:. Feature Article: Case Study Research, the Overlooked Tool

:. Client Spotlight: The Bloom Group Helps Optaros Launch

:. Coming in May: The Best of Thoughts on Thought Leadership

As the northeast United States emerges from another long, cold winter, we at The Bloom Group are encouraged by the emerging signs of rebirth all around us: the spring flowers squeezing through the sodden earth, more daylight hours, and a new season of baseball just around the corner. Also heartening is the slow but steady expansion of the economy in key markets around the world and accompanying hiring uptick in many industry sectors.

But based on our conversations with clients, we know that professional services organizations still find it far from easy to generate demand today. Competition is tougher, clients are more demanding and skeptical, and price pressure continues to be a concern. That’s why it’s more critical than ever for professional services executives to invest their precious intellectual capital development and marketing resources on programs that can generate the biggest return for their company or practice. The purpose of this newsletter is to provide some insights that can help you decide where and how to invest.

Are we fulfilling that mission? We’d like to hear from you. If you have any comments on what you read herein, best practices you’d like to share, or suggestions for topics we should cover in future issues of Thoughts on Thought Leadership, just reply to this e-mail.

We look forward to hearing from you and hope you find this quarter’s newsletter useful and informative.

secondary research and, more often, surveys to inform their point of view.

In our experience and that of many thought leaders, there is no more effective tool for generating great intellectual capital and, subsequently, attaining thought leadership, than case study research. Case study research is the tool that enables professional services companies to deeply probe a business issue and shed new light on it. When case study research works well, it provides insights on how a number of organizations addressed a certain issue. The case study reviewers’ analysis of how these firms resolved the issue—i.e., identifying often hard-to-discern patterns in approaches that were or weren’t effective—provides the content for the prescriptive half of the point of view.

To read more about the value of case study research—and how to use case study research to develop more robust intellectual capital—download the full white paper by Bloom Group Founding Partner Bob Buday here.

Back in July 2004, The Bloom Group was contacted by Bob Gett and Mavis Chin, veterans of two of the fastest-growing IT consulting and services companies of the last 15 years (Cambridge Technology Partners and Viant). Their interest: finding a marketing firm that could help them determine the viability of, and client needs for, consulting and systems integration services related to open source software.

They chose The Bloom Group to conduct the market research. Led by Principal Edwin Hastings, The Bloom Group secured and led in-person and phone interviews with senior IT executives at 20 large companies. The Bloom Group’s analysis of the interviews found there to be substantial interest in open source software at most of the 20 companies—and extensive open source usage already in a number of them.

The research, conducted in August and September, helped Gett, Chin and Dave Gynn define the service offerings for their new firm, Optaros Inc. By December, Optaros tapped The Bloom Group to run its PR campaign, which included an announcement of the firm’s seed round of venture capital funding (from Charles River Ventures and Gett). Led by Bloom Group Founding Partner Bob Buday and PR affiliates Rimjhim Dey and Judith Jameson, the investment generated coverage in a number of key print and online publications including: CNET News.com, LinuxWorld, VentureWire, Network World Fusion, and searchenterpriselinux.com.

The Bloom Group also set up interviews with a number of other leading publications, including The Wall Street Journal and extended the marketing work through the first quarter of 2005, a time in which The Bloom Group wrote press releases and generated publicity on a Series A investment round, new hires, and an Optaros client project. Optaros has since been featured in San Jose Mercury-News, InformationWEEK, The Daily Deal, Boston Business Journal and Mass High-Tech.

Due to popular demand, all of The Bloom Group’s lead articles published in past issues of Thoughts on Thought Leadership soon will be available in a single document. This 40-page-plus booklet, currently being compiled, will be released in May. Featured articles focus on the critical aspects of creating demand in a professional services environment, including the role of surveys in intellectual capital development; the seven elements of a compelling point of view; generating awareness through public relations; and creating a winning sales deck.

The booklet is free, but supplies will be limited to Thoughts on Thought Leadership subscribers. If you’re not currently a subscriber and want to reserve your copy, visit www.bloomgroup.com and sign up.

The Bloom Group, based in Cleveland and Boston, specializes in the marketing of
professional services firms by helping to determine clients’ best growth opportunities, creating integrated sales and marketing plans, developing robust intellectual capital, and executing critical marketing programs that build awareness and client relations. The Bloom Group’s services include market positioning, marketing strategy, thought leadership research and development, and marketing communications. For more information, send an e-mail with your inquiry to info@bloomgroup.com or visit us on the Web at www.bloomgroup.com.

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