Archive for 'ACCELERATE'

If you follow me you know I’m a huge fan of digital measurement, analysis, and optimization. I’ve written books about it, I’ve given talks about it all over the world, and for the last five years I have been building a rapidly growing company around it. The Web Analytics Demystified brand, at least according to Google, has become more or less synonymous with the subject, and for that my partners and I are grateful.

What you may not know is that I’m also a huge fan of basketball.

This time of the year, when the NBA playoffs are in full swing, is my favorite time of the year. Spring is coming in Oregon, summer vacation is approaching for my kids, and some of the greatest athletes in the world are hammer the boards and performing acts of acrobatic magic, all in an effort to get to the next round.

During last year’s playoffs I started thinking about how similar digital analytics is to basketball and running a championship NBA franchise. Both require great owners, leaders, and coaches. Both depend heavily on star talent. And both have the potential to become transformative for businesses, shareholders, and customers.

A few months back I went with that theme and put together a short presentation. I had the pleasure of giving that presentation at our recent ACCELERATE conference, and I have embedded it below for your viewing pleasure. It’s only about 20 minutes long, so just in case you’re not a fan of the Chicago Bulls and Michael Jordan, well, you only have to listen to me extol their greatness for 20 minutes …

If you agree with me and think that analytics is a lot like basketball, but if you struggle in your company to meet some of the criteria I outlined, go ahead and give me a call. I’m always happy to talk about analytics and basketball, and who knows, maybe my company can help yours!

By the way, we just published all of the ACCELERATE 2012 Chicago videos for your viewing pleasure. If you’re interested in how ACCELERATE is different go ahead and watch a few. If you like what you see, sign up to join us on October 24th in Boston (it’s free!)

On Tuesday at the Emetrics Summit the Web Analytics Association membership awarded Web Analytics Demystified a 2012 Award for Excellence and dubbed us the “Most Influential Agency” in the digital measurement sector. We are incredibly honored by the award but there are a few folks I forgot to thank at the event that Adam, Brian, John, and I wanted to recognize:

• Our wives and families, without whom we would not be able to do the work we do
• Our clients, whose continued support keeps us participating in some amazing analytics around the world
• Our partners, including Keystone Solutions, IQ Workforce, and eClerx, whose own leadership makes our work better
• Our sponsors for Web Analytics Wednesday, Analysis Exchange, and ACCELERATE allow us to expand our footprint
• Our friends throughout the digital measurement, analysis, and optimization community around the world, especially April Wilson who wrote a really nice nomination letter for us

While Web Analytics Demystified can be a facilitator and catalyst for great events, experiences, and engagements, we are only successful because we get such incredible help and support from the community. From each of us to all of you, thank you!

Continuing our long-standing efforts to support the broader digital measurement, analysis, and optimization community around the globe, I am incredibly happy to announce the creation of the Analysis Exchange Scholarship Fund. You can read the press release and learn more about the effort at the Analysis Exchange web site, but in an nutshell thanks to the generosity of ObservePoint and IQ Workforce we are now able to financially support Analysis Exchange member’s in their efforts to expand their web analytics horizons.

What’s more, as soon as Jim Sterne heard about our efforts, he and Matthew Finlay immediately donated three passes to the eMetrics Marketing Optimization Summit each year — how amazing is that! Tremendous thanks to Corry Prohens, Rob Seolas, Jim Sterne, and each of their teams for their support of our efforts at the Analysis Exchange.

Analysis Exchange members in good standing are encouraged to apply for scholarship funds. We are open to ideas but in general expect these funds to be used for things like:

• Pay partial travel or registration fees for conferences like ACCELERATE and eMetrics
• Pay annual membership fees for the Web Analytics Association or other professional groups
• Pay partial tuition to the University of British Columbia’s Web Analytics courses
• Pay partial costs for the Web Analytics Association’s certification
• Pay for books, software licenses, and so on

Quarterly awards will be up to $500 USD per selected applicant and I imagine we will give two or three away each quarter depending on the quality of applications we get. You need to be a member of Analysis Exchange in good standing and have earned very good scores on projects to be eligible.

I hope you’ll take a minute to learn more about the Analysis Exchange Scholarship. I also hope you’ve been helping in the Analysis Exchange and you’re excited to apply for this funding!

If you have any questions about these funds please don’t hesitate to reach out to our Executive Director Wendy Greco directly. I am also happy to answer questions.

Thanks

Happy New Year everyone! I hope you had a relaxing and joyous Holiday season and are as excited as I am about what the coming year has in store. While I’m not much for making predictions I am a big fan of making resolutions, both personal and professional. Here are five high-level resolutions that Adam, John, and I have made for 2012:

We resolve to continue to provide great value to our clients.

A consulting business like ours is only as good as the value we provide on an ongoing basis. To that end, all of us are committed to working closely with all of our clients to ensure we deliver business insights and recommendations designed to make our key stakeholders look like heroes within their organizations. While we are intensely proud of the work our client Best Buy has done to become more analytically-minded, we want all of our clients to appreciate the same type of high-visibility wins.

We resolve to have Demystified to evolve with our industry.

You don’t need to be an analyst to see that the “web analytics” industry is changing. Increasingly the work our clients do is less about the “web” and more about the entire digital world, and the people, process, and technology required to analyze and optimize the digital world are different than those we have used in the past. We started thinking about this transformation back in 2009, but at Web Analytics Demystified we are committed to adding resources and knowledge to be the best guides possible as our clients begin to leverage digital business intelligence and data sciences.

We resolve to continue to provide great support to the measurement community.

Web Analytics Demystified is fortunate to be more than just a consultancy, we are part of the foundation of the entire digital measurement community around the world. Through our Web Analytics Wednesday event series, our Analysis Exchange educational efforts, our support for the Web Analytics Association, and now our ACCELERATE conference series we are able to connect with analysts around the world. In 2012 we resolve to do more for the community — watch our web site for news in the coming weeks about all of these efforts.

We resolve to provide more web analytics education in 2012 than ever before.

Our educational effort, Analysis Exchange, has succeeded beyond expectation since it’s inception in 2010, thanks largely to the efforts of Executive Director Wendy Greco. With nearly 1,700 members and nearly 200 completed projects, the Exchange has become the de facto source for hands-on web analytics education. But we believe we have found a way to do even more with the Exchange in 2012, creating more projects and opportunities for any individual motivated to break into this industry.

We resolve to make ACCELERATE the best small digital measurement conference in the world.

In 2011 we tried something new with the ACCELERATE conference. While mistakes were made, and an awful lot of nice people weren’t able to join us due to demand, we believe we are converging on an innovative conference format that will continue to be 100% free to attend. But we promise to not just stop when we find something that works — we are resolved to push ACCELERATE to be the most engaging, most fun, and most valuable small event in the industry.

How about you? What are you resolved to do in 2012?

Just a quick note at the end of the Thanksgiving holiday to encourage those of you who are still using Google+ to go and circle our new brand page for Web Analytics Demystified:

Circle Web Analytics Demystified in Google+

We have been sharing lots of information about our recent ACCELERATE conference in San Francisco. Moving forward we hope to share more “quick takes” and multimedia content in Google+ as well as hosting Hangouts with greater and greater regularity to discuss the key topics of the day.

Anyway, I hope if you’re in the U.S. you had a relaxing Thanksgiving and if you’re elsewhere in the world you enjoyed the quiet that happens when the U.S. goes offline.