World Tour Day Two: Stockolm, Sweden

I just got back from the special Web Analytics Wednesday event in Stockholm, Sweden and wanted to post some thoughts and a few of the pictures I took.

When I first founded Web Analytics Wednesday I wasn’t really sure what to expect. Like I’ve posted in the past, I started the event simply because it seemed like a really good idea — not to make money, not even necessarily to sell books, really just to bring the entire web analytics community together.

Now that I’ve seen what Lars Johanssen with help from IndexTools, WebTrends, and Omniture have built here in Sweden I have to say I am completely blown away!

Lars, with the help of his sponsors providing some food, some drink, and a nice place to gather and present, manages to draw the largest Web Analytics Wednesday group in the entire world almost every single time they get together. And while Lars does this for the betterment of the Web Analytics Association, when he asked the group, less than half of the 70 or so attendees were even WAA members! Lars has tapped into a rich community of very interesting (and interested) business people, all of whom appear quite passionate about learning more about web analytics.

It would be great if more cities around the world could reach out, get sponsors, plan activities, and really push to make their local Web Analytics Wednesday events something that people are excited to attend. I’ll ask Lars next time we talk, but I suspect it doesn’t really take that much effort on the part of the local organizer!

Let me ask you this: What would make you personally more willing to host, sponsor, or attend a local Web Analytics Wednesday event? Is it more support, more recognition, more formal education, or simply more free food and drink? Please leave me your thoughts in the comments or email them to me directly and I’ll summarize later this week (from Holland or Belgium!)

After seeing what Lars has put together, I am personally more motivated than ever to help the entire web analytics community benefit from Web Analytics Wednesday, regardless of your affiliation, location, or motivation! Please do let me know!

Okay, here are the pictures from Day Two of my web analytics world tour …

About half of the attendees, including Mr. Fulton Yancy from Visual Sciences (front left) and Lars Johansson waving in the back (red blob, sorry about the pictures this time!) I’m not entirely sure why Fulton didn’t join the panel and why Visual Sciences declined to sponsor this event despite generous funding from WebTrends, Omniture, and IndexTools.

Google’s Dr. Brian Clifton (left), who flew in from London for the event and three unnamed Swedes.

The vendor and consultant panel. From the left, Dennis Mortenson of IndexTools, Steve Jackson from Satama, the guy from Omniture whose name I cannot begin to pronounce, Ian Tickle from Webtrends, and Per Strid of Sweden (not on the panel.)

Ian Tickle and Per Strid. I had heard a great deal about Mr. Tickle but had never met him. He turned out to be incredibly nice, thoughtful, and polite. He actually even cited an Omniture TouchClarity case study when an audience member asked about the value of optimization technology!

Anyway, despite having had almost no sleep since I got to Europe, and it being 3 AM as I finish this post, everyone seemed to enjoy my “web Analytics is Easy” presentation and I heard several people talking about the Web Analytics Demystified RAMP over beers. Thanks again to Lars Johansson for inviting me to Sweden and further motivating me to help foster WAW events around the globe!!!

Posted Tuesday, September 11th, 2007 | 10 responses | Add a Comment | Share, Save or Email

Lars

Wow, that was quick! I am confident I speak for all participants when I say that your presentation was brilliant — it had passion, energy and a creative approach. It’s going to be hard to top it. I will get you some additional photos and video clips later.

The secret (psssst!) to organizing a successful Web Analytics Wednesday (or Tuesday!) is to understand that it’s simply not enough to add an event to an event calendar. It’s all about reaching out. Use social media, talk to businesses and people you meet. Organizers have to engage beyond an evening, that’s the key! I’ve taken the opportunity to ask companies if they have a web analyst and told them that he/she is invited to the event.

Lars

I have an idea for a catchy tag line for our next WAW:

“The Return of The Red Blob”

;-)

The Blackbeak Blog…. Arr! Web Analytics » Blog Archive » Web Analytics Tuesday in Finland and Sweden proves that Web Analytics is hard!

[...] Allow me to explain. As a consultant I want to meet the people having problems with web analytics and try to help them. Lars has gathered some of those people and helped ignite their enthusiasm. Rarely have I seen a bunch of business people so engaged, active and interested in the subject of web analytics. In fact if it weren’t for eMetrics Summit’s I would say “Never have I seen a bunch of business people so engaged, active and interested in the subject of web analytics”. It is a testament to the event that when I asked Eric what he thought, he used words like “very proud his idea had turned into something like this” and posted things like “I was blown away” on his blog. [...]

Pelle Strid

Just wanted to thank you Eric for joining us in Stockholm! Your presentation was very encouraging and inspiring. Hopefully your appearance will work as a wake up call here. Also a big thanks to Lars for his endurance in bringing you here, and of course the sponsors for supplying the goodies!

eric

Lars: Thanks for the great feedback and for sharing your secret to success for Web Analytics Wednesday! You’re the best “red blob” in all of Northern Europe ;-)

Pelle: Thanks for your comment. I too hope that the message about Web Analytics Demystified’s RAMP and the fact that WEB ANALYTICS IS HARD will spread far and wide. Listen for the response in Rotterdam tomorrow (eDay) and Brussels on Friday (Web Analytics Day)

Elias Kai

Thanks for bringing up Mobile Analytics issue and cookie problems with social networking sites.
It was a very passionate and oriented Web analytics lecture.
Sorry Eric, I will go now to RAMP.

Elias Kai.

Petri Mertanen

We would host or sponsor a WAW event in Finland for many same reasons why I started my own blog. At the moment we want to raise awareness of our customers, so they would get better payback for their web investments in the long run. Recognition will come after professional web analytics work and good results. And that’s why I love being in this field.

eric

Elias: Absolutely! Watch my blog for more about “Web 3.0″ in the future and thanks again for your comments! RAMP up!

Petri: Hopefully I will be able to join your WAW event in Finland sometime next year! I love the field too!

Web Analytics Demystified » Blog Archive » Example uses of the visitor engagement metric

[...] traffic coming from each geographic location, and as I think about localizing my books and planning future trips around the world this information becomes very [...]

VisualRevenue | Web Analytics Wednesday – Stockholm (Sep. 2007)

[...] World Tour Day Two: Stockholm, Sweden. (Eric Peterson) [...]

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