Yesterday, I notice I had a flurry of activity on the blog (a blip really, in blogosphere terms, but a flurry in relative terms for my usual activity) with a reader coming in from a search for “Sapient Blog.” I would like to cover the Interactive Agency sector fairly aggressively, but my overtures to this market (other than Sapient, actually) have fallen flat. Remember, most of the firms I covered in my 2000 report have vanished. The survivors are very different firms today, even Sapient, for that matter. The firm I have the best relationship with– LBIcon— is a continent away and not a major player in the US. All that being said, it looks like I’m left standing behind the velvet ropes on this private club. So, it’s like I told a newly crowned Dick Brown taking over at EDS who chortled at me, “Be good to me Susan!” I told him he had to earn it. I’m now on the other side of that hubris and will have to earn the respect of the IA community before they’ll confide in me and allow me into their party.
In the absence of focusing on the IA sector, I’ve turned my attention to the SaaS market and the budding enterprise 2.0 sector. I’m finding developments and discussions in this sector extremely interesting and addicting. I’ll be writing a story for GITS for the next two weeks on how the prospect of new enterprise SaaS applications may stand to disintermediate the billable consultant. It has major implications for the consulting and systems integration markets over time. I’m looking forward to what I discover in the reporting.
I have managed to reconnect with more of the IT Services fraternity. Jeff Kaplan, whom I’ve always had a lot of respect for, has turned his attention to SaaS. I also had a nice lunch recently with Vinnie Mirchandani whose blog is listed in my blogroll.
*See post May 17 for headline reference.