For those of you who do not know Jim Sterne (Who doesn’t know Jim Sterne?), I like to call him the Godfather of Web Analytics. In the WA Industry you have Gurus, Vendors, Consultants and Practitionners, but only one Godfather and that’s Jim Sterne (if you want a proof just view this).
Jim has been in the Web Analytics since it exists. He has not only written about it (you may read for example a very interesting White Paper he wrote in 2000 with Matt Cutler or buy one of his books at Amazon). He has also been the creator and responsible of the Emetrics Summit, the must attend event around Web Analytics that happens 4 times a year (Mmmm, rumors say that he will expanding his operations shortly, so keep up visiting www.emetrics.org). The Emetrics Summit are 2 to 3 days events that take place in the US and Europe allowing Web Analytics professionals not only to attend astonishing and outstanding presentation, but also network in order to exchange ideas and points of view.
A first version of this post has been hanging in the ‘draft’ section since the week after I came back from the Emetrics in London (29-30 March 2007), but as I’ve been quite busy and I actually reached my 3 outcomes since 2 weeks only (since our WAW in Brussels), I feel it is now the time to publish it.
A chance to win Jim Sterne’s Markting Optimization Library made me help to set all the work aside and finish this post as well. You never know (What do you think Jim? You think I get nominated?)
Let me start by explaining the concept of the 3 outcomes.
Like last year, between presentations, there was the time for a roundtable discussion. Last year one of the discussions was about Web Analytics KPIs, and this year was quite similar. But instead of thinking about the succes factors that need to be measured for a web site, this time you had think about the personal objectives you wanted to meet by attending the Emetrics. Kind of your personal summit KPIs. In addition, these outcomes had to fulfill some criteria, and I quote:
Each of your outcomes will be effective when they meet the following criteria.
S – Specific (the What, Why and How)
M – Measurable
A – Attainable
R – Realistic
T – Timely
S.M.A.R.T. outcomes emphasize what you want, rather than what you don’t want.
No, this is actually not a post directly about Web Analytics, as this can be considered more widely, so please accept my apologies for that.
This is a post about 3 different sources of information that sprung onto me during and after the Emetrics Summit and I’ve decided to tie together.
The tieying together decision stems from a The Economist article I read this morning under the sun, next to René, as we are finally enjoying some days of relaxing. Well, it actually turned into hours as we are both behind our laptops again and the sun is setting slow but surely over Brussels.
My initial reflexion stems from sales of web analytics licenses, the name of the game for my sales counterparts who have the priviledge, well some of them, to work for web analytics vendors. As these people are usually driven by quarterly sales, they often rejoice about sales of large bundles of licences. To be quite fair, so did I during the first year of my little Web Analytics business unit and quickly found out that this might actually not be the right way to go… Luckily for me, in my second year of professional Web Analytics, licenses didn’t actually mean that much as the services part heavily took over. After all, it’s what you do with it that counts, not the tool in itself as so many of us have been crying out for some time now. Continue reading ‘The agility of newcomers’
As Jim has been following my tip of keeping it up with the videos, I thought the minimum I could do, was to present them here in our Blog, as we have done with the previous ones So here go:
This first video is about the second day of the Emetrics in London. And if you pay attention around 1 minute and 34 seconds you will see the belgian table represented by Siegert Dierickx (OX2), Michaël Notté (Toyota Motor Europe) and Aurélie and I discussing about something I can’t recall (if I had to remember everything Aurélie tells me…).
This second video arrived just today. It’s a little wrap up as Jim says.
Thanks Jim for these videos, I’m sure they help to keep the spirit of the events
For those of you who haven’t read yet Avinash’s Reflections on Emetrics London 2007: READ THEM NOW!
After a very nice bath, a good nights rest and some usual Saturday grocery shopping, I finally got René out of his week-end siesta and decided it was time to start my first post about the Emetrics Summit we attended, together with Siegert, during the end of this week in London.
As usual, there is a lot to digest after such an event but, in contrary to last year, it was more about networking and confirmation of our own issues and findings than real new knowledge and great surprises. Call me ‘blasée’ or just really focused.
In any case, please allow me to start with some kind of rant through a list of things I heard from vendors and found misplaced, ridiculous, utterly stupid and shows how little some of them (not all by afar) actually know about the business they’re in.
I’m aware of the fact that these are harsh words but as more and more vendors seem to be walking the education path for their own personnel as well (on top of their clients apparently), I would just like their statements to be more than simple words.
Yesterday, during the Emetrics Summit in London we were given the opportunity to ask questions to a panel of Web Analytics vendors that covered most of the top players of the Industry. Jim called it the ‘Vendors Variety Hour‘. It was a pity that Ian Thomas could not participate as Microsoft hasn’t yet launched Gatineau (looking forward to see you in the panel next year).
Last year during the Emetrics there was a question ‘Vendors name one thing you do better than WebTrends‘. This year I decided to bring again the question, but with a twist :
‘Vendors, what would be your unique selling proposition?‘ And the twist was for Avinash that was actively representing Google: ‘Avinash you cannot say that GA USP is it’s free‘.
It was a great day yesterday here at the Emetrics. We had the pleasure to see some great presentations. If I was to pick only two I would recommend Jim’s and Avinash’s. More to come here in our blog in the coming days.
In the meantime I leave you with a video from Jim as he seems to enjoy the YouTube Video Buzzing
Aurélie and I arrived at noon to London to attend the Emetrics summit (Siegert was joining us this evening).
The day started with a funny video sent by Jim this morning that I saw while I was having my morning coffee (Jim please keep doing these they are really refreshing!):
For those of you who don’t know Emetrics, it’s the best WA related event worldwide gathering the best professionals of the sector. We will make some posts afterwards as we use to. In the meantime, you can read our previous posts about Emetrics of view this video that explains the concept.
For those of you who do not know Jim Sterne (Who doesn’t know Jim Sterne?), I like to call him the Godfather of Web Analytics. In the WA Industry you have Gurus, Vendors, Consultants and Practitionners, but only one Godfather and that’s Jim Sterne (if you want a proof just view this).
A first version of this post has been hanging in the ‘draft’ section since the week after I came back from the Emetrics in London (29-30 March 2007), but as I’ve been quite busy and I actually reached my 3 outcomes since 2 weeks only (since our 
(What do you think Jim? You think I get nominated?)
No, this is actually not a post directly about Web Analytics, as this can be considered more widely, so please accept my apologies for that.
After a very nice bath, a good nights rest and some usual Saturday grocery shopping, I finally got René out of his week-end siesta and decided it was time to start my first post about the 
Yesterday, during the 
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