In the run-run to its 2018 Cool and Hot Vendor Forum on October 18 in Orlando, Florida, the Gartner Observatory is developing case studies to spotlight the most impactful, innovating and intriguing firms we have spoken to, out of hundreds of Cool Vendor designation holders who have taken part in our research. In this case study, our communications director Suwen Chen outline the process for winning the designation, and what the outcomes were.

1. THEY OFFER AN INNOVATIVE
SOLUTION TO SOLVE CONTENT
CHAOS: "INSTEAD OF STORING
CONTENT IN FILES, ACTIVEWRITE
CONVERTS THE CONTENT INTO
LOGICAL DATA COMPONENTS, SUCH
AS PARAGRAPHS, HEADINGS,
TABLES, CHARTS, AND LISTS."
WINNING THE CV
"It was quite an honour for us."
They did a demo on the product with Gartner, which
impressed Gartner's people so much that they got
nominated as a CV.
They became a Cool Vendor 17 month after writing the
idea on paper."
USING THE CV
They have the CV-badge and the CV-report on their
website, as well as the CV Logo in the email.
The President at ActiveWrite, Vernon Kennedy has it on his
business card.
It helps to raise internal morale.
ANALYST RELATIONSHIP
MORE DETAILS ON COOL VENDOR FORUM 2018:
HTTP://WWW.GARTNEROBSERVATORY.ORG/
GARTNER OBSERVATORY, A UEBS RESEARCH PROJECT
One of the co-founders collected opinions from as many
analysts as possible about their product idea to get critical
and constructive feedback from them.
They have regular calls with analysts and have probably
spoken with 20 Gartner analysts multiple times. Over a four
or five month period they had three or four analysts calls a
week.
Further, they meet analysts at events such as symposiums.
"Building long-term relationships with people is the key. Our
Gartner representative is absolutely fantastic!"
Some analysts approached them proactively and introduced
them to people in the industry that would be important to
the success of their company.
Because of a temporal bottleneck, ActiveWrite has not
reached out to other research firms than Gartner yet.
COOL VENDOR IN CONTENT
SERVICES, 2017