Jason Thompson - Omni Man

For festive fun, I’m profiling some folks to be found in the web analytics industry.

Today, it’s time for the disgustingly multi-talented Jason Thompson – make sure you click on the links he’s provided below for a taste of his extra-curricular activities.  Also, Jason is giving up his 36th birthday this year (on New Year’s Eve) to raise funds for Charity:Water.  This is a great cause, so consider a DONATION.

Jason, tell us a little about yourself.

I’m a wannabe artist struggling to make it as a digital measure analyst. Although history says analytics is the industry for me, I’ve played an Implementation Consultant at Omniture, a Web Analytics Manager at Spark Networks, and now an Analytics & Optimization Consultant at Numeric Analytics.
I really am an artist at heart.  My primary love is all things culinary, I dream of owning a small restaurant one day.  I also enjoy photography, painting, bass guitar, and piano.

What is the strangest request you’ve ever had from a customer?

I’m not sure if this is as much strange as it is humorous, at least it was to me at the time.  I was working at Omniture, running implementation for some fairly large names such as MTV, NBC, and Anheuser-Busch.  A small company, whose website contained no more than 30 unique pages, was assigned to me.  I think this must have been their first fairly large, for them at least, software investment.  Five minutes into our first phone call they said, “We are a pretty big deal and as such, we have a lot of people wanting our time, so we keep some odd working hours.  We will need your home phone number so we can contact you on Saturday evenings and Sunday during the day.”
After hanging up the phone, I was laughing so hard, I nearly passed out.

If you could be a fly on the wall in someone’s office for a day, whose would it be and why?

Hmmmm……not sure he even has an office but I’d say Johnny Depp. I sort of have a bit of a man crush on him and I’m not sure I’d have the opportunity to hang out with him for a whole day save for the fact that I was a fly.

Do you think it’s all about the community, or do you secretly think it’s all about you?

Seriously, don’t even get me started.  For the record, I feel like I’m on the very fringe of the community so there is no way it could be about me but if you really want to get me into a fighting mood, try to make yourself something bigger than the industry by continually shining your own light.  We will have words!

If your life was a trend graph, how many apples would fit in an orange crate?

“To tell the truth, we are completely mad. We are inmates of a Bengali psychiatric institution and we escaped by making this skin out of old cereal packets…”

Who is your superhero-sans-cape in the web analytics community and why?

To me, everyone who challenges the status quo is a super hero and people like Evan LaPointe who don’t mind getting up in your grill, really should be wearing a cape so that people know they mean business.

What do you say to people who think website tracking is an evil task by evil people for evil purposes?

Grow the hell up and stop believing every stupid thing you read or hear on TV. Think for yourself. Question authority.

If you were to write a book related to web analytics, what would be its title?

From Jason Thompson’s Kitchen — The Essentials of Good Cooking

What is your wish for 2011?

My wish is a rather selfish one, I wish to be helping companies optimize their web presence from my cabin in the woods.

If you could go to dinner with two members of the web analytics community, who would they be and to what would you toast?

Kevin Rogers ‘cause that brother knows the value of quality food, and Andreas Dierl ‘cause he is the most brilliant coder on the face of the whole damn planet. We would talk food and code and food and internets and food and then we’d raise a glass, “I just added two more guys to my wolf pack. Four of us wolves, running around the desert together, in Las Vegas, looking for strippers and cocaine. So tonight, I make a toast!”

Check out the full list of interviews in the Silly Series here!