“Man hath stil either toyes, or Care, He hath no root, nor to one place is ty’d, But ever restless and Irregular About this Earth doth run and ride, He knows he hath a home, but scarce knows where, He sayes it is so far That he hath quite forgot how to go there.”
Good old Vaughan – probably had a Silly Series though.
It’s time to turn our attention to Chris Olenik – a man who should immediately be persuaded to sing at the next eMetrics Marketing Optimization Summit.
Tell us all we need to know (and more) about Chris Olenik.
By day, I work with an incredible team at Keystone Solutions as we dominate the world of digital marketing and optimization. At night and when I am not on Delta, I have a great time with my family. As you can see by the above picture, they are growing up as Red Sox fans and that is why there are two daggers aimed at my head.
You have a degree in Political Science. What job did you plan to get with that, back in the day?
I was very close to attending law school, but I luckily did an internship the summer before enrolling into a full time program. I don’t want to offend the thousands of lawyers reading the Silly Series, but my experience was analogous to the Bill Murray movie, “Groundhog Day.” Each day, I would wake up, work with the same documents, hear bickering between two opposing lawyers about the meaning of a word in a particular context, and go home at 2:30AM. Rinse. Repeat.
I quickly realized that this was not for me and focused my attention on technology. I thought I would avoid lawyers in my professional career, but that was naïve. I now deal with them on a daily basis as I try to explain to them that we do not have a fleet of cars at Keystone and we do not need car insurance language within their professional services agreements.
If you could be a fly on the wall in someone’s office for a day, whose would it be and why?
Jeff Bezos. I would love to see his approach to strategy development and operational excellence through data and optimization. He started selling books online and now his company excels in the areas of hardware, content, fulfillment, and the cloud. As a result, Amazon has a 90B market cap. A great story.
You joined Keystone Solutions as Senior Director of Global Sales. What made you leave life on the vendor side behind?
The #1 reason I left: There is a large and complex world outside of SiteCatalyst and Test & Target. As much as I love talking about eVars and mBox profile parameters, I realized that the largest brands in the world not only struggle with web analytics and optimization, but 1000s of other issues. I wanted to be part of a team that was focused on solving the business challenges that span across the entire digital marketing landscape. Without an integrated strategy for digital marketing, it is impossible to create value and lower the total cost of ownership of the digital marketing architecture.
What is the greatest insult you have ever suffered?
It was sixth grade. New Jersey. 1986. I was asked to sing at a talent show at school. Born in the USA was the song. I was booed off the stage and was made fun of for the rest of the year. Before you or anyone else asks, I will not sing at the next eMetrics.
Who is your superhero-sans-cape in the web analytics community and why?
I am very lucky to work with superheroes each and every day at Keystone Solutions and they are active participants in our community. In addition, you, Michelle, John Lovett, Lee, and Eric contribute to the community on an ongoing basis. For everyone that I just mentioned, the industry comes first and everyone’s approach to the community is sincere. If I had to pick one, I would consider Adam Greco to be my analytics mentor (Omniture days) and he does a great job with the community through his proactive engagement on Twitter and his thought leadership through his blog.
What is your genius start-up idea that you just haven’t had time to put into action? I’ll probably steal it, but such is life.
I am not sure if this is being done, but with the introduction of RFID many years ago, there is a great opportunity to solve the lost baggage problem with airlines. Each checked bag would receive a tag that tracks the location of the bag within the airport before the flight and after the flight lands. I would love to know how much it costs airlines each year to deal with lost baggage/customer sat issues/replacement cost and compare it to the investment needed to solve this challenge.
If a tree falls in the woods, and there is no-one there to hear it, how much should that tree be charging as a location for peaceful retreats?
This is going to sound nuts and sad, but my peaceful retreat is on an airplane. It is the only time I can put on the Bose headphones and read. Maybe when my kids get older, I will better understand what a peaceful retreat is, but vacations now involve going on Space Mountain 25 times in a row. The tree is not an option for me. Maybe when I am old and gray.
What is your wish for what is left of 2011?
I just finished reading Seth Godin‘s new book, “We are all weird.” I am hoping we all stay weird and that continues into 2012 and beyond.
Is there anything funnier than an inverted palindrome said backwards?
You lost me at inverted. You have to remember, I am in sales and I have a difficult time with big words.
