent Portfolio

Holger Mueller

Vice President and Principal Analyst
Constellation Research

Holger Mueller is VP and Principal Analyst for Constellation Research for the fundamental enablers of the cloud, IaaS, PaaS and next generation Applications, with forays up the tech stack into BigData and Analytics, HR Tech, and sometimes SaaS. Holger provides strategy and counsel to key clients, including Chief Information Officers, Chief Technology Officers, Chief Product Officers, Chief HR Officers, investment analysts, venture capitalists, sell-side firms, and technology buyers.  Coverage Areas: Future of Work Tech Optimization & Innovation  Background: Before joining Constellation Research, Mueller was VP of Products for NorthgateArinso, a KKR company. There, he led the transformation of products to the cloud and laid the foundation for new Business Process as a…...

Earlier this week ADP shared that it acquired The Marcus Buckingham Company (TMBC), a player in the Talent Management space.

Worth to dissect the press release in our custom approach - it can be found here:

ROSELAND, NJ 01/17/17 -- ADP has acquired The Marcus Buckingham Company (TMBC), an innovator in human capital management (HCM), to bring to ADP clients a more scientific approach to employee engagement and performance. TMBC, and its founder Marcus Buckingham, are pioneers in using data and research to drive talent management practices that help managers build engagement and increase performance in their teams. Their unique approach empowers managers to coach employees based on their strengths and custom-design teams based on those strengths.

MyPOV – Good summary on what ADP will get with TMBC.

TMBC's cloud-based performance and talent management solution, StandOut, couples applications with coaching and education to give team leaders the tools, insights and data needed to turn talent into better employee performance. Built on decades of groundbreaking research that has uncovered the factors that differentiate high-performing teams, this solution will now be offered as ADP StandOut. TMBC has a global client roster that spans a broad range of industries from professional services to hospitality and includes many companies in the Fortune 100.

MyPOV – So it is not about consulting / services – but about IP / product assets, too as TMBC StandOut gets a paragraph here. Bringing data together with tools to help companies manage talent better is an interesting combination. The question will be if ADP can keep getting the same quality and amounts of data that an independent TMBC used to get.

"At its core, the strength and differentiation of any company lies in its talent," said Carlos Rodriguez, president and CEO, ADP. "That is why we are continuing to invest in data-driven talent management solutions with the acquisition of TMBC. The company's technology and renowned research will add to our existing talent portfolio and puts ADP in a position to better serve the growing number of innovative organizations who are thinking differently about how they manage and engage their talent. We are thrilled to welcome both TMBC's associates and Marcus into the ADP family."

MyPOV – Good quote by Rodriguez. ADP has huge upsell potential in its install base – that is mainly using HR Core and Payroll products from ADP. Now ADP has data and tool to continue the upsell as well as a chance to sell to the few hundred existing ADP Talent Management customers. Plenty of ways to monetize TMBC assets, know-how and services.

According to the Deloitte Global Human Capital Management Trends 2016 report1, 77 percent of executives say that people analytics are a priority, but only 29 percent think that they are successfully using outside data to predict workforce trends and target the right talent to meet those trends. With that in mind, the acquisition of TMBC helps ADP further deliver on its talent management strategy of helping companies build better workforces through the strategic use of data and research.

MyPOV – All about how ADP tries to position Talent Management. When you come late to the ‘party’ you better have some differentiators and ADP is using a data / research approach to Talent Management to differentiate the offering.

Marcus Buckingham is a noted author and speaker and has been featured as a thought leader on talent management and leadership trends in a range of outlets that span The Harvard Business Review and Forbes to Oprah and Larry King.

MyPOV – Indeed ADP gets a thought leader on Talent Management, it will be interesting to see how Buckingham’s ideas and concepts will be received by the ADP customer base. It’s not only ideas that are needed by ADP, ADP also needs to connect with a different buyer. But with TMBC in the pocket, doors may open more easily than ever before. Lastly an interesting culture mix, TMBC was all centered around the 'star' CEO - vs. ADP is all about the 'machine team'. Will be interesting to watch.

"In the world of people-at-work, everyone trusts ADP data, so I leapt at the chance to bring to the ADP ecosystem StandOut's data-based insights and tools on people's talents, engagement and performance," said Marcus Buckingham, co-head, the ADP Research Institute. "At a time when so many companies are clamoring for real-time and reliable people data, when they crave tools that leaders and team members actually want to use, the combination of ADP's scale, security and data-integrity with StandOut's focus on real-world teams, is unique and powerful. I'm so excited to see how many companies and people we can serve."

MyPOV – Good quote by Buckingham, we also learn about his new ‘home’ with the co-head position at the ADP Research Institute. And indeed, we know getting the ‘hard’ compensation data is always a challenge for talent management related engagement. So, this is a win / win for ADP customers.

ADP has helped organizations of all types and sizes for more than 60 years unlock the potential of their workforces. ADP's cloud-based talent portfolio -- which includes recruiting, recruiter training, outsourcing, screening and selection, onboarding, learning, goals, performance, data analytics, succession and compensation -- is expanded in breadth and depth with TMBC's technology, consulting and research.

MyPOV – Good summary of what customers can now expect from ADP + TMBC in Talent Management.

Overall MyPOV

ADP customers have for a long time looked beyond ADP for Talent Management. First because of a lack of ADP offering, then because of lack of competitiveness of the ADP Talent Management capabilities. That has changed since approximately two years (read more here) and ADP is showing success in selling Talent Management into its install base, with increasing momentum. The acquisition of TMBC should help this development, as ADP has more talking points and value drivers to start a conversation with Talent Management.

On the concern side, ADP will have to open doors that have not been open or have been shut for the vendor. Never an easy re-targeting effort. But a saturated install base on the Payroll / HR Core side forces the ADP go to market machine to focus on upsell and cross-sell anyway and the success rate of that market effort overall will determine much of ADP’s future success. And after install base - there is always the green field - a very different challenge for any vendor and here for ADP.

Overall a good move by ADP, good news for ADP customers, too – as we know that in the long run – suites always win. HR practitioners dread nothing more than integration issues, getting more automation from a single vendor is good for businesses, as suite level benefits come to play, and possible differentiators that matter (see e.g. ADP’s ‘data driven angle). We will be there to watch, stay tuned.

Future of Work Innovation & Product-led Growth ADP Chief People Officer

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Let's Talk AI and the Future of Work - #Davos17 #WEF

Alan Lepofsky

Vice President & Principal Analyst
Constellation Research

Today on DisruptTV, I spoke with Constellation CEO Ray Wang, Salesforce Chief Digital Evangelist Vala Afshar and Wipro CMO Naveen Rajdev about AI and the Future of Work. Some of the things discussed include:

What does this mean for employees?
The balance between convenience and privacy.
Will AI replace human workers?
Why is now the time for AI?

DisrupTV On The Road from Davos 1.17.17 from Constellation Research on Vimeo.

What do you think? How will AI impact your job, and what are you doing about it?

Media Name: Voila_Capture 2017-01-17_01-59-00_PM.png

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IBM Verse - Email Reimagined, Now Available On Premises

Alan Lepofsky

Vice President & Principal Analyst
Constellation Research

In this video, IBM VP Ed Brill and I discuss the release of the on-premises version of IBM Verse. We talk about what this means for both customers and business partners, how Verse fits into the IBM portfolio, as well as the cognitive capabilities of IBM Watson, and finally the IBM Connect conference being held in Feb in San Francisco.

Future of Work

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Why Did We Create an Executive Community?

Director of Customer Programs, Constellation Research
Constellation Research

Carole oversees the Constellation Executive Network, an executive community for innovative senior leaders who value strategic guidance from trusted advisors who understand the power of disruptive technologies. Carole brings over 15 years of marketing, strategic account management, and operations experience, specializing in high technology and professional services. She holds a BA from Santa Clara University and a MBA from Thunderbird, School of Global Management.     ...

Many times, the only way that you can stay in touch with others efficiently is through technology whether it’s by mobile app, email, website, or phone. That’s why Constellation Research created its own executive community, known as the Constellation Executive Network, to bring together leaders interested in finding answers within a trusted community, learn from one another, and enjoy one another’s company, insights, or opinions. If you saw my blog post on “What Is the Big Deal About an Executive Network?”, you’ll see that it all boils down to offering the option for innovative leaders who are a part of our ecosystem to join our inner circle, the Constellation Executive Network.

Our analysts happen to be the type of people you’d be happy to enjoy a couple drinks with, while either "talking shop” or just swapping travel, financial, or technology advice. Somehow, they have the right combination of experience, expertise, approachability, and directness that lends themselves to partnering well with people interested in their advice or perspective, while also being well-traveled and well-read, which makes them decent company to have any time. With any of them, there’s no shortage of topics to discuss, since they’re well versed on a variety of subjects and also have an unexpectedly wry sense of humor in many case. Plus, I don’t think I’ve ever heard any of them at a loss for words.

In this New Age of Storytelling, our analysts deviate from the new norm because they don’t believe in storytelling for the sake of telling a story. Instead, they believe in “telling it like it is”, and there’s a lot of value in that general philosophy that guides their research, debates, and conversations. If you check out any of their profiles on our website, you can see what research they are working on and connect with them on Twitter to see what I mean. These domain experts comprise the core group of expert thought leaders that serve as resources and sounding boards for you in our inner circle tailored around the business needs of innovative enterprise technology buyers, the Constellation Executive Network.

If you checked out my blog post entitled, How Do You Find True Value in the Vast Sea of Networks for People?, I pointed out that regardless of the how much technology adds to our lives, at the end of the day, the power of networks are in the interpersonal connections between people.

For those of you who are sports fans, it comes down to decision time.

1) Are you going to stay a spectator and just sit on the sidelines of the Constellation Research ecosystem?

2) Are you ready to be proactive, to get involved, and to dive into the action, by joining our inner circle, the Constellation Executive Network, so that you are better positioned to drive changes in your business faster and more effectively?

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How Do You Find True Value in the Vast Sea of People Networks?

Director of Customer Programs, Constellation Research
Constellation Research

Is there a way to tap into Silicon Valley's insider's knowledge when you live elsewhere?

In Silicon Valley’s startup world, there's no shortage of networks. Those include startup accelerators or incubators like 500 Startups, Y Combinator, and Plug and Play Tech Center. Each provides its own distinct ecoystem of investors and entrepreneurs in additions to advisors and mentors and serves a specific purpose. A couple of my personal favorites that I’ve been a part of as as participant or chairperson include VLAB, the San Francisco Bay Area chapter of the MIT enterprise forum at Stanford University, and Cleantech Open, a global accelerator for early-stage clean technology startup companies.

Due to steady market demand, technology platforms used as tools to facilitate the development and maintenance of networks continue to proliferate, and I see few signs of deceleration. These include businesses like Slack, Facebook MIcrosoft's LinkedIn or Yammer, Meetup, Jive, Cisco’s WebEx, Evite, Marketo, DoubleDutch, and Hubspot. (Disclosure: We either regularly analyze or use many of these. For instance, these companies include clients, are highlighted on a Constellation ShortList, exist as part of the technology landscape in our research coverage, or function as the technology platform of our Constellation Executive Network mobile app.)

Each technology serves as an enabler to growing networks, by making it easier to stay in touch or facilitate stronger connections, regardless of a person's time zone or physical location. Attracting and serving members has become easier in some ways yet more challenging in other ways. The existence of technology that facilitates people networks has effectively lowered the barriers to entry for new networks.

With what appears to be a glut in the supply of networks, it's now more difficult to identify the right ones to meet your needs. In our case, we designed the Constellation Executive Network, so that leaders located anywhere could tap into either Silicon Valley-based or global perspectives.

Keep your focus on leveraging networks for sustained personal and professional growth.

Over the past couple of decades, I’ve been fortunate enough to meet or spend time with hundreds of business professionals around the world, ranging from Europe to Asia and across North America. Along the way, I’ve built or run unique, customized programs for more than six diverse networks in either Silicon Valley or North America, two executive networks, including one for a technology startup acquired by IBM and the one that I run now, one California network of clean technology startup founders facing various growth stages, one regional alumni network of global business professionals, and the list goes on.

One of the most gratifying aspects of evangelizing and overseeing the growth and success of different networks is that I also get to act as a matchmaker between leaders trying to solve business problems and domain experts who can provide sound advice to help. Bringing the right players together is a combination of art and science where you need to be creative and also look at the data and signals.

With our Constellation Executive Network, for instance, I collaborate with our client services team to ensure that we connect our members to the most suitable analyst to advise them. That extra effort requires a customized approach, and it's worth the extra time on our side to make sure that we get it right. We're passionate about partnering with our members to influence better outcomes and to help businesses transform and avoid stagnation.

I’m sure there’s probably a technology platform that performs similar matchmaking functions to what we offer, but for now, we haven't been replaced by artificial intelligence or a robot, and that suits us just fine. We recognize that experiences, relationships, and personal interactions matter, once technology is stripped away. If you have ever seen the disturbingly riveting Amazon Prime series, Humans, or the intriguing movie, Her, you know what I’m talking about.

Networks are fundamentally about people and communities.

At the end of the day, it’s all about the people. You spend time with them when you need them professionally or personally. When you find time to relax or take a breather, there’s going to be a point in time that usually involves hanging out with your favorite people, and we'd love the opportunity to become part of your group of favorites. Let us know what we can do to make that happen.

Related links:

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What Is the Big Deal about an Executive Network?

Director of Customer Programs, Constellation Research
Constellation Research

How to decide whether it's worth it to join an executive network.

Plenty of networks exist worldwide, whether they’re informal or informal. Whenever you join a club, membership program, professional associations, meeting or even a leadership workshop series. Why does it matter though, or why should you care? Sometimes, it’s hard to quantify what belonging to a network provides, even after you evaluate all of the benefits. At the end of the day, what you put into once you join is often what you get out of it. Frankly, some people get more out certain networks than others.

Evaluating networks is probably not unlike comparison shopping using your mobile phone, online search, or in-person visits to understand the value of products and services better. I came across this blog post that states the value on a very basic level, membership means being a part of the inner circle. Who doesn’t want that?

On a broad level, membership programs can be coined as pay to play annual memberships or even loyalty and rewards programs spanning a wide assortment of industries including airline, groceries, retail, credit card, telecommunications, entertainment, and so much more. The choice is staggering when it comes to increasing your potential for perks and to be a part of the inner circle: Amazon Prime, Netflix, Comcast, Sephora, Costco, Sam’s Club, airline mileage programs like Southwest, United, and American Airlines, or credit card programs like the REI MasterCard, American Express Platinum Card, and Citi Thank You Preferred card.

American Express’s famous slogan has been stuck in my head for as long as I can remember...membership has its privileges. Then, there’s a Mastercard’s Priceless advertising campaign that showcases personal stories about its unexpected benefits.

Being a part of a community like a network can tie you in by association. For instance, Constellation Research fosters decision support and career development of innovative executives as part of its vibrant ecosystem that brings together business professionals from technology companies, leaders who buy or influence the purchase of enterprise technology, expert technology analysts, and thought leaders. Take a look at any of our DisrupTV web shows, and you’ll get a sense of who we’re connecting with to share different perspectives using technology to make these speakers available to a wider audience.

If you want to gain new perspectives from leaders who are deeply involved in the transformation of their business, most of our panel discussions from our annual innovation summit, Connected Enterprise, weigh in on surprisingly compelling topics like the transformation of the sports and entertainment industry. Explore any Connected Enterprise video in our video collection to get a better understanding of how we connect and learn from executives across multiple industries and functions.

The Constellation ecosystem is both inclusive and exclusive.

The Constellation ecosystem has grown steadily, since the firm was established six years ago. We’ve been privileged to welcome Top 100 Social CIOs, global experts, best-selling business authors, rock star entrepreneurs, executives from F500 companies, among others.

As a subset of that ecosystem or inner circle, we offer the Constellation Executive Network, which is open to a self-selected group of innovative leaders who can join through annual membership. At a basic level, it’s a chance to partner with us to solve some of your most pressing business problems, stay informed and more easily weed out much of the noise and hype, connect with likeminded leaders, and influence research that helps to shape what technology vendors will do in the future. Ultimately, it’s value is best defined by what you invest in terms of sharing your preferences along with your knowledge or business concerns and strategic considerations, so that we can understand your needs and work with you to help you think through multiple scenarios or wrestle with tough decisions. It’s designed to serve you when you need it and exist as an added go-to resource.

Networks aren’t for everyone.

The programming for each one varies and carries a certain tenor. Ours is entertained with the intersection of technology and business and how innovation involving these two impacts industries, society, and culture. If that remotely interests you, then the Constellation Executive Network might be the right one for you.

Our community of leaders is vibrant and dynamic just like the disruptive technologies and transformational business models that we cover. We take everything that we analyze, while we assess the big trends tied to enterprise technology and think bigger about the implications for the future. After that, we distill it into what that means for different industries and use that as a foundation for addressing the opportunities faced in each organization or business by specific leaders. That’s when the tailored packaging of analyst inquiries offered to our executive network comes in to help leaders tackle their specific issues, while getting the chance to connect with a wider community of innovation-minded leaders to share information or ideas.

So, back to the big question: what’s the big deal about an executive network?

It is what you make it to be. What you commit in time and energy typically affects the value you get out of it. It’s not unlike investing in a new technology skill or trying to grow your financial portfolio. If you are too busy to leverage a network, then it can often be much hard to accomplish what you’d like to as quickly as you’d like to. Fortunately, we tend to work with senior leaders who may face competing demands from investors, their Board of Directors, and their other stakeholders, and they often have the means or resources that enable them to reshuffle their priorities or get creative with their schedules when they need to, so that they can stay engaged members in our ecosystem.

First, you can enjoy all of the general benefits like being associated with likeminded colleagues and making new, unexpected connections because who doesn’t like to be invited to play in the same sandbox as all the other cool kids. Tapping into the unique benefits like confidential analyst inquiries to accelerate problem solving or making deeper connections with certain key people is mostly likely where you'll get the most value, so active participation when you need or want a boost is key to your success.

In this New Age of Experiences and Storytelling, it doesn’t hurt to have a compelling success story or two to share the next time that you’re at a cocktail party or professional mixer. Joining the type of executive network that’s right for you can help you boost the changes for developing that collection of good stories.

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