Last week I had the privilege and pleasure of attending SEMphonic’s first ever X Change conference. My friend Gary Angel asked me to give the keynote speech and lead a “huddle” on the processes involved in doing web analytics. As I posted back in August, I was pretty excited about the event because of the format SEMphonic had selected — building the event around small-group interactions rather than the “big room, talk-at-you-not-to-you” format so common in conferences today.

Not that I have anything against big conferences, Jim Sterne’s formerly-called-the-Emetrics Summit is still my favorite conference of all time even thought it will probably grow past 600 in Washington next month, and I had a blast at both Shop.ORG (2000+) and Holland’s E-Day (1500+) and hope to be invited to Internet Retailer’s event in Chicago next summer (rumored to be 5000+). But in my experience big conferences actually limit what you’re able to learn if you’re a face-to-face communicator like me. I always end up having short conversations with people in the hallways between presentations or at social events, and the really deep stuff ends up happening in the proverbial (and real!) lobby bar.

SEMphonic X Change was different.

The huddles more-or-less forced us all to expand on our ideas and share our experiences. The one I led on process was great (I thought) and I ended up agreeing to print and produce “NO TAGS, NO TRACKING” t-shirts for all 15 people in the room. But I was absolutely blown away by the huddles I attended:

• Terry Cohen of Digitas, leading a conversation about measuring engagement that covered how engagement can be measured from the microscopic to the macroscopic level.
• Joseph Carrabis of NextStage, leading a conversation about attitudes and communication
• Matt Belkin of Omniture, leading a conversation about combining online and offline data
• Aaron Gray of WebTrends, leading a conversation about using behavioral data (an EXCELLENT huddle IMHO!)

Think about it: Four huddles led by four of the brightest minds in measurement today (okay, three, since Joseph explicitly states that he’s not a measurement wonk like the rest of us, but he’s the biggest thinker I know …) and there were only 10 people in the conversation on average.

How cool is that?

Not all the huddles were apparently as good as the four I attended, but overall everyone I talked to was quite impressed with the format. And everyone I talked to agreed that they would be back at X Change next year (providing Gary and Joel have the event, which I certainly hope they do!)

I strongly recommend that you consider SEMphonic X Change next year if your schedule permits, especially if you’re an opinionated measurement wonk who isn’t afraid to spout off about stuff they believe to be important (yes Ian, you.)

On that point, this event would have been even better if just a few more people would have made the trip, thought-leaders like Avinash Kaushik (shockingly absent, despite being able to basically walk to Napa from his house if you’re in shape), Brett Crosby from Google Analytics, the Jims (Novo and Sterne), at least one Eisenberg (they sent JQvT instead), Stephane Hamel (budget constraints), Rene and Aurelie, Steve Jackson, the aforementioned Ian, and probably a few dozen more people I’m forgetting, apologies!

I say this because I really believe what I said in my keynote:

Collectively “we” are the web analytics industry.

The vendors are not the industry, the Web Analytics Association is not the industry, all of us are the web analytics industry, and collectively we need to debate and discuss what this industry is going to become. But I don’t believe we can make the decisions necessary in the Yahoo! group, on phone calls, or over email. We need to sit down, face-to-face-to-face and talk about standards, debate definitions, compare notes, and use our old fashioned “Web 0.0″ skills to hash out some of the really hard stuff that remains left to tackle.

Jacques Warren made a similar comment in my call for the WAA to “do something” with their recently published standards document and he is spot-on correct. Web analytics is hard, and it isn’t going to get any easier if we just sit and listen. Let’s sit and talk, let’s debate, let’s act.

’nuff said.

I’ll leave you with this parting shot about X Change, a comparison I’m shocked that nobody smarter than I has already made:

• Emetrics is the Web 1.0 conference for web analytics where you will learn a ton and be very happy
• X Change is the Web 2.0 conference for web analytics where you will contribute a ton and be very satisfied

Mad props to Gary, Joel, Grace, Barbara, Phil, June, and everyone else at SEMphonic for throwing such an amazing event!

I’ve been so busy I haven’t had enough time to write about some pretty important stuff that my company has been up to lately. Perhaps the most important is the recently announced partnership between Web Analytics Demystified, Inc. and Europe’s Satama Interactive. For those of you who don’t know of Satama, you should. Not only are they one of the premier interactive agencies in all of Europe, but they are evangelizing a “performance marketing” message that emphasizes the value of measurement to all online marketing efforts.

Plus, they’re the cool folks who publish the Blackbeak Blog … and, as I mentioned in my post on my trip to Helsinki, Finland, they’re incredibly nice people as well!

I’m hugely excited to be working with Mikko, Steve, Janne, Mia and the entire measurement team at Satama, and I hope our combined clients and prospects are excited as well. If you’re a Satama client in Europe or in the U.S., and you’d like to learn more about how this partnership can benefit your use of measurement tools, please contact your local account manager or write to me directly and I’ll get you connected.

On my fifth and final (working) day in Europe I had the distinct pleasure of presenting at OX2’s Web Analytics Day in Brussels, Belgium. I had been working directly with Rene and Aurelie to promote this event as our companies have a business partnership and I am very happy to say the event was a tremendous success with over 100 people in attendance.

I presented three times covering my now well documented “Web Analytics is Easy?” presentation, the subject of key performance indicators, and my newest presentation covering what I am calling “Web Analytics 2.0″ This third presentation worried me a bit since it is more technical than the stuff I usually present but it was very well received according to everyone I talked to. Aside from my work, there were great presentations from Aurelie, David Rhee, and a handful of vendors including WebTrends, Omniture, NedStat, IndexTools, and of course the now famous Microsoft Gatineau.

Continuing my theme of finally getting to meet some very bright folks in Europe, here are a few I was smart enough to get photos of while at Web Analytics Day.

Rene Otamendi from OX2, Marianina Chapin (the Web Analytics Princess) and “Wanderin” David Rhee, super-moderator of the Web Analytics Forum, blogger, and the newest OX2 employee in Germany.

Marianina, her friend from Great Britain (whose name I am forgetting, forgive me!) and Michael Notte from Toyota Europe who gave a nice presentation on behalf of WebTrends.

Luc Peeters, a consultant for Digitmedia in Belgium, who was very nice to talk to and paid me a very high compliment, saying my presentation was better than one he had seen from Nicholas Negroponte of the the MIT Media Labs. Very kind, indeed, if perhaps a wee stretch of the truth …

My best friend in Italy, Giovanni Lorenzoni, who writes an Italian web analytics blog at blog.webanalytics.it. Giovanni has a lot of enthusiasm for web analytics and is excited about how things are shaping up in Europe of late.

I was also sent a handful of photos from my presentation in Rotterdam at eDay. Now, I’m a bit camera shy normally but you can get an idea of what eDay was like via this photo of me (probably asking the audience if they thought web analytics was easy or not)

The behind-the-ears microphone was classic and made me feel like I was on American Idol.

All in all I have to say I very much enjoyed my European trip.  Thanks to great people like the folks at SATAMA and OX2, the nice people at eDay, and all the great fans of my blog and my writing that I met all across Europe proving positive feedback about the work I’ve been doing since I left Visual Sciences four months ago.

I hope to get back to Europe this coming Spring, and hopefully I’ll be able to bring my wife and spend a few days actually relaxing and enjoying all the beautiful scenery that I had to rush by this time.  Until then I’m off this afternoon to sunny Las Vegas for the Advanced Analytics session at Shop.ORG then on to SEMphonic X Change where I will be giving the keynote speech.  If you’re at either of these events please come and introduce yourself!

I finally got a little time to relax on Wednesday when I arrived in Rotterdam, Holland, the site of Emerce’s eDay conference where I presented my “Web Analytics is Easy” presentation. The event planners and the City Council of Rotterdam invited the event speakers out on a nice boat trip. I was lucky to connect with serial entrepreneurs Mark Fletcher (Bloglines, Startupping.com) and Biz Stone (Xanga, Google, Twitter), two tremendously nice guys and both serious movers in the Bay Area Internet scene.

Biz and I had a pretty good conversation over dinner about “Web 3.0″ and I was also lucky enough to catch up with Rolf Skyberg, Disruptive Innovator at Ebay, on the same subject. What is “Web 3.0″ you ask? Come to SEMphonic X Change and find out!

The only web analytics vendor at the conference was Holland’s Nedstat but it was nice as I got to chat with the company’s CEO and VP of Marketing. I was also surprised when one of their newest consultants produced a well-used copy of Web Analytics Demystified which he asked me to sign.

My presentation at eDay went well I think. The Dutch people in attendance seemed very engaged despite (or perhaps because of my very non-European presentation style) and many stuck around after the session to ask questions. The woman in the back (standing) told me that she believed me when I said that web analytics was hard. I think I said something like “Hallelujah!”

After a quick Internet radio interview, my good friend Aurelie Pols and I had a nice drive to Brussels to the Global Headquarters of OX2. It was my first visit to Brussels and to meet many of the employees of my partner in Belgium and it was quite fun. Here is Aurelie with her newest web analytics specialist (whose name I didn’t write down, please forgive me!)

Here is Aurelie’s husband and the President of OX2, Rene Otamendi (right) with the infamous W. David Rhee, OX2’s newest employee, who is perhaps best known for his incredibly valuable contribution to the Web Analytics Forum.

I am hugely excited about Web Analytics Day here in Brussels.  Not only will Ian Thomas be on hand to show off Microsoft’s Gatineau application for the first time in public, but after nearly 150 requests to attend Rene had to stop registration due to space limitations.  While we’re obviously disappointed that everyone cannot join us, it is very encouraging that so many people are interested in measurement here in central Europe.

For those of you who have grown tired of reading about my jaunt about Europe, fear not!  Tomorrow will be my last post on the tour and I promise to not blog next week from Las Vegas.

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!!!