As I said in my last blog post, we're looking for feedback on the questions we're asking about thought leadership in the technology industry. At the same time, we realized that it has been a while since we held an open house in Forrester's Foster City office. (If you're not aware, we did a few informal sessions for product managers and product marketers, to give people in that role an opportunity to talk amongst themselves about topics of interest, sprinkled with whatever useful information an analyst like myself can provide.) Suddenly, a spark leaped across the two neurons carrying these separate ideas.

Aha! Let's have another informal discussion for PMs, this time on thought leadership. We'll follow the same format, with the analyst, Yours Truly, moderating the discussion, instead of inflicting yet another PowerPoint on the participants. The format includes enough time to just chat, network, mindmeld, whatever, with your peers, outside of the moderated discussion. The only difference is, this time, we'll spend part of the time talking about where we're going with this research project, asking for your feedback on the interview guide, and generally discussing the Holy Grail of thought leadership. Do those who talk about it the most, get it the least? You decide.

If either part of that sounds interesting to you – meeting some of your product management and product marketing peers, discussing thought leadership – we're planning on holding an open house next Thursday, August 26, at 5 PM PDT in the Foster City office. Consider this a miniature unconference, like the Product Camps that have sprouted around the country, but only for an hour and a half, with one topic for discussion. We'll take notes, to be added to the official discussion thread about the interview guide.

Just to get a sense of the level of interest, please drop teammate Eric Hsieh (ehsieh@forrester.com) an email if you're thinking about attending. You don't really need to – you're just as welcome to show up unannounced. It's just helpful to get a read in advance of who might be coming. The Forrester office is at 950 Tower Lane in Foster City, on the 12th floor (see map to the right). We'll be in the training room, which is to the right as you walk into our office.