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.

We’re just a few days away from the big event in San Francisco and I admit I’m getting excited. It’s so nice to be able to see old friends (congrats Ian, by the way!) and hopefully make a few new ones. I’ve even started making final preparations for the event.

I’m not sure how they’re advertising this event, but the WAA International Committee is piggybacking on the “Ask the Guru’s Breakfast” that Jim and Matthew have put together and offering the ability to join the breakfast virtually. According to the WAA web site:

• 30 minute exclusive analytics discussion between Eric Peterson, Bryan Eisenberg and Avinash Kaushik
• Virtual attendance at the San Francisco Emetric’s Summit Guru’s Breakfast – your chance to listen in to this one hour session with Eric Peterson, Avinash Kaushik, Bryan Eisenberg and Jim Sterne,
• A question and answer session for international attendees

This event is limited to WAA members but my understanding is that the recorded event will be made available to everyone sometime in the coming weeks. If that is not the case, I will have some of my deadhead friends in San Francisco make a bootleg tape and we’ll share via the Archives.

Sign up today to join us in San Francisco, even if you’re not coming to Emetrics!

I was chatting with my good friend Bryan Eisenberg today and he reminded me that the WAA call for nominations to the board of directors is STILL OPEN but is closing soon. You can review the requirements and nomination process on the WAA web site but there is more you should know:

• Bryan expressed that the current board is really looking for a practitioner as they have a number of consultants and vendors already represented. Nothing wrong with consultants and vendors … I mean hey, I think I’m technically both of those things … but the board needs some real-life, roll-up-your-sleeves web analytics practitioners to help shape the future of the association.
• My personal observation is that the board is kinda guy-heavy right now (apologies to Andrea and Shubhra) so if you happen to be, umm, not a guy, and if you’re a practitioner, that would be an extra-added benefit to all us normal WAA member folks out here.
• Another observation is that most of the people on the board are incredibly busy. Chris D’allesandro and Clint Ivy are too busy to blog. Jim Sterne is so busy he has to email us about his whereabouts from time to time. And Seth Romanow has a new job with Microsoft that is keeping him on his toes. Perhaps the reason that Bryan is looking for a practitioner is that they actually have the luxury of going home at night?

But enough of the soft stuff. Here are three people I’d like to see run for the board of directors and would get my vote (several times since I know how to delete my SurveyMonkey cookie!)

• Kristen Findley from Ameriprise. Anyone smart enough to use a lava lamp to drive interest in web analytics is getting my vote.
• Jodi McDermott from InPhonic. I had the pleasure of working with Jodi when she was at Visual Sciences and she’s as sharp as they come.
• Avinash Kaushik from Intuit. Yes, Avinash is a guy, but he’s the nicest damn guy I have ever met so he’s still getting my vote.

I’ll apologize in advance if any of my three candidates is uninterested or doesn’t have the time since I’m still going to write you in on the ballot.

Anyway, check out the nomination requirements and process ASAP since the time to vote is drawing near!

As I have been doing more and more lately to help folks find and fill web analytics positions it seems like more emails like the following come in:

“I have just been promoted into a Marketing position and one of my primary responsibilities is web analytics. I do not have any formal education or experience with web analytics and I am expected to educate myself by any means necessary. After doing some research online, the first thing that I did was order your book, Web Analytics Demystified. I also picked up a copy of Waiting for Your Cat to Bark by Bryan and Jeffrey Eisenberg.What kind of advice would you offer to help me outline a practical education process? I know reading, as much as I can, will be expected and I have already begun the process. What about web marketing conferences? What about online courses like UBC Award of Achievement in Web Analytics? Would my company receive a greater ROI by having me take online classes or sending me to conferences? My gut tells me, to buy more books and take online classes, before I start worrying about going to conferences.”

The advice I would offer to anyone in this position is to do the following:

1. Read the rest of my books, especially Web Site Measurement Hacks and The Big Book of Key Performance Indicators. The former is an excellent overview covering the breadth of things that web analytics professionals are tasked with doing and the latter is a deep-dive into the use of KPIs to help drive awareness of web data throughout the organization.
2. Take the UBC Web Analytics Award of Achievement classes, offered via the Web Analytics Association. All of the feedback I hear from people who have taken the classes is excellent. The folks they have teaching the courses are world-class and the content that I’ve seen is both fresh and well-written.
3. Join the Web Analytics Forum at Yahoo! Groups. While the conversation has a tendency to drift away towards the banal at times, the group is still the single largest and most active web analytics conversation on the planet.
4. Read some of the web analytics weblogs to keep up on current happenings. I personally like mine (go figure), but I also highly recommend Avinash Kaushik and Gary Angel.
5. By all means, go to the Emetrics Summit. Jim Sterne’s event is the single best place to meet the brightest minds, hear the best presentations, and meet the nicest people in the entire industry. There are upcoming events in London (March), Germany (April) and San Francisco (May).
6. Ask your vendor what classes, documentation, presentations, etc. they have that might help you better learn how the technology is best used to create value. You’d be surprised at how much helpful information the vendors have when you ask.

If you think I’m forgetting anything I’d love to hear your comments.

I got an email last week from Marianne Llewellyn at 2xL Consulting (who, if memory serves me correctly runs consulting services at Coremetrics) asking for volunteers to write content for the upcoming University of British Columbia/Web Analytics Association course on “Creating and Managing an Analytical Business Culture” and I have to say I’m very excited.

All of the coursework that I’ve seen from the UBC/WAA so far has been great (did you know you get all of the lectures from courses one and two on a companion CD when you buy Bryan and Jeff Eisenberg’s Waiting for your Cat to Bark?) but this course looks to me like the rubber hitting the road, everything you need to know about being successful with Web Analytics from vendor selection to organizational implementation. In my opinion, too many people are still focusing only on subtle variations in the numbers and not really working on how to use analytics technology to drive business success.

I wish I could encourage you to sign up for the course but it’s already completely sold out. Hopefully UBC will add a second session sometime in early 2007. Anyway, lucky you if you’re already signed up for the course.

If you’ve taken some of the previous courses, I’d love to hear your comments about how the courses have gone.