Archive for 'Interviews'

In 2007 when Eric Enge asked Google’s Avinash Kaushik about me I was humbled when Avinash responded, “You know that Eric is obviously a leader in the industry. We are all following the trail that Eric has blazed. He is just an awesome guy and a really great thinker.”  But while I appreciate the sentiment, I think that Avinash got one part of this wrong: We are all following the trail that Jim Sterne blazed.

Jim, for the three of you who don’t know him already, is an accomplished author, an internationally known public speaker, the founder of the hand’s-down most popular conference on web analytics and marketing optimization, and a co-founder of the Web Analytics Association.  And did I mention that he is without a doubt the nicest guy in the entire industry.

Yep.

Jim is one of my personal heroes and he has had a greater influence on my career than anyone I know.  Jim was among the first to learn I was leaving Visual Sciences for greener pastures and has provided me invaluable advice over the past year.  So imagine my glee when, after his inviting me to participate in his conference for six years, I was finally able to repay the favor by inviting Jim to join us at the 2008 X Change conference in San Francisco!

He accepted.  Ecstasy!

In preparation for the X Change event I have been interviewing some of the great people who will be joining us.  While those interviews are being shared with other bloggers, I decided to keep the Jim Sterne interview all to myself.  Read on and learn a little more about “the Godfather of Web Analytics” …

EP: For the three people who ** don’t ** know you, tell me a little about yourself and how you got involved in the web analytics industry?

JS: My first life was in sales – business computers to companies that had never used one before. This was pre-PC and they were expensive, confusing, and confounding. It was great fun explaining to people just what they could accomplish with one. I love watching people’s eyes light up. That led to a life in marketing – software development tools mostly. Print ads, brochures, trade show booths, direct mail. That was pre-PowerPoint so we produced overhead transparencies on a copy machine.

In 1993 I saw my first website (Sun Microsystems) and got wildly excited. I kept asking webmasters from large companies for examples of good online marketing strategy and they kept asking me for my opinion. My opinion ended up coming out in the form of books, PowerPoint presentations and corporate workshops.

In 2000, after presenting at Matt Cutler’s NetGenesis user group meetings and a couple of national tours, we decided a white paper was needed to explain this stuff from soup to nuts. That led to the book which led to the eMetrics Marketing Optimization Summit which led to the Web Analytics Association which…. Oh – you asked for a “little” about myself. Sorry – got carried away.

EP: Honestly, did you think that the Emetrics white paper you did with Matt Cutler would have the impact it did?

JS: I love being at the leading edge, banging the drum to get people to understand what’s just over the horizon. I wrote five books about online marketing but they were just part of the noise. I had no idea that E-Metrics Business Metrics For The New Economy would be the only thing out there for so long and attract such attention.

EP: What made you decide to start a conference for web analytics folks? Had you done conferences before that?

JS: I got most of my consulting business from public speaking but the conference industry was very slow in 2000 and 2001. This was the “Dot-Bomb” era after all, I decided to produce my own conference in the winter of 2001 but pushed it off until 2002 due to September 11. Web analytics was the most interesting subject to me and so few people were paying attention. It was something that needed a drum and a flag and a parade.

EP: Which of your books are you most proud of? What other author’s book do you wish you had written yourself?

JS: Nobody ever forgets the first time – even if it takes three editions to get it right. Being introduced as “author of” for the first time is a head rush that is only equaled by handing a copy of the first edition to my father. But the most fun I had was writing a little volume for Lyris – the email company – called Advanced Email Marketing. It’s a work of fiction about a guy hired into a bicycle company to get them into email marketing. He has to explain how the numbers are of value to each of the different managers and executives in the company. Good story, not much of a plot but there’s a happy ending with a twist.

Which other authors’ books do I wish I had written? The usual suspects spring to mind: Yours, Avinash’s, Jason and Shame’s, and anything on Amazon’s Top Ten list.

EP: Corry Prohens from IQ Workforce recently asked me about “the Eric Peterson brand.” How much do you work to manage the “Jim Sterne” brand?

JS: I believe branding is the result of everything you say and do. Think whatever you like, but every time you make a statement, an appearance, or a product you are expressing your brand to the world. Form is as important as function. The means are as important as the ends. Therefore the answer to your question is; All the time.

EP: Which of the Web Analytics Association’s accomplishments in the past few years are you most proud of?

JS: I am ridiculously proud of approximately 300 people who are actively working all around the world to create value for other WAA members. I helped raise the flag, but all these people are energetically and enthusiastically building something to help the next generation of web analysts. I posted a list of WAA accomplishments as a Letter from the Chairman but it’s really the fact that so many people are donating their time and talent to the cause that has me beaming.

EP: Tell me, when you’re not making things happen in the marketing optimization industry, what do you do to relax?

JS: I love to travel – sick I know, given the frequent flier miles I’ve racked up. I collect meerschaum pipes, play Mah Jongg, edit church sermons, design jewelry and monitor some 4,500 Komodo dragons in the wild through a network of webcams and RFID tags from my iPhone.

EP: If you could change ** one thing ** about web analytics, what would that be?

JS: The same thing I’ve been trying to change all along: Get everybody to recognize the astonishing power and value of this information for improving customer experience.

EP: Given that your “Emetrics: Business Metrics for the New Economy” really got the ball moving in 2000, where do you see the web analytics industry in 2010?

JS: There will be more consolidation as larger web analytics companies buy smaller ones, business intelligence companies acquire web analytics companies and smaller firms drop off the radar in the wake of free tools. Some new tools and methods will come about but the Big Problem will continue to be growing awareness, in order to increase investment, in order to train more analysts. The people problem will be with us for some time to come because you can’t automate insight.

EP: Speed round: Short answers to the following questions …

Favorite food? Popcorn
Favorite hotel? Santa Barbara Biltmore
Favorite book? Cryptonomicon by Bruce Sterling Neal Stephenson
Favorite non-web analytics public speaker? Randy Pausch
Favorite professional athlete? Willie Mays
Favorite airline? United
Favorite saying? “Eighty percent of success is showing up.” – Woody Allen coupled with “Genius is one percent inspiration and ninety-nine percent perspiration.” – Thomas Edison

I hope many of you will be able to join Jim and I at the 2008 X Change in San Francisco, August 17, 18, and 19th. Learn more about the conference at the official web site.

I’ve never been much for listening to podcasts for some reason but all the sudden I seem to be listening to them all the time. Last week it was Bryan’s interview with Avinash Kaushik from ZQInsights. This week it’s Lars Johansson, the Swedish coordinator for WAA, talking to seven of the brightest minds in web analytics in Europe.

Having recently been to Europe, I was delighted to listen to this conversation. While in Holland I presented data (links to a PDF) showing that European web analytics practitioners are not far behind their U.S. counterparts. When you listen to the podcast you’ll hear the participant’s talking about nearly the exact same challenges we all face here in the U.S. Concerns about process, distribution of decision making (Aurelie talks about pan-European companies, essentially multiple divisions but that speak different languages, have different values and expectations, etc.)

This is a long podcast but well worth a listen if you have time. Great work, Lars, bringing these bright minds together for the conversation.

About a month ago, just before I started Web Analytics Demystified, I had the pleasure of sitting down for an interview with Jeremiah Owyang of PodTech.net. Clint first introduced me to Jeremiah when I was talking about measuring visitor engagement and how social media might be best measured. Jeremiah is very much connected in the Bay Area and I though the interview went really well (but you can judge for yourself by watching the interview at Jeremiah’s web site.)

A number of folks have commented on the interview at Jeremiah’s site and the comments are well worth a read.

More recently I wrote a post on the 10/20/70 Rule for Achievable Web Analytics Success in which I outlined the importance of process to web analytics. A number of folks have since commented on the post but Rene Dechamps from OX2 was kind enough to post a video from the conversation that got me thinking about 10/20/70 (thanks Rene!)

Since Rene was about as tired as I was at 7:00 AM local time, and he’d been kind enough to bring me a coffee, I recommend ** not ** trying to watch the video and just listening instead.

What do you think?  Should I stick to writing and stay off the tele?  As always, I welcome your comments.

Right after I got a new hair-do I took a quick trip to San Diego for BusinessOnline’s Online Marketing Summit which was great. Aaron Kahlow really did a fantastic job getting over 300 marketers to attend his first-ever event and the conference was very well done. If you’re in online marketing, definitely keep your eyes open for this event in the future.

I was fortunate enough to take my kids to SeaWorld and enjoy two crowd-free days in the sun, watching Shamu and petting the bat rays. While I was away, I missed a few things that I thought were worth passing along:

• Gary Angel from SEMphonic who I am fortunate to speak with frequently had an interview he and I conducted published in ADOTAS. Gary prefaced the interview by commenting that he wasn’t much of an interviewer but somehow he managed to get the single most interesting interview I have ever given on the subject of web analytics ever. We talked about a variety of subjects including my AMA/Aquent webinar on March 6th, the Web Analytics Business Process, and the notion that web analytics professionals are very much craftspeople.
• Jim Novo, a true web analytics guru, picked up on my recent rant about the death of page views … NOT! and did a little analysis of his McAfee anti-virus application and how the application treats tracking cookies. The thing I love the most about Jim is how practical his guidance is, especially regarding sessions as a replacement for unique visitors and page views. Jim closes his post with this:

“My advice to you is to start shadow tracking now using Visits or Sessions as the base in your most important metrics, the ones you are on the hook for. You don’t have to show them to anybody, just keep track of them in Excel or something and note the trends. Then when you start seeing your Unique Visitor based metrics collapsing on you, you can whip out the Visit / Session based metrics and say, “See! See! It’s really not happening! We’re doing much better than you think!”

• The often-cited-and-always-delightful Mr. Avinash Kaushik was interviewed by SearchEngineWatch’s Eric Enge. Avinash is always delightful to read, especially more so for me when Mr. Enge asks him about me an my recent work on measuring visitor engagement and Avinash replies:

“You know that Eric is obviously a leader in the industry. We are all following the trail that Eric has blazed. He is just an awesome guy and a really great thinker.”

I am truly humbled. If you’re not reading Gary, Avinash, and Jim … you should be!

I got an email last night from Eric Enge who writes for Search Engine Watch. A conversation about web analytics that we had last month was recently posted. Eric asked me a variety of questions about Visual Sciences, making decisions based on data, uniquely identified users, content groups, some of the challenges associated with page tagging, and Avinash Kaushik’s 90/10 rule (which I disagree with due to the rule’s impracticality …)

If you have the time and inclination, give the interview a read, and thanks to Eric Enge for interviewing me.