Since the formation of the Office of the Ombudsman, Larry and I have fielded many questions from vendors, users and Gartner associates. The first one we hear is, "What's an ombudsman?"

In journalism, the ombudsman is the "voice of the reader." In government, he or she serves as the process and policy police . In both cases, the focus is on protecting integrity, expecting ethical behavior and having an objective eye. At Gartner, the ombudsman is all of these.

We established the Office of the Ombudsman in the fall of 2004 so you would have a place to share your concerns with us about the independence, objectivity or accuracy of our research. Since then, we've gotten hundreds of inquiries and feedback. A few typical questions that cross our desks: Why is my "dot" so low on the Magic Quadrant? Why did your analysts not accept my Vendor Briefing invitation? How come my competitor "gets away" with posting out-of-context material on their Web site?

All good questions. We'll tackle these -- and more -- right here. We encourage your comments and we're looking forward to some lively discussions.

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May I say I'm just a bit 'disappointed'. It's not that I don't appreciate the creation of and investment in the role, it's that I was really hoping when I saw the term that Gartner was finally going to give their clients the best advice they could. To create both a role and a new dimension of organizational design to address just these types of activities.

Organizational design emerged/evolved through the mechanized manufacturing era. As product focus was subsumed with service activities, business principles did not keep up. The fundamental existence of any organization is dependent on its relationships with people. Businesses are effectively leaches to these relationships.

Something so fundamental to existence and yet there is no direct executive authority (read: money) to support such activities. Human factors have fundamental bodies of knowledge that apply to any relationship, whether it is with customers, employees, suppliers, et.al.

In constantly telling this story of a glaring 'potential gap' over and over again, the term that I rely on most often to help build understanding is 'ombudsman'.

The 'gap' is negatively impacting companies. I recently interviewed with a telecom company. An existing role in Marketing was hoped to be 'broadened' to take on some of these responsibilities. The problem was that the role had existing 'marketing operational' activities that would prevent them from being taken seriously or being 'allowed' by structure to branch out. I tried to pitch the 'larger' role to the CIO (who just happened to be a former boss of mine), he quickly replied that the business would never support the role -- in this case it was simply a role to take on maintaining the overall health of the online channels (public-facing Web site and the intranet -- both being 'maintained' but not managed/developed) -- critical touchpoints with key relationships.

Those businesses that step up to this opportunity will gain critical 'tipping point' advantages.

"Ombudsmand" is a danish word.

You can read about his role in the danish government here:
http://www.ombudsmanden.dk/...

Thanks :)

Read our FAQ for Gartner's ombudsman responsibilities, as they are modeled after those of the news industry and do vary from the original definition. (See http://www.gartner.com/it/a... .)