Archive for 'Presentations'

Those of you who live in Europe are likely already aware that my good friend Aurelie Pols has joined me as a partner in Web Analytics Demystified. Over the next two weeks she and I will be making a series of presentations and announcements at events across Northern Europe. We will be at:

• The Online Performance Management seminars, hosted by Creuna, in Copenhagen on Thursday, October 8th and in Oslo, Norway on Friday, October 9th. More information about our hosts and registration is available from Creuna.
• While we’re in Copenhagen we will be having a Web Analytics Wednesday on Wednesday, October 7th. I will be giving a short presentation on testing and if you’re in Copenhagen please join us at this FREE EVENT sponsored by IIH Nordic and Webtrekk
• Over the weekend Aurelie and I will be hanging out in Stockholm, Sweden. If you’re in Stockholm and want to meet-up please either shoot me an email or Twitter me and we’ll make plans!
• On Monday, October 12th and Tuesday, October 13th Aurelie and I will be joining the excellent Emetrics crew at Emetrics Stockholm. I will be giving the keynote on Tuesday morning and Aurelie and I will both be participating on a series of panels and shorter presentations. Those of you keeping score will note that I have attended EVERY SINGLE Emetrics ever held in the United States but this is my FIRST EVER event in Europe. Yahoo!
• On Wednesday, October 14th, I will be hanging out in Amsterdam with the Nedstat crew but have a fair amount of downtime during the day. I’m staying near Vondelpark and if you’d like to meet and get a cup of coffee (seriously, I mean coffee, I’m too old for the other stuff) Twitter me and we’ll make plans!

Since I usually do three European cities in three or four days this trip is a lazy walkabout for me (four cities, seven days) but Aurelie and I have planning to do and, of course, we’ll spend a little time enjoying the local culture.

If you live in any of these cities, or if you plan to come to Emetrics, please join us and come say hello!

Perhaps the only thing hotter than social media right now is mobile. And with good reason — smartphones like the iPhone and Palm Pre are taking our ability to get information to entirely new levels and ushering in an era of “digital ubiquity” that is clearly without precedent. Unsurprisingly business is responding by actively exploring how they can participate in the mobile opportunity, either by optimizing their site for small screens or going so far as to build cool, new iPhone applications to support long-standing offline initiatives.

Fortunately most business owners have learned from past mistakes and are showing interest in measuring the effect of their investment into mobile. But measuring mobile isn’t easy — the sheer diversity of technologies involved and the rapid evolution of the industry has created a monsterous landscape of devices, communication protocols, and requirements.

As a result dozens of companies have sprung up, all making claim to a unique ability to measure the mobile opportunity. Unfortunately some of these companies have decided that relying on hype, hyperbole, and sometimes outright lies are a better sales strategy than building a great product with a unique value proposition. We have seen CEOs bash other CEOs, sales people obfuscate their identity and try and provide “objective” answers, and antics that can only be described as “juvenile.”

Because the mobile opportunity is so great Web Analytics Demystified started taking a closer look at measurement earlier this year. I was fortunate enough to be able to rely on the expertise of folks like Michiel Berger and Thomas Pottjegort at Nedstat, the mobile team at NBC, dozens of analytics end-users, and some of the brightest product managers in the analytics sector tasked with integrating mobile into existing digital measurement offerings.

What I found was a series of surprising truths about how mobile analytics is evolving. Nedstat was kind enough to sponsor this research — and clear disclosure: Nedstat has been measuring and integrating mobile data into their web analytics offerings for years — and I am happy to announce the availablity of this research in a new white paper titled “The Truth about Mobile Analytics.”

You can download this paper from the Nedstat web site for free (but they do ask your name, email, and company name):

DOWNLOAD THE TRUTH ABOUT MOBILE ANALYTICS

We are also holding a special webcast on the subject on June 23rd at 10 AM Central European Time (CET) which is unfortunately quite late in the evening for those of us in the U.S. but quite well timed for Nedstat’s customers. I suspect the webcast will either be repeated or rebroadcast at a later date and time.

SIGN UP TO JOIN THE MOBILE ANALYTICS WEBCAST ON JUNE 23

Also, if you’re really into mobile and mobile analytics please consider joining us at the X Change Conference September 9, 10, and 11 in San Francisco. More details will be out next week but our mobile sessions will be led by Greg Dowling from Nokia (a company with some knowledge of mobile I am told.)

I encourage everyone to download the paper and give it a read, regardless of your position on mobile and mobile analytics today. As always I welcome your feedback and commentary.

It’s almost amazing to consider that it has been a full year since the last Emetrics “West” event in California — what with so many changes and little Luca Dechamps Otamendi turning one — but it is again time to gather together and bask in the glory of Mr. Sterne’s excellent event. I am again honored to be presenting to a combined track, this time on Wednesday, May 6th at 11:00 AM, and will be giving an update of my “Competing on Web Analytics” presentation that resonates so well with, well, pretty much everyone who has seen it.

The update is important and stems from a bunch of research I have been doing for the past six months. Given the launch of Yahoo Web Analytics 9.5 today and the recent opening up of the Google Analytics APIs I am busier than ever talking with companies who are trying to find the “right” balance of technology, people, and process.

Also, as I do from time to time I have a really big announcement that I will be making at the beginning of my talk. Last time I quit my job at Visual Sciences to start Web Analytics Demystified … this time? Come to the talk and be the first to find out!

I hope you’ll drop by and see my talk, again: Wednesday, May 6th at 11:00 AM.

I am also speaking briefly in the “Softer Side of Metrics” panel with Mr. Stephen “Recently Elected to the WAA Board” Hamel and folks from BT Buckets and Firefox on Thursday, May 7th at 11:00 AM. This should be fun since I’ll get to introduce the larger web analytics community to the work I have been doing with Twitalyzer.

Also, don’t forget about the Emetrics edition of Web Analytics Wednesday which is, as always, open to conference attendees and the local community alike. We have something special planned to honor our recently deceased colleague Hosam Elkhodary so I hope you’ll sign up (so we can get a good count) and join us at the Fairmont Hotel in San Jose.

Finally, as always I go to Emetrics to meet with as many people as I possibly can and operate under the “I can sleep when I get home” mentality. If you’ve read my books, read my blog, enjoy Twitalyzer, or just have always wanted to ask me something please feel free to reach out … literally if you see me passing by or by Twittering me at @erictpeterson and setting up a time to meet.

(If you can’t make it to San Jose the next big analytics event in the U.S. is the X Change Conference September 9, 10, and 11 in San Francisco. I’m a huge fan (and partner) in the X Change so I’d love to tell you more about it if you’re interested!)

I hope to see you in San Jose!

You may be wondering “What do those things have in common?” You may also be wondering “Did Eric drop off the face of the Earth?” The answer to the first question is the explanation to the second …

Despite changes in Web Analytics Demystified’s client portfolio–changes that I believe accurately reflect the current economic climate–we are busier than ever here in Portland, Oregon.  Or rather not in Portland, Oregon as Q1 2009 has me bouncing around the globe to talk about web analytics, something I enjoy tremendously.

World Tour 2009 (Part I) got started a few weeks back at the Omniture Summit in Salt Lake City, Utah. If you haven’t been to an Omniture Summit, assuming you are an Omniture, WebSideStory, Visual Sciences, Instadia, Mercado, Offermatica … am I forgetting anyone?! … I definitely recommend attending if you have the chance. Aside from excellent production and plenty of attention to detail I felt like Omniture did a great job on the content, something they took some criticism for in years past. The break-out sessions I saw paired an Omniture employee with a customer, analyst, or industry leader and in general the result was informative without being overly sales-y.

Perhaps the thing I enjoyed the most was that, despite my occasional open criticism of Omniture and some of their practices, senior management seemed (or at least pretended) to be happy enough to see me.  I had a wonderful conversation with President of Sales Chris Harrington, spent some time with Gail Ennis and John Mellor, and even got to share Swedish Fish with Brett Error (who is now in Twitter @bretterror)  Even Josh James and I had a chance to catch up … but no, I didn’t hug it out with Matt Belkin ;-)

The World Tour continues here in Portland, then off to Milan, Madrid, and Washington, D.C. Locally I am excited to get to present at SearchFest 2009, but I have to admit I’m somewhat more excited about my first trip to Milan, Italy for Web Analytics Strategies 2009 and my first return to Madrid in several years. Perhaps most excitedly, following a special presentation with MV Consultoria, I will get to meet Rene and Aurelie’s new baby Lucca! After a brief return home (to spend time reading with my five year old daughter who has recently adopted her dad’s great love for reading) I fly to D.C. to deliver a keynote presentation at the SAS Global Forum.

And that is just the beginning. You can see the complete schedule under “Consulting” at Web Analytics Demystified, and I am actively booking conferences and presentations in June and July.

Which brings me to Twitter …

I wouldn’t say I was an early adopter of Twitter, not by a long shot. I actually met co-founder Biz Stone in Rotterdam and admitted “No, I don’t really understand the service …” I was eventually goaded into trying Twitter by Aaron Gray of WebTrends and started seeing the inherent value after getting people to use the #wa hashtag to identify web analytics (and Washington State) related content.

Of course, if you know me, you know I was unlikely to stop there …

After a short beta test with something I called the “Twitter Influence Calculator”, last week I rolled out The Twitalyzer. With tongue-in-cheek I have described the service as “Google Analytics for Twitter” and by all measures the service has taken off. To date nearly 20,000 unique Twitter users have tried the service which summarizes your use of Twitter and provides a handful of interesting measures of success (influence, generosity, velocity, clout, and the signal-to-noise ratio.)

Rather than spend a bunch of time telling you about it I encourage you to check it out at http://twitalyzer.com

While I have been incredibly busy between these travels, client work, writing proposals, and messing with Twitter I am of course always happy to hear from readers. Send email, Twitter me (@erictpeterson), or look for me at one of the conferences above!

If you are one of the many, many people out there who have been told in no uncertain terms that there is “no travel budget” to attend conferences in the near future and you’re bummed out about missing out on some great learning opportunities Web Analytics Demystified has a great solution! Rather than mope around the office, complaining about missing Ian Ayres at WebTrends Engage or Maroon 5 at the Omniture Summit, why not join Web Analytics Demystified, Forrester Research, Coremetrics, and Tealeaf for two free webinars next week!

And who doesn’t love “free?”

The first webinar will be held at 10 AM Pacific next Wednesday, February 11th and is sponsored by the nice folks at Coremetrics. The topic is campaign attribution, and while the “official title” of the presentation is “Effectively Managing Your Online Marketing Mix with Advanced Attribution” my personal subtitle for the event is “How LAST-Based Attribution is Wrecking Your Marketing Budget (and What To Do About It!)”

While I love the topic, I’m doubly excited about this webinar since I get to co-present with John Lovett from Forrester Research. The best thing about presenting with John is that he is never shy about his opinion and we frequently get into “heated” debates, even in front of a live audience. We will also be joined by Coremetrics own John Squire, a gentleman also known for his willingness to have his opinion heard.

If you’d like to participate in this webcast with Web Analytics Demystified, Forrester Research, and Coremetrics please register for this totally free event through Coremetrics.

The second webinar will be held at 9 AM Pacific next Thursday, February 12th and is sponsored by the nice folks at Tealeaf. The topic here is the Web Site Optimization Ecosystem that I first described with Tealeaf and Foresee Results back in 2007. The ecosystem is a great topic when times are tough since most companies have at least two of the technologies we’ll discuss (web analytics, voice of customer, customer experience management, testing, personalization) but have done very little to actually integrate the systems.

I will be joined on the call by Geoff Galat, Tealeaf’s VP of Marketing and Product Strategy. If you’d like to register and listen to Geoff Galat from Tealeaf and I, please register for this totally free webcast through Tealeaf.

So there you have it. Two great topics, five smart presenters, one best-of-all-prices … FREE.

I hope you’ll be able to join us, and as always, please keep up with Web Analytics Demystified via our web analytics events page at www.webanalyticsdemystified.com.