The Silly Series does not go away, it merely hides menacingly in a corner, ready to pounce! This is the place to learn more than you ever wanted or needed to know about your colleagues in the web analytics industry.
Many have said that 42 is the answer to Life, the Universe and Everything. Today, Ali Behnam is number 42 in the Silly Series.
What can you tell us about Ali Behnam?
I’m a husband to a wonderful wife and father to two beautiful daughters, living in sunny San Diego. I started my web analytics career in 2000 when I joined WebSideStory in product management capacity. Over there I had the pleasure to meet some of the most taltented people as both co-workers and customers. One person that I have the utmost respect for is Mike Anderson, with whom I co-founded Tealium. When it comes to tagging and implementations, he’s by far the best in the indsutry. When I’m not working, I coach my daughter’s soccer team, or football as it’s called everywhere else.
We met at the eMetrics Marketing Optimization Summit in San Francisco this year. Would you recommend it to others? (eMetrics, I mean, not meeting me – that’s a given)
I thought that you meant meeting you. Good thing you clarified.
Yes, I recommend eMetrics to every web analytics practitioner to attend at least once in their career. Jim Sterne has done a really good job of bringing so many great people together. He’s been doing this longer than anyone else. This year’s event was particularly good as it included a mix of folks beyond just web analytics such as predictive analytics.
“Because 3 monkeys are better than 2″ is the punchline to a joke. What is the joke?
Enough with the monkey business. Web analytics is serious work.
Who is your superhero-sans-cape in the web analytics community and why?
There are many out there, but one person who stands out for me is Bryan Eisenberg. In our industry you see a lot of people who are great tool experts or technicians. I myself fall into that trap some times. But Bryan never makes it about the tool and with him it’s always about what matters, which is conversion. He also makes it look so simple. I think his books are a must read when it comes to conversion optimization.
What is the closest you’ve ever come to saving the world?
As analysts, we save the world one website at a time.
What is your wish for the remainder of 2011?
End of reality shows. Can you believe there’s now a show called “Parking Wars” about parking attendants? Who watches that stuff?
What is your secret vice?
Practical jokes.
What do you think is the greatest threat to the future of web analytics?
Online privacy.
The issue of online privacy is a serious one, but I also see a lot of FUD drive the discussions. There’s a lot of discussion about the amount of data being collected, but hardly any discussion as to why. Why is it that you can go to New York Times web site and get their content for free but you can’t get the paper for free? It’s because you’re paying for the content through data & advertising. There’s hardly any discussion as to what benefits consumers get by having their anonymous data collected. And frankly, if you gave consumers the choice between paying for content through some anonymous browsing data or using currency, I would bet well over 95% will choose to pay through data.
What is the best chat-up line you’ve ever used (or witnessed)?
I don’t pay too much attention to them. They all have really high bounce rates.
Check out the full list of interviews in the Silly Series here!
