Jennifer LeClaire, a well-respected reporter for The NewsFactor Network who has worked in the past for the AP and the New York Times, and who is a web analytics author herself, picked up the news about the Web Analytics Demystified/Aquent partnership on her site AnalyticsInsider.

Regarding the partnership, LeClaire has this to say:

“Eric is on to something here. I knew it would only be a matter of days after leaving Visual Sciences that he would strike a partnership of some sort, but I didn’t see this one coming. This is brilliant, what with the online job search space growing and talent crunches making it more difficult for recruiters to find superstar employees becoming a long-term reality in many industries.”

I have a tremendous amount of respect for Jennifer and her knowledge of the sector as a reporter is top-notch so this compliment hits home.  When the folks at Aquent first approached me about the idea I had the same response Jennifer did — there are far too many companies struggling to get appropriate staff in-house and up-and-running for our industry to really take off in the direction it needs to go (in my humble opinon.)

I view the opportunity to work with Aquent as a big step towards correcting the problem.  Our combined clients will get the benefit of working with two industry leaders to build out their internal web analytics expertise.

Thanks for the nod, Jennifer.

On Thursday I was extremely happy to announce Web Analytics Demystified’s first partnership.  We are officially teaming up with Aquent, the world’s largest marketing staffing firm, to provide an innovative “strategy plus staffing” offering built around my experience in the field.
Aquent is an amazing company and were the sponsors for my AMA webcast back in March that was the largest such event in AMA history.

Aquent and Web Analytics Demystified will be working together to provide end-to-end strategic web analytics consulting services.  Web Analytics Demystified is focused on providing strategic guidance covering the process of “doing” web analytics successfully; Aquent has the proven ability to place great consultants who can then be converted to full-time employees.

This combined offering is GREAT because it allows me to stay well-connected to client organizations as their understanding and use of web analytics processes matures, kind of like having Eric T. Peterson as a senior member of your staff helping provide direction as necessary.  The partnership allows Web Analytics Demystified to scale more efficiently while helping a significantly greater number of clients than I could otherwise.

Oh, this partnership also allows me to work more closely with Nina Eigerman, a member of Web Analytics Demystified’s Board of Advisors, who has been a huge help to me personally as I’ve put the company together (thanks Nina!)  I’m hoping someday Nina will introduce me to her friend shown in this picture.

If you have any questions about how the Web Analytics Demystified/Aquent partnership could benefit your organization, especially if you’re looking to ramp up your analytics expertise and staffing, please don’t hesitate to email me or call me directly at (503) 282-2601.

Read the Aquent/Web Analytics Demystified partnership announcement.

Phew, what a week last week was … thanks again to everyone who has been so encouraging about my starting Web Analytics Demystified.  I realize in the midst of getting everything up and running that my blogging has been somewhat spotty (and perhaps boring if you’re not interested in the feedback I’ve been getting about the company, sorry about that!)

In an effort to get back on track, I wanted to let all of you know about a free white paper I published on the “how” of doing web analytics successfully.  Many of you have seen or downloaded my PowerPoint from last October’s Emetrics Summit on the subject but I finally had the time to write something more formal.

If you’re interested, you can get this and all of the documents I am now making freely available from this page on my site: http://www.webanalyticsdemystified.com/wp

I hope to build a feed for my White Papers and Presentations list since I have a bunch of documents and data queued up.  Until then, check back frequently as I’ll be pushing up reports, data, and presentations that I will be giving around the globe.

As usual, I welcome your feedback on my work.

If you live in Manhattan and have been thinking about getting your hands on Visual Sciences technology, the nice folks at the CondeNet division of Conde Nast Publications would love to talk to you. The Web Analytics Systems Analyst position will report to the Senior Manager of Internet Applications and CondeNet is looking for a jack-of-all-trades.

While I usually help companies find good old-fashioned analysts and analyst managers, this position is definitely more technical. Conde needs someone with web analytics knowledge but also experience in shell scripting, Ruby on Rails, and export and integration processes. Part of what CondeNet is doing is exporting data from the Visual Sciences environment into a customized internal data portal, and this position will have an opportunity to build out that environment.

In addition to the technical piece, there will be an opportunity to do analysis directly with the marketing organization. When I talked to the folks at CondeNet they had an excellent example of how this position helped solve a critical business problem regarding a significant change in one of the companies tracked key performance indicators.

The HR person I talked to said they were definitely open to talking to people without direct Visual Sciences experience, and they were happy to send the successful new hire to relevant training courses offered by Visual Sciences. This alone is huge for anyone wishing they had access to the kind of technology I’ve talked about from time to time in this blog. Trust me: It’s not everyday someone says they’ll pay you to learn how to manage Visual Site, much less pay you handsomely to do so.

Did I say “pay handsomely”?! Yep, the salary is VERY COMPETITIVE and they report a strongly held belief in work-life balance that is sometimes missing out there.

Interested? Check out the posting on my premium job board and apply today!

I am blown away by the coverage of my announcement that I’ve left Visual Sciences to form my own company. I’m so behind on thanking people who have written about the news I wanted to summarize their thoughts and thank everyone en masse.

• E-consultancy in the UK wishes me luck and says that my decision to help companies understand the process of doing web analytics is “bang on” which I’m pretty sure is a compliment. Thanks to Richard Maven for reaching out to me after the press release and I look forward to hopefully meeting the e-consultancy crew when I fly to Europe later this month.
• Gary Angel from SEMphonic is a good friend but I was still humbled by his declaration that my announcement was “the biggest news out of Emetrics” Gary says that “[Eric is] consistently thoughtful. His opinions are rooted in real-world work. And see seems remarkably able to deal with web analytics at every level very successfully: from introducing web analytics to marketers to working hands-on with real analysts to helping senior executives get a handle on web measurement process. When you can do that and not get on the nerves of people like me, you’re doing something pretty special.” Coming from someone I respect as much as Gary this means a huge amount to me.
• The bloggers at FutureNow congratulate me on not being afraid to “ask bigger questions“
• My good friend Judah Phillips (who blogs here at Web Analytics Demystified) says I have achieved self-actualization. Judah also bought me dinner on Tuesday night after I had been celebrating for several hours over vodka drinks so thanks to both Judah and his fiance.
• Jacques Warren, who also recently left the comfort of his day job to become a consultant in Canada and who clearly read the copy on my web site and understands what I’m doing. Jacques comments “Do you realize? This guy is going to make a living telling companies how to organize Web Analytics” to which I can only say, “Yes.”
• Anil Batra, who looks nothing like that lousy little picture of him on his blog, had an inkling of my intentions but was surprised by the timing. Thanks for the encouragement, Anil!
• My good friend René Dechamps Otamendi from Belgium who has a good summary of my business model and who captured an interesting photo of my singing happy birthday to Aurelie Pols (his wife, and a member of my company’s advisory board.) I consider Rene and Aurelie two of the nicest people I know and am excited about the opportunity to work more closely with them in the future.
• Sebastian Wenzel at Web Analytics Book wishes me luck and speculates that I’ll be plenty busy soon.
• Marshall Sponder says he’s listening to me when I give him advice, which is good to hear, since he’s now on a WAA board with $250,000 in cash burning a hole in their pocket. Hey Marshall, you should buy a copy of my book for everyone in the organization. ;-)

Phew. And that’s just what I culled out of my feeds this morning. I sincerely want to thank all of the bloggers I mention here and anyone I forgot. I’m hugely excited about having the freedom to explore other ways I can help the web analytics and broader business community and hope all of you will keep reading this blog and provide feedback as you think I need it.