Guest View is an insightful, thought-provoking opinion essay expressed by an individual, presenting a viewpoint relevant to our readers and to the industry.

Guest View essays may be submitted by any reader -– consultant, analyst or IT manager. The opinions must be non-commercial; that is, they do not promote the products, services and technologies that your company offers.

A Guest View is not a how-to feature article. It's also not an industry overview, white paper, case study, news report, backgrounder, interview, product announcement, buyers' guide, glossary or tutorial. It's an opinion.

Write a Guest View to question the importance of a new technology or standard. Present ideas for helping IT operations teams become more productive. Tell us something we don't know. Make a point that readers may not have considered, or that isn’t often expressed. Don’t be afraid to challenge widely held beliefs.

Readers might agree or disagree with your position. That’s good. What's important is that readers find your arguments fresh, new, thought provoking, well-articulated and relevant to their role within the IT department. If nobody is going to disagree with your point... then there's no need to make it.


Submitting Guest Views

If you have an idea for a Guest View essay, please send an e-mail to the Editor, P.J. Connolly, at pjconnolly@bzmedia.com, briefly explaining the topic and your take on it. Also, explain how you propose to structure your discussion. Nothing fancy needed here: a few sentences or a short outline will suffice.

We will write back either to encourage you to proceed, or to offer suggestions for changing your approach, to more closely meet the needs of our readers. Feel free to work with us until you feel comfortable with the proposal.

A finished Guest View essay should be between 1,000 to 1,200 words in length. Do not submit pieces outside that range. Write in a conversational tone, as if you were giving a talk to your peers. Avoid an academic style and the passive voice. Guest Views do not include illustrations, tables, graphics or footnotes. We do not like bulleted or numbered lists.

When the essay is complete, send it to the Editor, P.J. Connolly, at pjconnolly@bzmedia.com. Be sure to include a publication-quality digital photograph of yourself and a brief bio describing who you are and what you do; the guidelines for submitting graphical files can be found here.

The editors reserve the right to reject essays that they perceive to be overtly or subtly commercial in nature. We may also reject essays that aren't relevant to the newspaper's mission and audience, as well as those that we sincerely believe aren't interesting or thought-provoking.

We reserve the right to edit Guest View submissions for length, clarity and style. This may include excising any material that we judge to be promotional.


Contact the Editor, P.J. Connolly, at pjconnolly@bzmedia.com with questions and submissions.