Enter Sandmen: The Bullpen Group Cometh

I’m writing this while listening to Metallica’s Enter Sandman.  You may want to do the same, or maybe go to YouTube and do a search for “Mariano Rivera Enter Sandman” to get the full effect.  Just click on any of the hundred or so videos of “Mo” bolting out of the Yankees bullpen to that song in order to save one of his 600+ games.

Now are you watching one of the videos? Do you feel it?  I mean, do you FEEL IT???  I know I get amped every time I see him coming out of the tunnel…to that song.  So when presented with the opportunity to join forces with Denis Pombriant, Esteban Kolsky and Paul Greenberg to form The Bullpen Group (BPG), you know what started running through my head…

Here’s why we started the BPG (besides the fact that we’re all buddies who like baseball and wanted to find more ways to work together):

The group’s purpose is to provide an ad hoc model for senior analysts collaborating on important market research projects that concentrate on some of the most important trends and topics from front office, CRM, social business, collaboration, to cloud computing and mobile computing.

Here’s how it will work:

The four principals will continue their individual practices while coming together under the aegis of the Bullpen Group to perform research that requires the talents of more than a single researcher at a time. 

Here’s what we think:

Denis Pombriant: “In bringing together four of the best analysts in the front office market we plan to leverage both conventional research modalities and social approaches to provide vendors and end users with some of the most in-depth and actionable research in the market.”

Paul Greenberg: “We know what the trends and practices that need to be investigated are. Our mission is to bring together the right resources to make sure that the research is of the caliber needed.”

Esteban Kolsky: “This is the way primary research should be done – aggregated knowledge from experts shared across channels and time.  I am very happy to be part of this new endeavor.”

Me:  “Things are happening faster than ever before, and it still feels like we’re in the early innings.  While individually we are able to dig into a few areas, working together on projects allows us to cover more ground, provide deeper analysis and add more value to the industry”.

Off to Never-Never Land… in 2013

We’ll be announcing some things around what research areas we’ll be tackling in the not too distant future, so stay tuned.  A website will be coming shortly.  Our Twitter address is @BullpenGroup, and we also have a Facebook page we’ll be using to keep you up to date with our activities.  And we’ll all be together for the first time as the BPG (I think) for Breakfast with the Bullpen Group, a special session that will be a part of Social Biz Atlanta 2013.  I’m still nailing down all the details for the event, but STAY TUNED if you are interested in learning more. 

All I can say is that I’m very honored to be a part of this group, and excited about the projects we’ll be able to do together.  The only thing though is the guys didn’t like my initial suggestion for the group’s name.  Since there are four of us, I thought maybe we can be thought of as the Four Horseman.  But they thought being called The Apocalypse Group probably wouldn’t be the best name for a research/analyst partnership – especially with December 21^st being right around the corner. 

So yeah, the Bullpen Group was definitely the best way to go!