The Analysis Exchange is a wonderful organization that I’m proud to be a member of. I’m sure you’re similarly excited about it if you are reading this blog! The fact that it is all volunteer driven makes each project so rewarding because you know the people want to be there. You can tell how much the end result of the project means to the individuals receiving it. And you can do it over and over again.

In fact, that is one of the best parts about the Analysis Exchange – there really isn’t a limit on what an individual student, mentor, or organization can get out of it. I’m extremely grateful so many individuals want to participate in this effort, but I know there are some of you out there that want to do even more. Good news: you can! And here’s how.

If you are already a Mentor, go find another coworker or friend that could be a Mentor as well. With so many new analysts entering the field there is a need for industry veterans to step up and guide this new wave of analysts. You’re already doing a great job by donating your time and you only have so much time to give. Life is busy and that’s totally understandable. The good news is that it doesn’t take up any additional time to have a conversation over lunch, mention your project on Twitter, or talk up the Exchange at the next conference you attend.

If you are a Student and are having a hard time getting a project, go local. And for that matter, if you’re a Mentor that wants to really help out the Exchange, go local. Wendy is great, but she can only do so much to bring in new organizations. Help her out; I did it and you can too! Earlier this year, after having some great conversations with the President of my local Ad Council, we worked out an opportunity for me to present digital analytics at a workshop.

The workshop was extremely basic – Digital Analytics 101. Many of the 40+ people in attendance didn’t even have Google Analytics running on their website. They didn’t know anything about it but they were excited to learn. We started with simple definitions and moved into some baseline reporting that Google Analytics could provide. The session went extremely well and I even had requests to do additional presentations! The grand finale was that they could get experienced professionals the help them through this, for free, with the Analysis Exchange. I couldn’t ask for a better set up.

My goal was simply to bring more organizations into the exchange, but if you really want to get in on a project, the best way to do it is bring in a local organization. I guarantee they’ll select you if you work with them to set it all up!

My final piece of advice is to pace yourself and set a personal goal relating to the Exchange. It is easy to keep putting off a project just as it is easy to do one after another and decide it takes up too much time. If you set a goal of 1 project every X months (whatever is right for you) you’ll find that you look forward to your next project because there’s a plan to do it and a plan to finish it. Scoping it out always makes it seem more manageable.

All of these are things you can do, outside of directly working on a project, that can provide a huge benefit to the Exchange and give you a satisfying feeling of accomplishment along the way. Take a moment to think if any of these sound right for you. Sure, it takes a bit of extra effort, but something tells me I’m talking to the right crowd.

Fortunately both of these challenges are becoming less and less of an issue. Digital analytics providers are increasingly able to accept page performance data, either directly as in the case of Google Analytics “Site Speed” reports, or indirectly via APIs and other feeds from solutions like Keynote, Gomez, Tealeaf, and others allowing the most widely used digital analytics suites to meaningfully segment against this data on a per-visit and per-visitor basis.

Additionally, thanks to Web Performance Optimization and the recent emergence of solutions that allow for multivariate testing of different performance optimization techniques, business stakeholders and analysts are increasingly able to collaborate with IT/Operations to devise highly targeted performance solutions by geography, device, and audience segment. Recently I had the pleasure of working with the team at SiteSpect to describe these solutions in a free white paper titled “Five Tips for Optimizing Site Performance.”

You can download the white paper directly from SiteSpect (registration required) or get the link from our own white papers page here at Web Analytics Demystified. If you want a quick preview of what the paper covers I’d encourage you to give a listen to the brief webcast we created in support of the document.

• Download the White Paper
• Watch the Webcast

If you’re thinking about how you can better measure and manage your site’s performance we’d love to hear from you. Drop us a line and we’ll walk you through how we’re helping clients around the globe get their arms around the issue.

What you may not know is that I’m also a huge fan of basketball.

This time of the year, when the NBA playoffs are in full swing, is my favorite time of the year. Spring is coming in Oregon, summer vacation is approaching for my kids, and some of the greatest athletes in the world are hammer the boards and performing acts of acrobatic magic, all in an effort to get to the next round.

During last year’s playoffs I started thinking about how similar digital analytics is to basketball and running a championship NBA franchise. Both require great owners, leaders, and coaches. Both depend heavily on star talent. And both have the potential to become transformative for businesses, shareholders, and customers.

A few months back I went with that theme and put together a short presentation. I had the pleasure of giving that presentation at our recent ACCELERATE conference, and I have embedded it below for your viewing pleasure. It’s only about 20 minutes long, so just in case you’re not a fan of the Chicago Bulls and Michael Jordan, well, you only have to listen to me extol their greatness for 20 minutes …

If you agree with me and think that analytics is a lot like basketball, but if you struggle in your company to meet some of the criteria I outlined, go ahead and give me a call. I’m always happy to talk about analytics and basketball, and who knows, maybe my company can help yours!

By the way, we just published all of the ACCELERATE 2012 Chicago videos for your viewing pleasure. If you’re interested in how ACCELERATE is different go ahead and watch a few. If you like what you see, sign up to join us on October 24th in Boston (it’s free!)

• Our wives and families, without whom we would not be able to do the work we do
• Our clients, whose continued support keeps us participating in some amazing analytics around the world
• Our partners, including Keystone Solutions, IQ Workforce, and eClerx, whose own leadership makes our work better
• Our sponsors for Web Analytics Wednesday, Analysis Exchange, and ACCELERATE allow us to expand our footprint
• Our friends throughout the digital measurement, analysis, and optimization community around the world, especially April Wilson who wrote a really nice nomination letter for us

While Web Analytics Demystified can be a facilitator and catalyst for great events, experiences, and engagements, we are only successful because we get such incredible help and support from the community. From each of us to all of you, thank you!

Some tangible evidence of the increased interest in analytics can be found in our efforts at The Analysis Exchange. Just three months ago I blogged about the effort’s momentum, noting that we had “nearly 1,700 members and nearly 200 completed projects.” As of this morning Wendy reported that our membership had grown to over 2,000 members worldwide!

Needless to say we are delighted and hugely grateful for the big push that Google Analytics gave us when they wrote about us back in January. On some level I suspect that the success of the Analysis Exchange is one of the reasons that Web Analytics Demystified is competing for a Web Analytics Association “Award for Excellence” in the “Most Influential Agency, Vendor, or Group” category (the category that Analysis Exchange won in last year!)

With growth comes opportunity, and boy howdy do we have opportunities for folks to help Analysis Exchange right now: We have over 20 open projects looking for mentors and students. If you have been waiting for an opportunity to help the Exchange, now is your chance!

What’s more, after announcing our Analysis Exchange Scholarship Fund back in January, we have decided that everyone who participates in Analysis Exchange in January, February, and March of this year who earns a great score for their effort is eligible to apply for the Scholarship money. You can use it to go to Emetrics, ACCELERATE, join the WAA, pay for UBC classes, buy books, … pretty much anything related to digital measurement, analysis, and optimization!

So we need your help. If you want some “hand’s on” experience with web analytics, or if you want to help some great non-profits while giving back to your own analytics community, lend a hand and join the over 2,000 people worldwide who are members of the Analysis Exchange!

• Join the Analysis Exchange TODAY
• Sign up to help on one of 20 open projects
• Learn more about Analysis Exchange

At the time I was thinking about the onset of digital ubiquity — an “always on” Internet that followed us everywhere we went and more or less knew where we were. Given the explosion of mobile devices and our near universal dependence on smartphones, location-based services, and digital personal assistants, the following comment seems almost quaint:

“Just think for a minute about how your browsing experience might change if the web sites you visited remembered you and delivered a tailored experience based on your demographic profile (theoretically available via your phone number), your browsing history (accurate because you’re not deleting your phone number) and your specific geographic location when you make the request?”

Essentially I envisioned a future where anonymous log files gave way to massive data stores that, given much of the data would be flowing from mobile devices that we kept on us at all times, would form a far more complete picture of each of us individually than Web Analytics 1.0 or 2.0 could ever hope to support. What’s more, when subject to enough processing power and computational wizardry, this data would support previously unimaginable levels of micro-targeting and content personalization, possibly knowing more about us than our own loved ones.

At the time I recall having conversations with one particularly smart individual who argued that this would never happen — that phone manufacturers and phone and Internet service providers would never allow this type of information to be used, much less in a commercial context. His argument was that this would be such an egregious violation of consumer privacy that, were this to happen, the government would inevitably step in and, fearing ham-fisted meddling by “luddite politicians” (his words, not mine), industry leaders would come together and attempt to offer at least some level of consumer protection, even if it would negatively impact their business models.

Turns out we were both right.

What I referred to as “Web Analytics 3.0″ is clearly the collection, analysis, and use of what is more commonly referred to as “Big Data” — an incredibly powerful source of information about consumers that can be used in an almost endless number of ways to power our new data economy. And, thanks to some spectacular mis-steps on the part of organizations, groups, and companies who should know better, “Big Data” is increasingly subject to regulation.

In the past few days, the California Attorney General has announced that she has the agreement of six of the largest mobile platform providers — Google, Apple, Amazon, HP, RIM, and Microsoft — to begin enforcing a law that calls attention to the use of consumer data in mobile applications. And, even more amazingly, the Obama administration has delivered a “Digital Consumer’s Bill of Rights” that has the major browser manufactures agreeing to quickly begin to support “Do Not Track” functionality designed to limit the flow and use of even anonymous web usage data in some instances.

Clearly, both of these announcements are good for consumers, who will hopefully be better protected from bonehead moves like sending entire address books insecurely up to cloud-based servers. And clearly both of these announcements are good for legislators, who during an election year will have something positive to talk about, at least with the majority of their constituents.

But where does this leave you, the digital measurement, analysis, and optimization worker?

More or less in the same place we were back in December 2010 when this all first came up, on the brink of a sea-change in web analytics, but one that I’m confident that most of us can handle. While I still believe that web analytics is hard — perhaps more so than ever — I’m also confident that individuals who are truly invested in making informed decisions based on the available data will be just fine.

Still there are unknowns and subsequently risk coming down the pipe through the President’s “Bill of Rights.”  Some things that I am particularly interested in knowing include:

• Who decides which technologies will be subjected to browser-based “Do Not Track” directives?
• Will “blocked” technologies be universally blocked? Or, like in P3P, is their a continuum of requirements?
• Will “blocked” technologies be blocked across all participating browsers? Or will browser vendors decide individually?
• Will “blocked” sessions be identified as such? And if so, will some minimal data still be available?
• How will the Bill of Rights “guarantee” data security, transparency, respect for context, etc. as outlined by the President?

I suspect the answers to most of these questions are still being discussed.  Still, the ramifications are important and there is an awful lot of conflict of interest inherent in the browser vendor’s participation.  For example, if you’re Google and have made a pretty significant investment into Google Analytics, what is your motivation to block analytics tracking in your Chrome browser? Or perhaps you’re Microsoft and you have multiple initiatives to improve the quality of search and display advertising — all of which depend on some level of data collected via the browser — are you willing to prevent all of that in Internet Explorer?

It will be interesting to watch this play out.

For what it’s worth, at Web Analytics Demystified we have been thinking about the explosion in digital data collection and consumer privacy for a pretty long time. Going all the way back to that 2007 post on Web 3.0, and rolling forward to our work on the Web Analyst’s Code of Ethics and more recently our GUARDS Audit (with BPA Worldwide), Web Analytics Demystified strongly believes that consumer data is a valuable asset, one that needs to be treated with the upmost respect.

To that end, if your legal team or senior leadership are asking you about the data you collect and how you might be exposed based on how that data is being secured and used, you might be interested in Web Analytics Demystified GUARDS. In a nutshell, GUARDS is a comprehensive audit of your digital data collection landscape performed by auditors from BPA Worldwide designed to help leadership understand what data is collected, where, why, and how that data is being secured and ultimately used.

Either way, my partners and I at Web Analytics Demystified will be keeping a careful eye on this Bill of Rights, changes in the mobile data collection landscape, and the application of Do Not Track across modern browsers. I welcome your comments and feedback.

Brian’s offerings at Demystified will look a lot like Adam’s — audits of current implementations, strategic planning for testing and optimization readiness, systems integration architecture and support, and planning support for the entire end-to-end process of site and application optimization in the Enterprise. While Brian’s technology expertise is strongest on Test&Target, his knowledge of what it takes from a teams, governance, and process perspective to be successful transcends platforms and I believe will incredibly valuable to any large business trying to become agile in their optimization efforts.

Brian is taking a little time off before getting started mid-month but I will be adding his blog, a description of his offerings, and more about him to the site very soon. Clients are welcome to contact us directly to set up time to meet Brian (and if you’re not a client you can call too, that is if you have any interest in testing, optimization, or personalization.)

Brian will be with us at Emetrics, Adobe’s Summit in Salt Lake City, and of course he will be presenting at our own ACCELERATE event in Chicago on April 4th. If you’re at any of these events and would like to meet or connect with Brian, please drop me a note.

We hope you will join us in welcoming Brian to the team.

What’s more, as soon as Jim Sterne heard about our efforts, he and Matthew Finlay immediately donated three passes to the eMetrics Marketing Optimization Summit each year — how amazing is that! Tremendous thanks to Corry Prohens, Rob Seolas, Jim Sterne, and each of their teams for their support of our efforts at the Analysis Exchange.

Analysis Exchange members in good standing are encouraged to apply for scholarship funds. We are open to ideas but in general expect these funds to be used for things like:

• Pay partial travel or registration fees for conferences like ACCELERATE and eMetrics
• Pay annual membership fees for the Web Analytics Association or other professional groups
• Pay partial tuition to the University of British Columbia’s Web Analytics courses
• Pay partial costs for the Web Analytics Association’s certification
• Pay for books, software licenses, and so on

Quarterly awards will be up to $500 USD per selected applicant and I imagine we will give two or three away each quarter depending on the quality of applications we get. You need to be a member of Analysis Exchange in good standing and have earned very good scores on projects to be eligible.

I hope you’ll take a minute to learn more about the Analysis Exchange Scholarship. I also hope you’ve been helping in the Analysis Exchange and you’re excited to apply for this funding!

If you have any questions about these funds please don’t hesitate to reach out to our Executive Director Wendy Greco directly. I am also happy to answer questions.

Thanks

What these added sponsors mean to all of you is bigger budgets for Web Analytics Wednesday which we hope will lead to bigger and better gatherings. Whereas we typically limited reimbursement from the Global Fund in the past to around $100 USD, we are now able to provide larger sums based on need and demonstrated commitment to the event.

More. Free. Money.

If you have any questions about hosting a Web Analytics Wednesday or how these funds can be used please email me directly. Otherwise I hope you will join me in thanking all four of these companies for their generous support of the entire digital measurement community.  You can tweet them at @corryprohens, @observepoint, @opinionlab, and @splunk or let them know you appreciate their efforts in the comments below.

We resolve to continue to provide great value to our clients.

A consulting business like ours is only as good as the value we provide on an ongoing basis. To that end, all of us are committed to working closely with all of our clients to ensure we deliver business insights and recommendations designed to make our key stakeholders look like heroes within their organizations. While we are intensely proud of the work our client Best Buy has done to become more analytically-minded, we want all of our clients to appreciate the same type of high-visibility wins.

We resolve to have Demystified to evolve with our industry.

You don’t need to be an analyst to see that the “web analytics” industry is changing. Increasingly the work our clients do is less about the “web” and more about the entire digital world, and the people, process, and technology required to analyze and optimize the digital world are different than those we have used in the past. We started thinking about this transformation back in 2009, but at Web Analytics Demystified we are committed to adding resources and knowledge to be the best guides possible as our clients begin to leverage digital business intelligence and data sciences.

We resolve to continue to provide great support to the measurement community.

Web Analytics Demystified is fortunate to be more than just a consultancy, we are part of the foundation of the entire digital measurement community around the world. Through our Web Analytics Wednesday event series, our Analysis Exchange educational efforts, our support for the Web Analytics Association, and now our ACCELERATE conference series we are able to connect with analysts around the world. In 2012 we resolve to do more for the community — watch our web site for news in the coming weeks about all of these efforts.

We resolve to provide more web analytics education in 2012 than ever before.

Our educational effort, Analysis Exchange, has succeeded beyond expectation since it’s inception in 2010, thanks largely to the efforts of Executive Director Wendy Greco. With nearly 1,700 members and nearly 200 completed projects, the Exchange has become the de facto source for hands-on web analytics education. But we believe we have found a way to do even more with the Exchange in 2012, creating more projects and opportunities for any individual motivated to break into this industry.

We resolve to make ACCELERATE the best small digital measurement conference in the world.

In 2011 we tried something new with the ACCELERATE conference. While mistakes were made, and an awful lot of nice people weren’t able to join us due to demand, we believe we are converging on an innovative conference format that will continue to be 100% free to attend. But we promise to not just stop when we find something that works — we are resolved to push ACCELERATE to be the most engaging, most fun, and most valuable small event in the industry.

How about you? What are you resolved to do in 2012?