October 18th, 2009
With Synopsys announcing Synphony, a high-level design compiler that reads in MATLAB M code and generates RTL and some other useful outputs, and Mathworks listed in Gary Smith’s ESL 2009 Wallchart, I wonder if it doesn’t make sense to define MATLAB as an ESL language and Mathworks as an EDA player. Harry Gries provides a good overview in “Synopsys Synphony Synopsis” (say that three time fast)
Basically, Synopsys is introducing a high level synthesis (aka behavioral synthesis) product that takes as its input Matlab M-Code and produces RTL Code, a cycle accurate C-model, and a testbench for simulation.
Ron Wilson offers this assessment in “Synopsys introduces Matlab-to-RTL synthesis path for datapaths”
On the whole, it appears that Synphony is not intended to be a direct competitor to the other high-level synthesis tools in the industry, such as those from Cadence, Forte, or Mentor. Rather, it is an IP-library-based tool for converting M-files into fixed-precision models for Simulink, coupled to a synthesis engine to convert these fixed-point models into RTL datapath designs for input into Synplify or Design Compiler. It is a rather specialized tool, but a sorely needed bridge between the worlds of Matlab algorithm exploration and RTL development.
Mathworks has been attending DAC for many years, although it is not a member of EDAC [see below]. The Matlab language was also a supported input by AccelChip (now part of Xilinx) and Agility (now part of Mentor, although the tools for going from Matlab to C were sold to the Mathworks). These were some of the reasons that I had included the Mathworks blogs in my July 11 “EDA Bloggers 2009” list.
It would be interesting to see the Synopsys Interoperability Forum address Matlab interoperability at some point, they clearly have a significant stake in it with the Synphony announcement.
Sanjay Srivastava, the CEO of Denali, offered some excellent advice to startups in his Jul-23 “Can We Afford for Startups to Wind Down” (although he now is blogging on “A Conversation on Innovation” ) outlining two areas where startups have prospered in the last few years and one where they have not:
- New platform creation. Typically, this happens at the edges of an existing platform (at least in EDA). One of the mistakes we can make is in under-funding the creation of platforms because you are asking the customers to move to a whole new methodology, but they are only going to do it if the platform is complete. Leaving big gaps like “availability of models/libraries” can often render a promising platform useless. [...]
- Provide components to a significantly growing platform. This is where lots of EDA startups have flourished since the last big disruption of synthesis. They provided point tools. The platform owners were growing and could afford to pay big premiums to improve parts of the flow or add to them. [...]
- Improve components for mature platforms. This is the trap startups have been in for the last few years. [...]
At first blush Matlab looks like a growing platform, at least in terms of the opportunities for full integration into established EDA flows. It’s not clear where all of the opportunities might lie, but a few come to mind:
- Timing analysis across Matlab, RTL, and gate
- Register management across Matlab, RTL, C, and design documentation
- Power management across Matlab, RTL, and gate
- Functional Partitioning into Chips / Floorplanning for Chips for Matlab, RTL, and gate
- High level synthesis tools: certainly Synphony offers a “proof by example” for Oasys and other next generation synthesis tools.
This is part of an ongoing series on “Growing the Pie in EDA”
- Getting Back to “Growing the Pie in EDA”
- Growing the Pie in EDA Part 2: As Revenue Shrinks So Does Analyst Interest
Update Mon Oct-19: Daniel Payne points out that Mathworks has historically been a member of EDAC even if they are not currently listed as a member. They are listed as a member on slide 29 of the January 14, 2009 presentation by Bob Gardner at the CEO Forecast and Industry Vision meeting. I will seek clarification from Mathworks and EDAC.
October 12th, 2009
I am happy to be able to offer another guest blog by Nanette Collins, her first was on “Volunteering, Lessons Learned from the Trenches.” Nanette is an entrepreneur in her own right, she is the principal at Nanette V. Collins Marketing and PR with offices in Boston and San Francisco and one the web at www.nvc.com
It’s All About Corporate Culture by Nanette Collins
In the 15 years that I have owned a marketing consulting business, my focus has been on working with entrepreneurs and startups in the EDA and semiconductor area. This has given me a ringside seat to grand successes, gut-wrenching failures and plenty of case study material. I have seen a lot and learned a few things in the process.
If an entrepreneur were to approach me for advice on the first steps to starting a business, I’d recommend thinking carefully about the kind of culture he or she wants to create. This effort will set the tone and help lay a foundation for success. A corporate culture based on a strong value system and an implicit understanding of ethical business practices will engender loyalty from the team, customers and various other stakeholders.
Corporate culture is much more than Six Sigma, the business management strategy du jour, or Quality Circles implemented by many large companies in the 1980s. It’s also more than the detailed corporate identity list of must haves –– name, logo, tag line, website and so on.
Instead, it’s a careful assessment by a company’s management on how it should operate and be perceived, based on a standard set of ideals that reflect its goals and objectives. The corporate culture should be fluid enough to be able to integrate attitudes, behavior, experiences and personal and cultural values.
A great example is a long-gone EDA startup called Viewlogic that hired the Boston Public Relations firm where I worked as an account executive in the mid 1980s. What quickly became apparent was the thoughtfulness and care the five founders –– Sal Carcia, Alain Hanover, Will Herman, Ron Maxwell and K.S. (Sri) Sriram –– had placed on building the company’s corporate culture. Maybe it was instinct. It may have been good management skills. More likely, it was the experience that they gained from working for a large corporation before going off on their own.
Whatever the motivation, it was the right thing to do, but it took a year’s worth of meticulous planning before they launched themselves. This company taught me many things, but the most valuable insight was the need to pay attention to corporate culture.
As a regular visitor to this company long acquired by a larger vendor, it was clear to me that the focus on corporate culture instilled a set of shared values with employees. The entire team seemed to have a set of customs and traditions that was this company’s and none other, which made it a terrific client and business partner.
Employees were dedicated, focused and all had a sense of purpose. That’s because they understood where they fit within the culture and knew what was considered appropriate behavior. During new employee orientation, Will Herman proudly carried into the session a three-ring binder with the presentation on the company’s corporate culture. This emphasis helped the company navigate through tough times and encouraged the team to keep going. After all, even with a well-conceived corporate culture, it wasn’t immune to the vagaries of a new business.
As the company grew in size and got more successful, a plaque was hung in the reception area outlining its five-point value system, underscoring the corporate culture. Many of the specific points seem to have been forgotten over time, but there are a few that stand out:
- The first is an emphasis on professionalism and personal integrity that started with the founders who set the example for all.
- A focus on ensuring a return to all stakeholders –– investors, employees, customers and partners –– may seem obvious, but well worth articulating to the entire team.
- Providing value to customers may seem obvious as well, but who hasn’t experience lousy quality support from a formerly valued vendor? In recent years, many a large consumer company has been resoundingly criticized for their lack of customer service. A corporate culture focused on successful customers has to be a winning strategy.
I have worked with more than 30 startups and see too few founders give enough consideration to the culture of the firm that they are building, an unfortunate miscalculation. Too many entrepreneurs seem to think this is trite, quaintly old fashioned or don’t consider it at all. And yet, the benefits are numerous, from employee recruiting and retention to loyal customers and repeat business. With a strong corporate culture, there will be no ambiguity about behavior or ethics or what a company stands for.
Just as every startup has a product strategy and roadmap, it should also develop a set of corporate guidelines. It may be the blueprint for success.
I have included a 1985 article on Viewlogic for some background for readers who may be unfamiliar. The company was a pioneer in EDA but does not have a Wikipedia page or definitive history on-line that I could find. It’s from “D&T Scene,” IEEE Design and Test of Computers, vol. 2, no. 3, pp. 10-15, May/June 1985, doi:10.1109/MDT.1985.294730
Viewlogic unveils first CAE product at show Viewlogic Systems, a start-up company formed in October 1984, will show its first product, a desktop CAE system based on the IBM PC, at this year’s Design Automation Conference. The company also announced it has received $1.5 million in first-round financing, provided by company founders and venture-capital firms.
Viewlogic was founded by Alain Hanover, Salvatore Carcia, Ronald Maxwell, Sri Sriram, and William Herman, all from Digital Equipment Corporation. The company claims that its software addresses key elements of a design engineer’s desktop needs, providing facilities for design, documentation, and communication.
An open architecture approach gives users access to a reliable electronic design automation system that fits into existing CAE environments.
Sriram, Viewlogic’s director of marketing, says that the key benefit of the system is that it is priced at a level that allows each design engineer to have a system at his desk, where it is always accessible. The PC-based system is powerful enough for many applications, but the software, written in C, is also available in a version that runs on a DEC VAX operating under VMS for more demanding applications.
The software is currently being evaluated at five beta sites.
October 9th, 2009
Ed Lee and I have continued our conversation about the changing media landscape for EDA and addressed some issues that are relevant to getting back to growing the pie in EDA. What follows is an excerpts from Ed’s blog “What’s PR Got To Do With It?” with some hyperlinks added to provide more context, the original post was “Startups, Stories, and Press Releases”
Sean: In EDA in particular, how many reporters, editors, market researchers, and financial analysts are there compared to 5 or 10 years ago?
Ed: Well, 5 or 10 years ago, we’d have two dozen or so key targets in the U.S., Japan and other parts of Asia and western Europe.
Sean: Targets? You mean more than editors?
Ed: Yep. Maybe a dozen reporters and editors, several market researchers, maybe half a dozen financial analysts, all of whom had audiences that affected the well being of EDA companies and of the industry as a whole. Today? Geez…can I count the number or reporters or editors on one hand? YES! There’s one market researcher: Gary Smith. The financial analysts are more or less not watching EDA any longer, and they don’t exist as entities working for investment houses.
Sean: In a technologically dynamic landscape, financial analysts would want to be aware of emerging startups, wouldn’t they?
Ed: They would. Today, these analysts cover some of the big guys, and rarely, and in essence, no one follows the space. Of course, there was Jim Cramer recommending Cadence. Now whether or not he’s a business analyst is another question.
I did count of the number of analysts covering EDA for a blog post in December 2006 “Coffee Break With Gary Smith” which marked Dataquest’s exit from analyzing EDA as an inflection point in the industry. Here it is:
EDAC lists 11 public companies
- ANST – Ansoft – 5 analysts
- ARMHY – ARM Holdings – 4 analysts
- CDNS – Cadence – 11 analysts
- LAVA – Magma Design Automation – 7 analysts
- LVGN – Logic Vision – No analyst coverage
- MENT – Mentor Graphics – 7 analysts
- MIPS – MIPS Technologies – 4 analysts
- PDFS – PDF Solutions – 6 analysts
- SNPS – Synopsys – 11 analysts
- SYNP – Synplicity Inc. – 3 analysts
- VIRL – Virage Logic – 5 analysts
There is a fair amount of overlap in coverage but it looks like there are perhaps 16-18 analysts covering at least one company in the industry and a core of about a dozen covering at least three. As a contrast, Xilinx has 27 analysts covering it and Altera has 30. These two FPGA players probably invest as much in CAD tools as many if not most of the companies listed above.
Updating that for today yields the following changes
- Ansoft was acquired by Ansys and is no longer a member of EDAC or an exhibitor at DAC.
- ARM Holdings is not a member of EDAC or an exhibitor at DAC
- LogicVision was acquired by Mentor
- Synplicity was acquired by Synopsys
And a comparable table:
- CDNS – Cadence – 6 analysts (down from 11)
- LAVA – Magma Design Automation – 2 analysts (down from 7)
- MENT – Mentor Graphics – 4 analysts (down from 7)
- MIPS – MIPS Technologies – 3 analysts (down from 4)
- PDFS – PDF Solutions – 3 analysts (down from 6)
- SNPS – Synopsys – 6 analysts (down from 11)
- VIRL – Virage Logic – 1 analyst (down from 5)
Xilinx has 20 analysts (down from 27) and Altera has 22 analysts (down from 30). This this time I am listing the analysts and which companies they cover (except that I am only listing where an “EDA analyst” also covers Xilinx or Altera, not the others who cover the two FPGA firms but none of the EDA firms).
- Canaccord Adams – Bobby Burleson: Magma, Mentor, PDF Solutions, Xilinx, Altera
- Craig-Hallum – Tony Stoss: MIPS
- Cowen & Co. – Raj Seth: Cadence, Synopsys, Xilinx, Altera
- DA Davidson – Matt Petkun: Cadence, Mentor, PDF Solutions, Synopsys
- Deutsche Bank – Tim Fox: Cadence, Synopsys, Xilinx
- JPMorgan – Sterling Auty: Cadence, Mentor, Synopsys, Xilinx, Altera
- Kaufman Brothers – Suji De Silva: MIPS
- Needham & Co. – Rich Valera: Cadence, Magma, Mentor, Synopsys, Virage
- Noble Financial – Gary Mobley: MIPS
- RBC Capital – Mahesh Sanganeria: Cadence, PDF Solutions, Synopsys, Xilinx, Altera
The three analysts for MIPS don’t cover anyone else in the industry so the more accurate figure may be 7: Ed’s answer checks out. Also at this time MIPS and PDF Solutions are not listed as exhibitors for DAC 47.
There is an interaction between poor financial performance and lack of analyst coverage, but in three years the number of analysts covering EDA has effectively been cut in half. There have been no new IPO’s and a number of notable VC-backed firms that simply ceased operations without being acquired: Athena Design, Golden Gate Technology, Liga, Silicon Design Systems, and Tera to name a few. Reshape raised $31M and sold assets to Magma but no employees were hired. Daniel Payne blogged about this last December as “Merry Mergers.”
Net net for startups: there are a number of factors that will make it hard to attract investment including six quarters of year of over year declines of total industry revenue and a loss of about half of the analyst community. The fact that investment will be harder to attract means that customers will be more concerned about long term viability and will be even harder to close than they have been historically. The “all you can eat” deals offered by the majors also make it harder to find a foothold unless you are well differentiated. The industry needs to re-think how it will cooperate and how it will compete so that we can start growing the pie again.
The last revolution in EDA was in the 1988-1994 timeframe. Vendors transitioned from selling turnkey systems (e.g. CALMA, Applicon) to workstations (e.g. Mentor, Daisy, Valid) to software (Cadence, Synopsys, Mentor). Customers transitioned from gate level design to RTL based design (e.g. widespread adoption of Verilog, VHDL, and RTL Synthesis).
The last revolution in EDA was led by startups: e.g. SDA, Gateway, Synopsys, Viewlogic. It’s time for another one.
August 10th, 2009
I was on the “Tweet, Blog, or News: How Do I Stay Current?” panel at the 2009 Design Automation Conference. The panel was moderated by Michael Sanie of Maestro International and my fellow panelists were Ron Wilson, Executive Editor EDN Magazine, and John Busco, CAD Design Implementation Manager at NVIDIA. What follows is my notes and impressions:
New media in a variety of forms–on-line, user-generated, social–are affecting more than EDA and Semiconductors. I brought three magazines as props with the following stories on their cover:
This is a wave sweeping into the EDA tide pool. See these blog posts for some background
Michael Sanie asked the audience about their use of various social media tools, asking “how many….”
- Read Blogs – most
- Write Blogs – most
- Use Twitter – about half
- Use Facebook for business – about 1/4
- Use LinkedIn – almost everyone
So it was an early adopter audience. Michael also suggested that they consider using http://search.twitter.com to track recent information on hot topics and trends.
Ron Wilson characterized himself as the representative for “legacy media” who started out in the industry when the two primary vehicles for engineers to get information were print publications and technical conferences. Print media was viewed as a reference resource, with engineers allocating two to three meters of shelf space to technical publications. He felt that they had a “synthetic sense of community from consuming a common set of media.”
John Busco talked about the “fire hose of information” that engineers wanted to sip from as needed. He relies on the traditional print publications as his primary information source, he reads about 25 blogs using the Bloglines RSS reader and he also blogs at John’s Semi-Blog “sharing high quality news and opinions about semiconductors and Electronic Design Automation (EDA).”
I made three opening points
- My use of twitter is non-standard, I borrow brilliance from others by twittering quotes that I believe are relevant to entrepreneurs.
- In preparation for the Blogging Birds of a Feather at last year’s DAC, we counted 60 blogs, which surprised a number of people. After the conference I predicted that we would see 500 by 2011. Which seemed really preposterous to some folks who contacted me. This July we are already at about 220 and on track for 500 by 2011.
- I think individuals in the industry are going to maintain three professional profiles:
- LinkedIn: seems almost mandatory now.
- Blog: for many people who are customer facing.
- Twitter: given it’s rapid adoption in EDA in the last month it seems like micro-blogging will also be popular.
Ron Wilson observed that EDN uses blogs as a rapid publishing tool, to complement print output. He observed that increasing circulation, or what they now call “audience development” requires a brand focus and continuous investment. If you want folks to read your blog you are going to have to have a marketing plan.
John Busco liked to read blogs that have a clear focus and deep domain expertise, citing John Ford’s DFT Digest and Harry Gries’ “Harry the ASIC Guy” as two that were EDA focused. He noted that he really wants a firewall between personal and professional life, using Facebook for personal connections and LinkedIn for professional relationships.”
Michael Sanie enjoyed following Karen Bartleson’s twitter feed, calling her the “Guy Kawasaki of EDA.”
Everyone liked Paul McClellan’s “EDA Graffiti” blog.
I am impressed by the Hacker News model–which is similar to Reddit or Digg-as a way to share, promote, and markup common article and blog links to create a socially constructed news site. It’s a mechanism for shared surveillance on a topic area, in this case entrepreneurship (and other things of interest to hackers). It hasn’t made it’s way to EDA yet but it will.
There was an interesting question from the audience: “How useful is Wikipedia?”
- Ron Wilson: at EDN we decided we couldn’t site it as an authoritative source, but could use it to find authoritative sources.
- John Busco: Wiki model is a great approach to collaboration for project info, FAQ’s, best practices. It’s nice that you don’t have to know HTML to publish.
July 12th, 2009
Ed Lee and I have been talking about the role that bloggers play in the EDA Industry since we put together the Blogging Birds of a Feather at ICCAD in November 2008. In the last week we decided to formalize some of our conversation and blog about it. We wanted to share our current assessment of a complex and evolving situation and invite both comments and further dialog.
From Ed’s perspective, bloggers are a near-unknown entity to the PR people in EDA. Compared to the traditional journalists and publishers, bloggers are perplexing as to their intentions and motives for blogging. What follows is Ed and I ruminating about bloggers and their role in EDA, in light of the gradual disappearance of the old-line journalists, market researchers, and financial analysts covering the industry.
Ed and I have known one another since our VLSI Technology days together in the mid-1980s. He went on to various public relations firms – and worked for EDA clients such as Valid, Mentor, ECAD – and at Cadence before opening his own shop in the early 1990s. Since opening Lee PR, his firm has worked primarily with EDA and IP clients such as Chronologic, Compass, Cooper & Chyan, Epic, IBM EDA, Nassda.
This conversation was originally published in two parts on Ed’s blog “What’s PR Got To Do With It?” with an introduction from his perspective:
I have added hyperlinks to provide more context. Ed and I first talked about some common questions that we have heard from other PR people:
Sean: What’s your perspective on the role blogger community plays in informing potential users about current and new EDA offerings?
Ed: This is the big question. We’re in a period of tumult and transition. The old-line journalists are disappearing and the ones who survive are blogging themselves. What bloggers bring to the EDA industry is perspective and personal opinion that’s informed by their individual focus, interests, and the span of their information gathering. But it seems to me that bloggers are more like newspaper columnists than reporters. Where will the basic reporting come from? What will provide a basis or a context for these bloggers/columnists to wax prolific?
Sean: I see bloggers as more of a blend of columnists and reporters. They often write about product announcements, report their observations and issues. Usually they have a wide set of resources both on-line and in-person. Good blogs take a lot of reading and gathering information. But you are right, good blogging is also good linking and bloggers will link to other bloggers, perhaps who have either firsthand knowledge of events or deep technical knowledge. Because of the links, bloggers are often more transparent on their sources than traditional news sources sometimes are.
Ed: Who are the bloggers? I see them as a mix of indies, those employed by EDA and IP vendors and editors who write for industry publications. As with the industry press, we need to know the specific focus of each blogger. But now, we have a second need to know: who signs their paycheck. The bloggers seem to me to be very transparent on that count. So that helps us understand how to work with a blogger’s area of interest AND consider that blogger’s perspective.
Sean: Most bloggers are industry evangelists. I was surprised at the BoF how many many bloggers had a customer facing role (e.g. marketing or customer support) in their company. Another large segment of bloggers are independent consultants who are looking for more visibility–trying to get better known and find a job. Often blogs are started to provide pointers to other helpful resources, share perspectives, and to learn from others who share a common interest. Some bloggers use their blog as a repository or chronicle of an issue: these can be useful for a community of interest that can leverage proven approaches or explore new ones to solve common problems or issues. Reading about approaches that others have tried is extremely valuable to the community and usually these types of blogs are not written by marketing folks but evangelists or other experts like independent consultants.
Ed: So the next question is: how to work with the bloggers in EDA and IP? One thing I wrestle with is when does it make sense in time and money to reach out to bloggers for coverage. And how to do it effectively. Do we separate the old-line press from the bloggers? Consider them all part of one group? So we invite them all to one meeting or hold two? For sure, we don’t want to blast press releases to bloggers.
Sean: I think it definitely makes sense to reach out to bloggers who are providing a valuable service to a community you are interested in reaching. This doesn’t necessarily mean the blogs with the highest traffic, especially when you have a niche product; it’s blogs that are read by your prospects. One effective way to reach out to bloggers is to leave well written, informative, and germane comments on their blog. You can include a one or two line signature that links back to your website if people are interested in more information. I agree with you: one of the least effective ways to reach bloggers is to send them press releases.
Ed: So how do these independent bloggers monetize their blogs? What are the incentives and potential conflicts?
Sean: I think most bloggers are building social capital and don’t really have a plan to monetize their blog directly. I do think independent bloggers are often promoting their expertise and want to build influence within their network. Employers or current clients are going to bias the blogger at least as far as self-censorship.
Ed: Clearly, the bloggers will play – if they’re not already – an increasingly influential role. But are they a separate and new community onto themselves? After all, they’ve got their own room at DAC this year. So either DAC isn’t giving them press badges or they want to be seen as a separate and distinct community.
Sean: Brian Bailey has an interesting perspective on what the bloggers may become. He wrote an interesting blog post at the end of March on “Unintended Consequences.
“Will the independent EDA consultants, like myself, be the only source of impartial information about what the EDA companies are up to, and if the claims they make are true? But even consultants rely on the trade press to bring things to our attention. It could also mean a lot more work now for us to keep up with the tool introductions and developments.”
By the way, our first conversation got picked up on Twitter. Take a look at what Paul Lindemann wrote on http://twitter.com/plindemann/statuses/2230457756 — “Promising Ed Lee blog on #pr/#eda – post with @skmurphy on “Bloggers in EDA”
Ed: No, I didn’t see that tweet, but thanks for pointing it out. Yeah, that’s my concern. There needs to be basic reporting being done by someone. From that basic reporting, the opinion makers can analyze, comment, criticize, vent. Who’s going to do that basic reporting now? The bloggers? Of course, this dilemma isn’t limited to us. The New York Times is the only newspaper that staffs a full bureau in Iraq. If or when it shuts down, then how do we or any commentators – say on the Huffington Post – get our basic news?
Sean: It may be a matter of function. I agree with you that the basic reporting function may not be the role of the bloggers. However, I agree with Brian Bailey that many good blogs are written by independent consultants. Many of these bloggers blog to promote their expertise. So bloggers don’t blog to provide news, so to speak. For bloggers, their blog content is a way for them to demonstrate their expertise and draw visitors to their site. Just looking at the website traffic for one client, over 30% of the visitors entered on the main blog page, and then more than 80% of blog visitors clicked deeper into the blog or the website pages.
Ed: All well and good, but the question remains: who’s going to report the news, give us context and insight? The vendors can easily distribute all manner of announcements. Will the bloggers pick up the role that Richard Goering used to play at EE Times, and fitfully, at SCDSource? I suspect not. We seem to agree that bloggers are basically columnists, opinion makers for their specific audiences. So they do demonstrate their expertise…but what’s their role in molding industry wide pubic opinion…beyond their specific target audiences?
Sean: So your question may be, are we heading into an era where bloggers will have an increasing role in molding industry opinion? I think Karen Bartleson’s “Standards Game” blog on EDA standards has changed perception of Accellera, and standards efforts in general, as a vital part of our ability to make progress. With her “Ten Commandments of Standards” series I think she has offered some excellent suggestions for how to take part effectively in standards efforts–and how to interpret, by comparison, other developments in the standards arena.
So that’s an anecdote, one data point, I am not sure what it looks like in another two to four years. In the last year we’ve transitioned from about 60 bloggers writing on EDA-related topics to what looks like perhaps 200. A year ago I thought we would get to 500 in three years (2011). Now that may be there next year if this trend continues.
Ed: But of those 200, perhaps a dozen or so are frequent.
Sean: To be honest we are still crunching the numbers. Out of approximately 100 that we have analyzed in some detail, we found at least 50 that posted on average once every two weeks between March and May of this year, and of those 27 who posted once a week on average, and of those about a dozen who posted at least twice a week on average. The final counts may perhaps double in each category. There are about a half dozen “press release aggregation blogs” that merely re-post EDA press releases as blog post, I didn’t include those in my frequency statistics.
Ed: How do we quantify the bloggers’ audience and influence?
Sean: That’s a hard question to answer, the size of audience and influence of each blogger. Most have traffic levels that are in the noise level for tools/websites designed to track mainstream consumer websites.
Ed: Exactly! Example, I was shocked when you said some bloggers got only three comments a month. I simply did not believe you! Until I looked myself. So, any blogger who got three comments a month…Would I be able to sell as an influential opinion maker to client? It’s tough enough to sell the bloggers conceptually right now.
Sean: One calculation that would be useful for your clients would be the posting frequency and amount of original material. Quality of writing is certainly important, as well as expertise. Another model you see in other industries that I don’t yet see in EDA are “link logs” where someone takes the time to find relevant material on other blogs or cites and point it out. Instapundit is certainly one popular example, where probably 75-90% of his content are links and quotes from other blogs but from a very large spectrum of blogs.
Ed: Well, re: frequency, I do see these folks as more or less 1) weekly or more (Bartleson, Goering, McLellan); twice monthly (a lot of them); monthly (Aycinena and several others) and some who haven’t blogged since January.
Sean: But without a “publishing schedule” it’s still useful to assign a frequency.
Ed: I agree re: frequency…but how do we determine eyeballs that see their blogs? I was just saying that that is how I categorize seriousness of blogging intent, since I don’t see statistics on eyeballs. Bartleson is obviously serious. The twice per month folks are also as are the once monthly folks. After that, it gets tough to justify spending client cycles on cultivating them. Having said that, I think its important, maybe imperative that we do so.
Sean: This is a good question. I think it’s complex but doable. The complexity comes from a calculation of incentives. Bloggers don’t have a “news hole” to file in the way that print publication does. Also, I think in the same way that an EDA firm uses application engineers (or technical marketing folks) to support and interact with customers it may make sense to encourage many of them to also start blogging to interact with other “independent” bloggers. That seems to be what Cadence and Mentor have done in the last six months or so, there are dozens of new bloggers at each of those firms posting in their public forums. I also wouldn’t underestimate the impact of open forums like the Verification Guild, where a number of serious technical issues get raised and addressed.
Ed: What’s your take on EDA and IP vendors’ acceptance of bloggers? I think vendors are starting to take note, but there’s still a need to justify the cultivation.
Sean: What’s to justify? Or what’s the alternative?
Ed: I have to justify the influence of each blogger to the client. A blogger with three comments in a month wouldn’t fly because the client would say, not worth my time. Shortsighted? yes. Even the good editors or reporters at second or third tier publications…we tell clients, “ya never know when he or she ends up at Business Week.” Witness Sarah Lacy.
Sean: I think some bloggers with few monthly comments may become more popular…those who have a very serious approach. Comments are not always a proxy for influence. But I do think we will see certain bloggers essentially initiate ad hoc forums with their posts. One of the things that have been holding that back I think has been that the high traffic blogs associated with publications, or what I am assuming are high traffic blogs, have poor comment entry and management systems. McClellan is posting several times a week–I counted more than 60 posts in March, April, and May which works out to daily if you let him take Saturdays and Sundays off–and he normally gets a few comments on many of his entries. But the comment system EDN has is wretched and not designed to encourage participation but to filter spam out. If they would supply his readers with the right infrastructure I think there would be a much larger community there already.
Ed: I know that. But my problem is how to prove that.
Sean: Fair enough. I think it may be something that’s hard to get good numbers on. One of the reasons that you have been able to get good numbers that were independently verified for the publications was that it was at the root of their business model: they used those same numbers to sell advertising. I don’t think we will see that model work except for a handful of bloggers.
Ed: So how do the bloggers get a higher profile among the corporate executives, the ones who authorize marketing cultivation efforts?
Sean: Presence on industry forums and portals such as DAC’s. I can’t figure out how DAC picked the bloggers they highlight on their home page. I think the publications still have huge traffic compared to independent bloggers.
Ed: So how do we get numbers, any numbers? Karen Bartleson’s possibly got the highest number of eyeballs based on her topic and longevity, don’t you think?
Sean: I don’t know what Karen Bartleson’s numbers are. My sense is that Paul McClellan, at least on the “business of EDA” side, may be getting a lot of interest just because he is posting frequently. But when I asked him at the EDP workshop in April in Monterey, he said that EDN doesn’t share any statistics with him. That would be an interesting session, comparing google analytics results.
Ed: So somehow, we need numbers of some sort to figure out influence, and then to justify blogger coverage, right?
Sean: It’s closer to columnist coverage than journalist coverage. I think it’s more important to assess the particular “micro-audience” that a blogger delivers. It could be that group or multi-author blogs will emerge for EDA in the same that they have in other industries. A brand gets established that’s larger than the individual author, in the same way that it matters more that an article appears in EDN than who in particular authors it.
Ed: Agree, more like columnists than reporters. Clients are just now acknowledging that they need to pay attention to bloggers. But they have no problem pitching to a Ron Wilson or a Richard Goering (in his reporter days). Funny thing…the output is often the same. In truth, isn’t the act of blogging just another distribution mechanism? Reporters and editors, analysts and researchers all “blog” now.
Sean: I do think there might be ways to make for more “blogger friendly” interviews/engagements. Maybe it’s somewhat intimidating to vendors because bloggers are part of the unknown right now. However, at some level it’s useful just to point to the independent opinion/evaluation that these blogger bring to the table.
Ed: Still, there’s some legitimacy to figuring out the dynamics of the old-line journalists and the, for lack of a better term, the new line bloggers. It’s like the VHF TV channels..they’ve lost huge numbers. They’re still bigger but the UHF channels have just eaten away at those numbers by the sheer number of new channels out there.
Sean: VHF vs. UHF is a very good analogy.
Ed: So in a way, we have more new choices on UHF but we still watch VHF channels.
Notes
- Ed and I plan to continue this dialog after DAC and include some assessments of what we saw and what we think learned.
- It was energizing to compose a blog as a conversation and I am interested in doing this with other folks, please let me know if you would like to take part in a conversational blog post.
- After we did this I ran across the “Absolute Power” blog that Cary Chin and Darin Hauer also write as a conversation.
- Richard Fernandez wrote in “Left Brain, Right Brain”
“The major drivers of the democratization of the Internet have not been content providing sites like the Huffington Post, nor extensions of traditional PR activities like “accrediting” bloggers, but architecture; architecture which enables content provision. In this year of the Iranian demonstrations the Nobel Peace prize should be awarded to Twitter, Facebook and Blogger. Time magazine should consider them candidates for the Virtual Men of the Year, and put Time Magazine itself on its obituary pages.”
- In a July 10 post entitled “Blogging” Paul McLellan wrote:
“The biggest frustration with blogging like this is that I don’t get much feedback. All sorts of people tell me that they read EDA Graffiti when they meet me. Very few people think to email me or to leave a comment on the blog. Reed has the policy of not letting page-view data outside of the company, and since I’m not an employee I don’t get to see (maybe it’s the same for the internal people outside management, I don’t know). So I don’t know how many people read EDA Graffiti, and I don’t know what type of people read EDA Graffiti. I don’t know which entries get read the most and which get nearly ignored.”
Update July 22: There have been several blog posts about the changing media landscape.
- Paul McClellan’s July 22 “Who are the EDA Press“ reinforces the value of press/journalists as a sense making mechanism (e.g. what’s really happening, what are the trends and the deeper significance of an event) for an industry in addition to helping its members maintain a shared situational awareness (i.e. “what’s new”)
- “I’ve been approached by several PR agencies and marketing folk about product announcements, interviews and so on. Individual product announcements are not interesting to me, and I’m assuming you readers wouldn’t want to wade through them all anyway. There are other places for that. But product announcements in aggregate are interesting: What are the new trends? Which new areas are hot? Which new startups are interesting in those areas? What hard problems are getting cracked?“
- “Remember Bill Joy’s law: no matter where you are, the smartest people are somewhere else. You just don’t know what is going to turn out to be important, so you need to look at it all. But it is increasingly difficult to immerse yourself in the stream of raw information that might allow you to spot something. In it’s heyday, when both Richard Goering and Mike Santarini and more were there, not much happened in EDA that you’d miss if you read EEtimes each week. Now, not so much. That’s one reason that, for the time being, I think DAC remains strong. It’s the only place for that kind of serendipity.”
- Paul’s post also pointed to a September 2007 article by Peggy Aycinena “The Future of EDA Media“
- John Blyler put out two back to back posts
I think Clay Shirky’s July 13 “It’s not An Upgrade It’s an Upheaval” offers a useful context. He opens with
“The hard truth about the future of journalism is that nobody knows for sure what will happen; the current system is so brittle, and the alternatives are so speculative, that there’s no hope for a simple and orderly transition from State A to State B. Chaos is our lot; the best we can do is identify the various forces at work shaping various possible futures.”
The reason why I am engaged by this topic is that I believe that the fundamental challenge is an entrepreneurial one: we need new business models to support our shared awareness and sense making at both an industry and societal level. I think until you frame the problem in that context, a nostalgic discussion of what’s been lost is really just reminiscing. Shirky’s conclusions are equally pointed:
“Journalism is not a profession — no degree or certification is required to practice it, and training often comes after hiring — and it is increasingly being transformed into an activity, open to all, sometimes done well, sometimes badly, but at a volume that simply cannot be supported by a small group of full-time workers. The journalistic models that will excel in the next few years will rely on new forms of creation, some of which will be done by professionals, some by amateurs, some by crowds, and some by machines.
This will not replace the older forms journalism, but then nothing else will either; both preservation and simple replacement are off the table. The change we’re living through isn’t an upgrade, it’s a upheaval, and it will be decades before anyone can really sort out the value of what’s been lost versus what’s been gained. In the meantime, the changes in self-assembling publics and new models of subsidy will drive journalistic experimentation in ways that surprise us all.”
I suggested that the “