Two decades of Deal Architect

‘Tis the season for all kinds of corporate and personal, federal and state, annual and quarterly tax returns, and in the midst of all the paperwork I came across the seal on the left and realized Deal Architect is no longer a teenager😊

It gave me a chance to reflect on an amazing 20 years as an analyst, adviser and author. The industry has been very kind to us, and in turn as my accountant never fails to remind me, we have been fairly generous back to plenty of folks. I have had a front row seat to momentous events which have shaped our industry – most of them positively. As I told Paul Greenberg recently on his video channel, he and I are the new generation analyst constantly experimenting with new ways to comment on the industry.

As part of the anniversary, I will be reminiscing about 9 things (in no particular order) I am especially proud of and represent our wide body of work

New Florence. New Renaissance. innovation blog.

This has been a poor cousin to my Deal Architect blog, which lots more people follow. But as an early blogger on enterprise technology, I saw nobody had established any rules and that I could write about everything which made me go “aha’ around how we work, live and play. Someone once complimented me “you can make even a brown paper bag sound interesting”. That made me look up how the humble item has evolved since Margaret Knight won a patent for her bag machine in 1871. Nearly 7,000 posts have covered cleantech, nanotech, space and innovation from Estonia. Kenya and countless places you don’t often associate with innovation. It has also allowed me to run a guest column where over 200 colleagues have written about their hobbies and passions. Importantly, it has made me intensely curious about anyone, anything or anywhere doing something unique.

Enterprise Buyer Guidance

Short-burst, high-impact projects – that I don’t talk much about publicly to protect client details. They have evolved every few years – from due diligence projects and visits of offshore campuses of Indian, E. European and other vendors to early SaaS evaluations and negotiations to automation strategies. Most of our assistance helps raise innovation expectations and reduces risk in projects

Analyst Cam and Burning platform videos

We have recorded and shared on our YouTube channel over 500 video episodes since the COVID lockdowns began in early 2020. Most have been in the Analyst Cam series which allow vendors to present on their verticals, geographies, new product releases in 20-25 minutes and Burning Platform which allows for strategy conversations with tech executives, banter with fellow analysts, new book conversations with authors in a slightly longer format.

9 Books and counting

2 books with the large NYC publisher, John Wiley, 4 under the Deal Architect imprint and 3 developed and marketed for C level tech executives have allowed us to cover a wide range of topics and establish a signature case study-heavy style. Across the 9 books, we have showcased over 200 case studies. As I like to say “if a book has more than 10% of my voice, I have failed”. It is a chance to get to know and showcase incredibly innovative people, products and places - and give them a megaphone.

West Coast on the East Coast and other Instagram galleries

This is another offshoot of COVID. During the (light) lockdowns in Florida, Margaret and I started to do plenty of day trips up and down the West Coast of Florida. Each location was captured in a 10 photo Instagram gallery. As travel has opened up, the galleries have captured photos from international trips, vendor events, book launches. Over 360 galleries of 10 images each.  Lots of memories and exposure to much more innovation

Deal Architect blog

Over 6,000 posts, this blog has mapped major trends in information technology. It is my analyst voice – hard hitting at times, entertaining at others. Every year our research agenda evolves. Here is this year’s.  I have shared my front row perspectives on how offshoring, then cloud computing, then automation broadly took off and matured and am now cataloging the Gen AI excitement.  The blog has highlighted the ascent of China and India and many other rapidly growing economies. Increasingly it has allowed me to embed the videos above with some commentary. You will be amazed how many people continue to consume short form written content.

Blog sponsors

Our blogs have vendor sponsors. For that they get a menu of services – regular market updates, coverage of their events, presentations at Sales Kick offs and other internal events, and more. As I tell them – our door is always open for conversation, so long as the topic is not unethical or illegal😊 One of my proudest deliverables from this has been to help shape the vendor Analyst Summit format. Workday set the tone for the industry in 2010. Since then, vendors like Zoho have raised the bar for such gatherings to a whole new level. To be clear, our role in shaping the formats has been tiny compared to that of creative vendor AR folks like Angela Barbato at Workday and Sandy Lo at Zoho.

Global network

I already had a large network from my global assignments at PwC, from over thousands of client calls and meetings at Gartner and VC world from my startup, IQ4hire. Through our regular posts on LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, Instagram, Amazon Author page, Enterprise Irregulars and other channels our social networks have exploded. I will be honest I try to limit time on social networks to an hour a day. I would rather make time for an in-person cup of sweet iced tea anytime.  

New Frontiers   

Over the last few months I have started a few new projects I hope to announce later this year. My Jiminy Cricket is always haranguing me to narrow focus to high margin projects. I don’t think he has ever read my book, The New Polymath. I do listen to him every so often and especially to my wife who is always reminding me to be grateful.

So, let me end with a note of gratitude to

• So many clients, so many followers
• So many executives, analysts, authors and friends I can turn to for advice
• The helicopter crew which flew me down to safer altitude when I had a stroke while presenting in Vail, CO in 2010 and to the many doctors and my FitBit who have helped me recover and keep me going
• Southwest, Marriott, Apple, T-Mobile, Zoom and others who have made staying connected so much easier
• So many who keep inspiring me. As I like to say “This is the best time to be alive”
• And especially my family – for putting up with my relentless travel and for my constant laptop or tablet companion even when we are on vacation

Here’s to the next chapter of Deal Architect!