Friday Rant: Is Spend Matters "Out of Touch With Emerging Trends in the Industry"? Please...
The next time Jon Hansen hides behind rhetoric and language (e.g., "agent-based, metaprise visibility") vs. logic, shoot me, please. It's not just that he fails to logically attack my argument, instead hiding behind supposed academic rigor and obfuscation in a recent post (e.g., "In short, adaptability to real-world market conditions as outlined in many of the 700 plus articles and white papers I have written, and maintaining and achieving centralized or collective objectives are not an either or proposition"). It's the patronizing tone within statements like "Jason is out of touch" because he's willing to go against vendor doctrinaire and "my own research". Collectively, these are clearly the type of "he's wrong and I'm right" bullying arguments that Jon attempts to make rather than elucidating debate around the subject.
While I'll leave it to you to decide which author makes the better argument on a pragmatic basis when it comes to technologies (e.g., Jon: "In short, the technology behind dashboard accessibility to a broader supply base in which advanced and multi-parameter algorithms are automatically incorporated into each front-line decision in real-time, provides the buyer with the necessary autonomy..."), I can't help but raise the point that rhetorical devices such as quoting Colin Powell saying that "today's experts may have reached (and passed) their peak" does nothing but hit below the belt. With phrases like this, I sense an insecurity in Jon's writing that may be nothing more than a desire to legitimize his activities through personal attacks on the establishment. It also may be something more insidious, given that the only folks he ever seems to stand up for are those who fund and provide support for his activities. Even though (as he points out) the amounts may be small, it should be the job of the blogger or online journalist to seek out and cover other providers besides those simply writing a check every year.When trees fall in the forest, perhaps I shouldn't care. But verbal assaults and intimations such as Jon's serve to demean the whole profession of those seeking to make a living through coverage of the sector. And there's nothing "intelligent"--spend or otherwise--around motivations like that. At the end of the day, if Jon would get off his verbose pulpit and let go of the need to put others down (vs. just their arguments), and offer to start a debate around the topic at hand without simply serving as a blogging tool for those that write checks and give him fodder to work with, I think he'd find that we actually agree more on the subject than disagree. Perhaps we'd nitpick at execution, but both of us--and our readers--would be the better for it.
For further consideration: Spend Matters, Sourcing Innovation, and Supply Chain Matters all make concerted efforts to cover sponsors and non-sponsors alike with complete objectivity (aside from personal biases and opinions having nothing to do with commercial relationships -- after all, we're human). A cursory analysis of Jon Hansen's blog suggests that at least 80% of his technology vendor coverage is focused on only his sponsors (I think it could be materially higher than this -- I've not done anything more than a cursory study, but perhaps someone else will). I suppose we should not be too upset, however. At least he discloses his sponsor affiliations on the right. So we can't exactly call him a "paid blogger" ... but as always, dear readers, caveat emptor, even when the product/analysis/research is free.
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Thanks for chiming in.
Its ok. you can blame it on whatever Prevacid is still left in your system. :)
I was a little surprised too with your "Out of Touch..." & "Prevacid..." rant-o-rama topics :)
Have a great weekend.
- Ganesh
"Is Spend Matters 'Out of Touch With Emerging Trends in the Industry'"
No
With respect to your request for an analysis of how many posts of Jon Hansen's are sponsor driven w.r.t. how many contain real "content", which I said I'd look at because I was curious as well, the answer is a significant percentage.
However, the real question is how many of his posts are directed at sponsors, how many are self-promoting, and how many are neither (like the vast majority of posts we publish), and how has this changed since he launched his "sponsorship" model (that looks to me like a "pay me and I'll post your press release" PR model), which was soon followed by his talk-show -- which appears to have "inspired" the greatest number of his posts in recent times.
Approximately 25% of his 500+ posts were during the first 15 months that were pre-sponsorship and pre-talk show with the remaining 75% occurring in the last 19 months post-sponsorship.
In the first 15 months, based on a 90%+ post sample [of 106 posts] (at least one from each unique day Jon posted), a "whopping" 73% were "content", with the remaining 27% self-promotion that advertised his seminars, books, speaking appearances at events, articles, and guest posts, etc.
However, post-sponsorship and post-talk show, the numbers flip. Based on an 85%+ post sample of 334 posts (with at least one post from each unique day Jon posted), only 18% are pure "content" pieces that do not promote a sponsor, a segment of his 100+ episode talk-show, or another one of his works or offerings. 9% are self-promotion posts that advertise his seminars, books, speaking appearances at events, articles, and guest posts, etc, 26% (or 1 in 4) are posts promoting his sponsors, and the remaining 47% (or almost 1 in 2) are posts that are related to, or directly promote, his talk show.
I don't know if that means he's "out of touch with emerging trends" or not. I do know that I do not care to speculate, as I have a hard time getting through his long-winded posts that, at least in my view, often ramble off on tangents like Grandpa on the Simpsons, and that I agree with Concerned -- he's not worth the press or the pixels you've dedicated to the issue.
In short, our instincts were right and we need to do what we've been doing. We need to keep churning out content on a daily basis, regardless of what anyone else does, or thinks. The clicks we continue to get will speak for themselves.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FKz4ww1lVds
I just actually came across this post again, and must admit that I had not read the comments that the blog's readers were kind enough to submit on the first go around.
I will make this as quick and direct as possible . . .
Regardless of what has been said, and whatever ersatz "analysis" has been done in terms of content, there is still only one salient point that continues to be missed and/or avoided. Here it is in the form of an excerpt from my closing comment on the March 25th, 2010 post titled Jason Busch’s Rant part of another interesting week in the world of procurement;
"Rather than stand by what he has written and provide reference material to support his comment that spend intelligence is merely “an attempt to shoot some Botox into a segment of the Spend Management market,” or why “tangential marketing strategies while valid, has no practical value from an execution standpoint,” Jason instead chooses to attack the person."
At the end of the day ladies and gentlemen, and like the 85% rate of implementation failure that has marred the landscape of the procurement world for far too long, Jason et al has still failed to respond to these questions which led to my comments in the first place.
I guess the old adage is still true . . . ""If you can't impress them with your intelligence, then dazzle them with your . . ." or in this case evasive rhetoric.
I guess I could understand Jason's consternation it if I had not been thorough in my research and had somehow misquoted him. But I didn't.
Nor by the way did I misquote Michael (although I did not refer to him by name in the article), when he emphatically made the statement that the term Spend Intelligence “is misleading.”
I wonder how many in the world of business would agree with the above positions? Especially without either Jason or Michael offering any substantive support for making the statements in the first place.
I also find it mildly interesting that Jason completely ignored the fact that it was Torbjorn Thorsen’s post on his Purchasing Transformation Blog, which led to the comment's to which Jason has taken exception, and that Thorsen agreed with my take? Let me check . . . isn't IBX a sponsor of the Spend Matters Blog.
As I had indicated, you can call me ugly and tell me my mother dresses me funny, but until you substantiate your position for making the above as well as other statements (re spend intelligence etc.) with tangible references, it would appear that "getting it right," isn't as important as "appearing to be right."
In this regard, I firmly stand by what I wrote.
Since you've basically created an advertising service for your sponsors (Michael's evidence shows this), I don't see much reason to get deeply entwined in this debate. But if you must know about IBX -- since you bring them up -- it would behoove you to do some more homework instead of pimping your spend girls: IBX became a sponsor over a month after this thread began.
After ripping apart a vendor claim once, someone asked me if I was a "paid blogger". Fair question. I answered. I'd like to pose that to you, now too. Are you a paid blogger? Michael and I certainly are not, as we can both attest to making more enemies than friends over the years with certain comments, even among those we have commercial relationships with. Candor counts just as much as spend matters and sourcing can be innovative. Perhaps some blogs should have a "for hire" sign dangling next to their header to more accurately describe the contents within.