What's Up with Tech?
Tech Transformation with Evan Kirstel: A podcast exploring the latest trends and innovations in the tech industry, and how businesses can leverage them for growth, diving into the world of B2B, discussing strategies, trends, and sharing insights from industry leaders!
With over three decades in telecom and IT, I've mastered the art of transforming social media into a dynamic platform for audience engagement, community building, and establishing thought leadership. My approach isn't about personal brand promotion but about delivering educational and informative content to cultivate a sustainable, long-term business presence. I am the leading content creator in areas like Enterprise AI, UCaaS, CPaaS, CCaaS, Cloud, Telecom, 5G and more!
What's Up with Tech?
Independent Voices: How FourCasters is Revolutionizing Analyst Content
Interested in being a guest? Email us at admin@evankirstel.com
The analyst world has long been dominated by commercial giants with rigid publishing schedules and predetermined agendas, but FourCasters is breaking that mold. This groundbreaking platform, launched in March 2023, provides independent analysts and boutique firms a dedicated space to share their unfiltered, future-focused insights without commercial constraints.
Roberta Gamble, drawing on her impressive 25-year tenure at Frost Sullivan, explains that FourCasters fills a critical void in the B2B technology landscape. While LinkedIn and personal websites serve their purpose, independent voices often lack visibility despite their deep expertise. Four Casters solves this by creating a professional, curated environment where forward-thinking content can thrive without pushing product recommendations or sponsor-driven narratives.
The platform's name—FourCasters—reflects its multidimensional approach to content through focus, region, industry, and analyst perspective. Content spans diverse timeframes, from immediate forecasts to long-term predictions addressing challenges like the approaching "2038 problem" (a Y2K-like issue many organizations are underprepared for). Quality remains paramount, with an editorial board ensuring all submissions maintain professional standards while staying future-oriented.
What truly distinguishes FourCasters is its commitment to authentic human insight in an increasingly AI-saturated content environment. As Gamble notes, the platform prioritizes genuine expertise over the volume-for-volume's sake approach that plagues both technology solutions and marketing content today. Currently strong in enterprise communications and cybersecurity, Four Casters plans to expand into healthcare and financial technologies while enhancing its multimedia capabilities.
Curious about where B2B technology is heading? Explore Four Casters to discover authentic, forward-thinking perspectives from the independent analysts who are reshaping how we understand and prepare for our technological future. Their unfiltered insights might be exactly what your organization needs to navigate tomorrow's challenges.
More at https://linktr.ee/EvanKirstel
Hey everybody. We're talking about forecasting the future today of B2B tech, in any case, with forecasters. Roberta, how are you? I'm great. Evan, how are you Doing well? Thanks so much for joining. You've had quite a journey in the enterprise tech analyst world, among others. Before that, maybe talk about your journey to Forecaster as a relatively new venture, I think. How did Forecasters come about? What was the problem you were trying to solve?
Speaker 2:Yeah, yeah, sounds great. Thanks for the setup. Great questions. So, yes, I started at Frost Sullivan about a quarter century ago. It was a great experience.
Speaker 2:I actually began in the energy and environment side and as an analyst and then went up through a business unit later. But sometime, maybe about seven, eight years ago, I was a partner at Frost and joined a different department on the brand and demand side, where I worked a lot with helping basically use the information and content to help clients promote their message and my focus there, and that's when my focus really switched to customer experience, employee experience. There's always tech, right. I mean, even in the energy environment side, we were talking about AI and manufacturing 10, 15 years ago, of course, or more, but then it really pivoted to enterprise and communications and other related areas is. So then, back at the start of this year, I left there to join a new company called Four Quarters.
Speaker 2:That has emerged from some of my colleagues who created this spinoff or I shouldn't say some spinoff, but created this new organization as basically doing something similar. Four Quarters and we'll get to Four Casters in a second is a marketing agency that, instead of just working with one company, we can represent a network of independent analysts and boutique firms, so that now there's a lot of different voices that are creating this content and the messaging for our clients In comes forecasters. So forecasters, written F-O-U-R casters, as in the number four, because we look at content in four different ways by focus, by region, by industry and by analyst. But really what it is is it is a B2B content hub, it's a content platform for independent analysts and small boutique firms to showcase their work, showcase their research. We felt that the industry lacked a truly non-commercial, third-party point of view based platform or location where these analysts could promote their work.
Speaker 2:Yeah, you can promote on LinkedIn, you can promote on your own website, Absolutely. You know those things are great, they all have their place, but this is one where you know you can really get that really future forward, or rather, excuse me, future focused content that again doesn't really have that commercial aspect. We're not trying to promote ask anybody to promote a certain product or a certain brand. We want to know what you think the future holds for your market and we thought this would be a great platform to help both the analysts that are in our network, but even just really any independent B2B analyst, to get some visibility.
Speaker 1:Brilliant, and you just described the platform as future-focused. So how far in the future do you look? What does that mean? Is it a month, a year, five years out? It's difficult to forecast anything these days. Five years out, it's difficult to forecast anything these days.
Speaker 2:Absolutely, oh absolutely. I'm just thinking of the deep-seek roller coaster in the back of my mind. You know how that's gone up and back down. It's over from this last year and what we thought would change and what didn't change and what it may be changed Really, whatever the market would bear, whatever the analyst feels needs to be talked about. We have a lot of content, you know, independent content that just really just looking at the rest of this year, that's looking at next year.
Speaker 2:We had some great pieces that were recently put on the site that are saying hey, just pretend it's already 2027, you got to plan for 2030, 2030, or you know there's the 2038 problem. That's not that far away. What are you doing about that now? So yeah, in some way everything changes week for week and other ways. You know it's easy to get mired in the day to day and then you got to have a longer term view. So we're not putting an emphasis on one or the other. We just want it to be. You know, we just want people to come to that site and feel like they're going to get a taste of the future.
Speaker 1:Love it. And how do you decide or choose which analysts or topics make it onto the platform and you know what's the bar for quality in your point of view.
Speaker 2:Yeah, that's a great question. We do have an editorial board that will review all the content. We want it to be again future-looking. We want it to be professional in nature. We don't want anything that is inflammatory. That's again commercial, that's political. Nothing that's going to be way out there. Focus on your industry, focus on those technologies. Look at what the players are doing. Give your opinion. That's all great. Give some data. We love data, but make it serious and B2B and business and professional. So really that's what we're looking for. It can even be content that will be published elsewhere. There's a lot of great other content hubs out there, but they're usually a lot more restrictive. You can only publish on their site, for example, and for a reason they're commercializing that platform. You know they want to be that first to market. They want to be the only to market with that particular content. This is not our intent, so we don't have that level of restriction, but of course, we don't want anything crazy on there either.
Speaker 1:Got it. So you have quite an insider's perspective on the industry. 25 years at Frost Sullivan it's quite a run. So what makes the content here different from what you'd find on Gartner, forrester and the long laundry list of analyst firms out?
Speaker 2:there. Yeah, sure, sure, no. Those are good examples. You know what we really wanted to. It's a couple different things. Partly it's really who's posting.
Speaker 2:So if you are, you know, an analyst with Gartner, with Forrester, you have that, the strength of that enormous name and platform behind you. You know, we have that brand behind you. If you're an independent, if you're, let's say, ex-gartner or you're launching your own, or you've been, you know, a market industry expert for 20, 30 plus years, you might still want that additional visibility. So I think that's the biggest thing is that we well, two things One is that we are promoting that independent analyst and that small boutique firm. So it doesn't just have to be analysts. We have, you know, small firms that also will use, you know, collaborate with us to help their visibility. The other thing, too, is that you know, collaborate with us to help their visibility. The other thing, too, is that you know we are opening the format and the topic. So, if you're at a gardener, you're at a forester, wherever you are, you're going to have your program, you're going to have your plan for that vertical. This is the content you're going to create this year. This is what you're going to have to pay to access that content. These are the people who are allowed to publish it. We don't really have those restrictions. So if you have some great research, a podcast, even yourself, that you want to link back to, or a video or an infographic, we are not creating a set agenda.
Speaker 2:Yes, we have to publish in these categories. I mean, we definitely have, because it is very new. We just launched in March. I want to say we definitely have. Yeah, so it's very new. We already are publishing. We're publishing content every week. We've got a great following. We have a lot of contributors across enterprise, communication, cybersecurity. In these areas, we want to expand. We've got some financial services work on there. We've got some environment. We've got some healthcare work on there, but largely it's on the tech side right now. We want to expand, so we have some verticals and so forth, but we don't have, I guess, a script for the year on this is who's going to publish what and when.
Speaker 1:Got it. Love the approach. Do you have any favorite articles or predictions that come to mind that might be making waves? Don't want you to pick any favorite children. Oh, it's so hard.
Speaker 2:I mean the last one I mentioned. You know we had Dr Chase Cunningham, aka Dr Zero. He published that really cool article on basically the one. That was a fascinating guy. I don't know if you know him, but background in military, background always in cybersecurity, so he's published some great stuff. I actually just just interviewed him for the site as well, so we have an interview that talks a little bit about his background. But he's also published content as well. He's recently written a book, so he's got some great stuff on there.
Speaker 2:Jonah Till Johnson with company she's the founder of Emerities. She's got that really cool article about the 2038 problem, which is basically Y2K, but a lot less prepared. Just for the snippet of it, I thought that was quite interesting. You know the snippet of it. I thought that was quite interesting. Seth Vedder he's a cybersecurity and healthcare market and analyst. Yeah, he's got a great article in there about how different countries are approaching, are using technology to improve their healthcare outreach and outcomes. And you know, yeah, experiences, both payer excuse me, both provider and patient experiences. So yeah, so there's a good diversity. Those are three that come to mind but, like I said, we're putting new stuff up every day or every week.
Speaker 1:Wonderful. So, beyond being a great destination or social club for smart people, how do you track success? And you know, is it views, engagement, business impact or how do you think about that?
Speaker 2:Yeah, all of the above, Definitely views, definitely engagement. Right now we're really courting the analyst community. We're trying to get a snowball effect going and saying, hey, this is cool, get on board, you know, help us promote this. So I think the volume and content and so forth, but definitely views. We want to make sure that then the industry starts reading it too right, and so it's that combination of the two. So it's pretty early, but your standard website metrics, of course, are things you're going to look at as well as social media.
Speaker 1:Got it and you've, of course, worked with who's who of major brands over your career. How do you your classic question of keeping analyst voices authentic when there's a sponsor involved? What's your philosophy or your approach there?
Speaker 2:Well, we, if there is a sponsor involved, we don't want it to be front and center. It's not going to be. There's no recommendation. So we really that's what I mean when I keep harping on the fact that it's not commercial. So if we're going to have a content on there, it's not going to be. There's never going to be a recommendation, probably not even really. The only mentioning of companies is going to be in the context of what they're doing, if it's interesting, more of a journalistic take right Comparison, maybe some examples. But we don't really want sponsored content on there, so to speak, like from the analysts. We really want their fresh, new content. Now, we're analysts, we reuse stuff, we have insights. You know, on a project you get some great insights. You're going to maybe republish those insights, package them and say, hey, this is the really cool stuff that's going on. But make it really cool stuff about really cool stuff that's going on, don't make it about what the sponsor did. That's not something that we want on the site.
Speaker 1:There's plenty of other sites for that.
Speaker 2:Put that on LinkedIn.
Speaker 1:Yeah, the whole internet basically. Exactly, you work with so many thought leaders out there and analysts, media, journalists. I mean what are the biggest challenges from your point of view when trying to break through the noise and get your message out there, get seen, get heard? It's pretty chaotic, pretty noisy.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So you know, especially these days with AI right and I'm sure you have the same as you keep up with the market you get the same kind of cringe factor, that uncanny valley, when you start reading something and you see the dash or you see the list of three things and you automatically know it's AI Right. So I think a big thing is the human voice. So knowing that you know, reading, writing it, communicating it such that it feels authentic, feels genuine, feels human, I mean that's really important. And I know it's getting harder, you know. I mean most of the things that are coming to my mind like oh, you know, used to be you would say the top three are great ways to do this. Well, that now can start to sound a little artificial. So you got to really be careful how you present these things, how you present your work.
Speaker 1:Totally.
Speaker 2:So, yeah, I think the most important thing is to be genuine, to be human. Now, to get to that point where they read you and know that you're genuine and human, that's its own challenge. And definitely if you're an analyst starting out or you don't have the name brand recognition, you might put a little bit of legwork into that. But I think that's just the most critical thing is just really write well.
Speaker 1:Write. Well. Well, it's becoming more and more difficult with AI to figure out what's real and what's not. Speaking of trends, any particular B2B trends that might be overhyped at the moment, what's nonsense versus what's real? Or what's your take on the landscape and all the keywords that we're all following these days.
Speaker 2:Yeah, I think there's a couple things and it depends if you're talking about from, like, the industry perspective or the marketing perspective. You know, I kind of have a bit of a foot in each. I have a couple of toes in the marketing side. Most of me is on the industry side. You know. The volume question, right, you? Just if you keep pumping out volume and that's whether you're talking about it applies to marketing. Somebody putting out a ton of content but maybe it doesn't resonate, doesn't have the value or isn't targeted enough. Or somebody with a great dashboard that they're using in their contact center but they're filling it with a bunch of information that nobody's going to be looking at or you know is overwhelming. So I think the volume question, just because you can do it doesn't mean you should, right, I'm not trying to get to Jurassic Park here, but just like you know, like so, so volume for volume's sake, over, you know, overwhelming the user again, whether it be a customer or a prospect or you know any, any, you know, user of marketing content, user of a dashboard, a user of technology with insights and information they don't need, and really sorting out and getting to the kernels that they do need.
Speaker 2:I think that's an important thing. I know we see this a lot on the EX side, employee experience side, where you know you're giving your employees a ton of different tools and they're still going to go use Slack or Gmail to get something done. You're like, no, no, you got to use this, you know, and that, I think, is just, it's just a communication challenge. It's it's not connecting, it's understanding what they're trying to use it for. So I think that that's sort of one of the overhyped things is which I think we're starting to recognize, though I mean, I don't think this is necessarily groundbreaking. I think marketers recognize this. I think your top companies, your top suppliers of technology and solutions are recognizing this. You know, insight over volume. But I still think there's kind of a little bit of a whiz bang temptation there that I can do it, so I'm going to present it.
Speaker 1:Yeah, lots of shiny objects being chased and lots of overused buzzword. What's your least favorite overused buzzword? I'll start game changer. If I read another press release about a game changer, I'm going to change the channel or change the game, but you must have a few of those that you yeah, that's a good one.
Speaker 2:I've been doing dynamic along similar. Yeah, it's the one that always hops into my mind.
Speaker 1:There's so many, Too many, too many. So where do you guys anticipate going next? Any new features or ideas on the horizon? I've looked at the site great written content, maybe video content, or what are your thoughts on things you could be doing?
Speaker 2:Yeah, we're still working out some of the ways that we can support and promote videos, for example, directly on the site, or other types of multimedia. Right now we're certainly able to link back to somebody's video, let's say, or other aspects of multimedia, but you know we're still working out that functionality. So we got, you know, we got the articles, the blog posts, infographics, those types of static stuff's down. The other stuff you know it's going to be linked. So that's good. On technology side, definitely the site's going to evolve over time. Right now, as I mentioned, it's forecasters because of those four areas and so you can sort by those four areas. I think over time we're going to do more with those four areas so that you can go to the enterprise communication page, you can go to the cybersecurity page, you can go to the healthcare med tech page, to the cybersecurity page, you can go to the healthcare med tech page. But that you know we want to have a certain critical mass of content before we can start doing that. So that's another. So that's on the functionality side. On the content side, again, we've got a lot of enterprise communication, cybersecurity stuff.
Speaker 2:I think in the next year or so we really want to double down on finance and healthcare, whether that be services into, like FinTech or you know, new healthcare markets or even, but you know, expanding a little bit beyond that. And again, we are using an analyst network. So we are using, you know, uh, there are at this point already we have dozens of wonderful independent analysts and a few small boutique firms that we work with. Um, that's going to grow, that's going to expand on the four quarters side, um and uh, that's just going to enable us really to provide our services to a broader audience. So I think Forecasters is going to kind of grow and parallel with that and reflect that over time.
Speaker 1:Interesting. So outside of the analyst world, there's a universe of people like me who are content creators, podcasters, other commentators, TV hosts, all kinds of things. What role, if any, do you see for folks like that in this model?
Speaker 2:Well, I feel like there's a real merging. I mean, you're an influencer. You talk to a lot of people about technology, about AI, about where things are going. I'd love to have your content on our site. You're a brand, you're an influencer. Yeah, I mean, that is great. Sign me up.
Speaker 1:I'm in.
Speaker 2:So happy to share.
Speaker 1:It's always good for promotional purposes and would love to play a part, so look forward to the journey.
Speaker 2:Wonderful. Well, that would be great. And yeah, and you know, as we see, analysts I mean themselves are becoming, I think I said influencer I want to pull back a little bit on that term because it has certain connotations but they have to become more multimedia, more media savvy, and we see a lot of analysts, a lot of great people out there, have their own podcasts, tend to be more specific to a vertical industry, for example, but yeah, on the media side, I think it's a great. Like you said, it's a great marriage. It's a great ability to co-promote and co-educate. Right, you know, bring some new ideas to the table.
Speaker 1:Fantastic. Well, thanks for sharing an update. Can't wait to watch your progress and it'll be a busy year this year in the analyst world back-to-back-to-back analyst meetings so good luck with that all.
Speaker 2:Thank you, Evan. It's been a pleasure to be here. Thank you so much.
Speaker 1:And thanks everyone for listening and watching and sharing, and be sure to check out our new TV show now on Fox Business and Bloomberg at techimpacttv. Thanks everyone, bye-bye.