Reality Check: What does Gartner really DO?

The one thing that I'll never understand is why these consultant firms never seem to have problems maintaining clients, even when they are so frequently flat out wrong.

> ...even when they are so frequently flat out wrong.

To paraphrase an old saying: No one ever got fired for listening to Gartner.

The service they provide is called CYA. That's something which will never go out of demand among company executives.

First, let me apologise for the sweeping generalisations that are about to follow.

There seems to be a common flaw among a lot of professions that require analytical thinking. These be things like medicine, science, etc.

It's like this - You have a small percentage of people in that given profession doing actual critical / analytical thinking, and a rather large portion that only spew out what the current popular opinion is.

It's shocking how many psychiatrists diagnose kids with ADD, when it's basically just poorly disciplined children with parents unable to command respect. But hey, ADD is popular these days, the pharmacuetical company sponsored journals say that it's the popular thing, so let's just prescribe some Ritalin.

I think Gartner is the same. Often their "analysis" will just be a regurgetation of what they think the popular opinion is.

rant over

@jacog

So what you mean when you say "it's basically just poorly disciplined children with parents unable to command respect" is that there's no such thing as ADHD?

> So what you mean ... is that there's no such thing as ADHD?

Well, it seemed clear to me that he was saying that ADD was massively over diagnosed, not that it didn't exist.

Not the best of analogies, methinks.

I also took his meaning to be that ADD was over diagnosed, not that it didn't exist.

Mis-diagnosing a child and then consequently mis-treating them (sometimes with psycho active drugs) poses a threat to the mis-diagnosed child, but it also affects the children who truly have the disorder.

The numbers in studies can be skewed by the inclusion of the mis-diagnosed. Promising treatments could be abandoned due to skewed results. If mis-diagnosed children have bad side affects from treatments, those treatments might no longer be available for those who need it.

I sure hope that no doctor ever thought "Oh well, what harm can it do?"

I don't know, Steven. I think the image of Gartner as the corporate Ritalin pusher is pretty good.

Yep, what they said. And the jist of my post was that I don't think there is as much critical/analytical thinking in jobs that require critical/analytical thinking as there should be. Too many following the crowd like sheep. (and I also did not mean that all incorrectly diagnosed ADD is necessarily bad parenting - that was just rant-speak)

EDIT: Oh hey, someone agrees on the ADD thing, yay: http://www.cnn.com/HEALTH/9909/01/adhd.overdiagnosis/ http://www.associatedcontent.com/article/128523/attention_de... http://www-cgi.cnn.com/TRANSCRIPTS/0203/15/ltm.01.html

EDIT2: But none of this has anything to do with Linux. I guess I have a short attention span. Perhaps I can visit the doctor about that.

Quoting:I guess I have a short attention span. Perhaps I can visit the doctor about that.

Yeah, better get yourself some pills before you get into trouble by doing something rash...like coding a new foss project on a whim.....