As the opportunity to attend eMetrics succeeded my travel arrangements, I sadly missed part of the first day, thereby adding to the list of “Things Wot Emer Should Have Done Wot Didn’t”.  I missed Peter Fader, who was part of a keynote panel called “Data Driving for a Good Cause”.  This is the second time I’ve missed the opportunity to see Peter “Nerd Crush Time” Fader speak, so I must concede that he is trying to avoid me.  This is understandable.

The first presentation I saw was by the lovely Hila Strong from Keystone Solutions.  Hila’s topic was “How I find Optimization Opportunities by Cheating on my Web Analytics Vendor” during which she illustrated how to simply find optimization ideas.  This included videoing her adorable (and sharp) son testing site usability in sites relevant to his age-group.  This and other videos of users interacting with site functions really resonated with the audience and it was mentioned to me several times as a key takeaway for usability optimization over the next couple of days.  At scale, this may have its difficulties (in that it is, as Hila said, time-heavy activity) but it is a great way to understand what elements of your site are losing you conversions or impacting your brand.

– If you are planning to present – find a way that humanises you and moves away from  standard slides –

Following Hila was a great panel discussion on “Making a Career in Big Data”, featuring Bob “I’ve got earrings” Page, Joe “My name is a short poem” Megibow and John “Thank goodness I don’t have a nickname yet” Elder.  This was fantastic because it featured people with real experience in the industry who have caused actual positive change to business success.  These boys are titans.  There was nerd-swooning everywhere – it was like The Beatles had been reborn as nerds.

– Before you talk about working successfully in the industry, change the industry! –

Something I missed in person on Monday was the announcement by Jim Sterne that the Web Analytics Association had just been rebranded as the Digital Analytics Association.   This was not a surprise, given Jim’s message to the membership in January in which he said that the web analytics industry was too narrow a description and we were working in the digital analytics industry.  What did surprise me was the reaction from the membership and industry non-members.  Even though this was, to all intents and purposes, a label change, this simple thing appeared to inspire current members and attract new members.  I’m enough of a branding/marketing squint to understand some of the “why”, but this re-brand appeared to make people really feel a new surge in relevance for the association – which is great!

– Don’t underestimate the power of perception –

During eMetrics, I was mercilessly (and fairly) teased for having the biggest camera at the conference, despite running from every camera that was pointed in my general direction.  You can see the pictures I took here.

The Tuesday of  eMetrics was filled with Digital Analytics Association goodness.  The Membership Committee hosted the regular industry meeting which featured updates from the various committees, a question-and-answer session on the re-brand, news that there are now more than 100 Certified Web Analysts (who will become Certified Digital Analysts) and much more – including a free lunch.  Although, there is no such thing as a free lunch – so now I wonder what that asparagus-esque stuff was.

That evening was the second annual Digital Analytics Association Awards for Excellence Gala (or DAAAfEG for short).  A LOT of work went into putting this event on.  The work was taken on by a clowder of cats herded by the ever-stoic Aaron Maas.  One of the highlights of the night was the keynote by Ryan Zander of Sportvision.  ”Changing The Game: How Data and Analytics Moved from the Boardroom to the Clubhouse” included case studies from major League Baseball on data collection and analysis challenges.  I kid you not, every boy in the house (and a good 98% of the girls) was agape at just how entertaining and engaging this talk was.  I’d love to share a video of it, but, you know, you really should just have bought a ticket.  Next year’s Gala will be during the April eMetrics in San Francisco, so get ready!

The best part of the night was, of course, seeing all the award nominees take the stage to accept their finalist awards and then watching the winners being announced.  The competition featured some amazing companies and individuals this year.  The winners were:

Web Analytics Rising Star: Anne Cable (Dell)

Practitioner of the Year: Isabelle Mouli-Castillo (Dell)

Most Influential Industry Contributor: Gary Angel (Semphonic)

New Technology of the Year: Tableau Software

Most Influential Agency, Vendor or Group: Web Analytics Demystified

Other highlights:

• Eric Feinberg’s Hair
• Stephen Few’s presentation on dashboards
• April Wilson (generally)
• John Lovett’s smooth presentation on Social Media Metrics Secrets
• The amazing artists who were creating art during some of the presentations (see below)
• Bursting balloons to win prizes at a lunch sponsored by Stratigent
• Seeing June Dershewitz win the DAA President’s Award (and being “lost for words” because of laryngitis)
• Meeting Jim Novo and Peter Sanborn in person

Many thanks for the memories to: Jim Sterne, Mike Levin, Shannon Taylor, the Membership Committee, the Gala Committee, the Committee Committee, Mr & Mrs Potato-Head

If Papa Cringle has a Naughty but Nice list, it’s probably the same as the Silly Series list.

And now, for a snack to go with your eggnog, it’s time to turn our attention to Ted McDonald, a man who took six months to answer the silly questions below, bless him.

Tell the nice reader peoples about Ted McDonald.

I’ve been a full-time web analyst for almost 6 years, working for interesting brands like Nat Geo, Carfax, and now Verisign. Prior to that, I always made it a large part of my job, even if that meant sifting through log files for tracking codes used in that special email campaign. I really got the taste for web analytics when I got my hands on SiteCatalyst back in 2004. After several years of toiling as a jack-of-all-trades marketing type / entrepreneur, where web analytics was headed at the time seemed like the perfect blend of marketing, math, and web that you couldn’t find anywhere else and I never regret making the career move.

You have triplets.  How did you tell them apart when they were babies?  Did you secretly have no idea which was which?

You got me…I could not tell them apart for quite a while.  They were very tiny at first – under 3 pounds.  Even the doctors could not tell them apart when they were first born.  We wanted to name the two identical Ben and Zach, but no one knew which was which until after a blood test, so the identical are now Ben and Nick.  I had to use blue nail polish on one of the little guys’ thumbs for several months until we definitely knew who was who.

That’s lovely picture of you in a Jim Sterne t-shirt.  How many hours a day do you spend crouched in his garden watching him?

None. I’ve moved on to other targets. Muahaha!

Web analytics is more art than science.  Discuss.

I wouldn’t call it art, but it definitely requires a creative mind to solve many problems and encourage the use of web analytics throughout an organization.

What analytics-related book are you most likely to recommend? (aside from anything by Jim Sterne, obviously)

Pretty much every site has key landing pages worth testing, so I’d recommend Tim Ash’s Landing Page Optimization.

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

I think this answer’s sort of been taken already, but I’d have to say all the Clark Kent analysts out there that fly under the radar, just do a great job, and don’t beat their chest about it.

Two men are standing side by side in the middle of the Gobi desert.  How does it make you feel about flan if a site’s average bounce rate is a jelly bean?

Easy.  Flan is awful in any scenario.

What is the most difficult thing about being in the web analytics industry?

Probably the universal complaint that analytics teams are understaffed compared to other areas like design and development.  But I gotta think that the unemployment rate for web analysts is way lower than the national average, so I have no complaints.  In addition, I often look back at the difficulties we had soon after the boys were born – three babies in the NICU at the same time for over 2 months followed by me feeding them at 3am for the next however many months (it’s a blur) – and think, “hey, this job is freaking easy compared what I managed back then.”

What is your wish for the remainder of 2011?

Besides eternal forgiveness from you for taking so long to get to this? I’m just hoping to avoid a Jelly of the Month subscription for the holidays.

What is your strangest hobby (besides stalking Jim Sterne)?

Maybe climbing mountains (of laundry) or painting (over crayon marks). Seriously, I wish I had the time and energy to have enough hobbies for one of them to be considered strange. I am trying to encourage the kids to take up hobbies of their own, though, especially when it comes to music. There may or may not be three little ukuleles under our tree right now.

Happy Jollies from the Silly Series! Best Merries for 2012!

It is time to turn our jingle bells to Petri Mertanen – a man who’s always in the dark 

Tell us all about Petri Mertanen.

I have been interested in the Internet since my marketing studies started in 1995 at North Carelian University of Applied Sciencies.  The school was in Joensuu, which is my original home town in eastern part of Finland. I finished my BBA degree with a final paper about eCommerce, right after I moved to Helsinki area in 1999.  During my career I have been involved all the time more or less with web-related software and projects in various positions. In the beginning of 21st century, web analytics came along with some server log based systems and I was hooked.

It was a bit of accident that I became an entrepreneur later on and I found myself as a managing director of NXC Finland, previously Naviatech Solutions) in 2005. Since then I started studying more analytics business and got involved with the Finnish community (Kalle Heinonen, Steve Jackson and the rest). It paid off because I was selected by these gentlemen as a chairman of WAA Finland in 2007.  Today, I’m a free agent and looking for the next challenge.

Your sister has an Olympic bronze medal.  What was that for, and are you a little bit jealous?

Yes.  Maybe I have to admit that my sister is a better hockey player than me.
Or not.
At least I’m hearing that a lot in our locker room.  I have been playing for 26 hockey seasons [profile and career stats] so of course I’m very jealous about that Olympic bronze medal from Vancouver.  And couple of World Champ bronze medals as well.
Yeah, maybe I was some kind of role model for my sis when I played in first division in Finland (second level) – at least she is saying that so I could feel better. As revenge I invited her into field of web analytics so we have to share same passion and punishment.

If you wrote a book on web analytics in Finnish, how many sales would you make in the first week?

I have very large fan group in Finland so I guess that during the first week I could sell 5 copies (parents, both sisters and me).
Actually I have been asked to write a book couple of times, but so far I enjoy just writing to my blog every now and then.

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

Ouh, there are so many I could name for this, although I haven’t met all of them in person. Kalle, Steve, Lars, Avinash, Eric, Dennis, Jim, Stéphane…if I really have to pick one, I would say…Eric Peterson.

Do you think there is a future for the European branches of the Web Analytics Association?

Yes, there is a future.

What is your wish for 2012?

New cool job would be nice! Then health and world peace for everyone.

What is the maximum number of bananas a camel can transport across the desert if there are 4 cups of strawberries in 8 jars of jam?

This is tough one because there are so many variables in the game. Of course it depends on the desert, the jockey and rules. If you are allowed to feed the jam to camel during the race and the jockey’s weight is 45 kg, then the answer is 197.

What makes you dance a jolly humppa when you think of web analytics?

Oh, the challenges of measuring social media, offline advertising and multiple channels of sales. There is so much to do when it comes to really getting the big picture of marketing communications and customer behavior. Going deeper than the last click, so to speak.

You regularly organise Web Analytics Wednesdays – what do you see as the main value of these events?

Networking and free beer. In Finland we usually sing some karaoke later during the night.

I believe there is only about half an hour of sunlight per year in  Finland.  Do you have to wear sunglasses all the time if you go to a normal country?

During the summertime we have one hour sunlight per day and during the wintertime we live in the darkness.  I think it helps our heavy metal and rock bands a lot, but as you said it’s difficult to travel abroad.
Sunglasses are fine but usually I skip the conference programs during the day and concentrate on the evenings when it’s not that bright for Finns.

Happy Jollies from the Silly Series! Best Merries for 2012! 

Now we turn the spotlight on Pritesh Patel, Jim Sterne’s doppelganger.

Who is Pritesh Patel?

This Pritesh Patel is one of 513 (yes, fracking 513!!) other Pritesh Patels on LinkedIn. I am the Digital Marketing Manager for Pauley Creative, a B2B digital marketing agency serving companies within the construction sector – mainly product manufacturers.  Very niche.  I went to school with another Pritesh Patel and during an Achievements Evening at school, where all the kids would get certificates for outstanding performances in subjects, I purposely collected the other Pritesh Patel’s award for Best Progress in Reading and Writing.  I was the only school child who ended up with two certificates. I am friends with him on Facebook and, to this day, he is still asking me if I took his award.  Pffff….Loser!!!  It’s a dog eat dog world my friend and I have the bigger teeth!

You studied Visual Communication in university.  Is that the one where you learn to tell people things with your eyes?

No. It’s a just posh alternative for ‘colouring in’. I also did a Foundation Degree in Art and Design and once had to paint a plant using just fish oil and tomato ketchup!

If I have 23 sycamore saplings and you have 15 biscuit crumbs, how many crystal prisms can you fit in a phone-box?

Ok, let’s visually communicate this answer……

Social Media is nature’s way of pandering to the self-absorbed. Discuss.

Social Media is a great way of telling someone how you pee!!

Yelp = I’ve peed here a bunch of times, the toilets are ok
Flickr = Look at the photo’s of my pee taken with my Nikon D3100
Slideshare = Why I am great at peeing
Twitter = I’m peeing right now
Foursquare = I am peeing here
Facebook = I just peed
Quora = Why am I peeing?
LinkedIn = I pee well
YouTube = Watch me pee
Digg = I dig my pee
StumbleUpon = Discover my pee
Wikipedia = Wiki-pee-dia < See what I just did there?

It’s not always about me though. Sometimes I like to talk to others and ask them what they think about me.

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

Oh my god, I think I could make a comic book from the amount of superhero’s in the Web Analytics community. Wouldn’t that be great? I’d have @usujason as lead character wearing his Tutu (no cape required here folks) and before he goes out fight crime he’d shout “It’s not about you, it’s about the community” and off he dances into the sunset!
No seriously, Jason was the first person I followed on Twitter in the #measure community and his challenging nature and passion for analytics got me into it and his passion for it still shows today.  Wouldn’t it be great if we could create a ‘Celebrity Deathmatch #Measure Special’? @minethatdata vs @avinash?  Each would have their own finishing move, Kevin’s would be called ‘The Revenue Lifter’! Oooooh bring out the frackin’ popcorn Emer!!

How advanced do you feel the digital analytics industry is in the UK versus the US?

It’s about on par I think although I think the US make much more noise with regional events and major events for marketers and analysts than the UK.  However, from a B2B perspective I think digital analytics is only just really taking off as marketers start to combine offline with online as marketers learn about the influence of online before a relationship starts offline.

What is your wish for 2012?

EU Cookie Directive U-Turn. Nuff said.

[Exxx: click here to download a pdf containing the guidance from the ICO] 

You recently took part in Movember.  Could you share a picture of the resultant face-garden?

Analytics is a notoriously difficult industry into which to break (much like trying to avoid ending sentences in prepositions).  What is your advice to budding enthusiasts?

It’s definitely the industry in which there is a demand for and its certainly one which is moving at a faster pace as each year passes.  My advice is that marketers need to know how to work with data, and only focus on the data that matters and to then turn that data into a story.  It’s too easy to be overwhelmed by stuff that doesn’t really matter and get excited by pie charts and graphs when really the story could be told using just a few sentences.

In a movie about your life, who would play Jim Sterne?

Me, if there was ever a movie about me then I’d like to do an Eddie Murphy style movie and play all the characters including Jim Sterne. Don’t you think Jim and I look very similar? Spooky!

Huge thanks to all who have participated – if you enjoy the profiles and want to be involved, drop me a line!

Today, helping to celebrate the paper anniversary, is Richard Calentine, man of fashion.

What can you tell us about Richard Calentine, esquire?

The first question is a tough one.  I am a very complicated individual.  I am not really from anywhere, but I am from a lot of places.  I spent some time in upstate New York and I went to college in Texas, so I guess I am a “New Texan”.

I have done a lot of things before I got started in web analytics – from sales, financial analysis, and a pricing analysis for convenience stores.  I finally entered into web analytics via a newspaper ad for an internet marking analyst.  I had done analysis in previous positions and I had used the internet before.  I could do this job, right?

You studied Computer Science at Quinnipiac University.  What is a quinnipiac and how do you clean up if it gets on the couch?

I did study computer science for a brief period of time.   Well, a Quinnipiac is a bobcat so you are going to need a BIG pooper-scooper.  Do you happen to have one I can borrow?

What is the worst answer you’ve ever given in a job interview?

There have been so many bad answers that I have given over the years. There are two that come to mind off of the top of my head.

The first answer is when I was asked a very basic question, “tell me about yourself?”.  I then asked the interviewer “So, what do you want to know?”.

The second answer is when I was asked “what is your weakness?”.  I then proceeded to say “Reality TV.” I am a reality tv show junkie. If a reality tv show is on, you can probably bet that I am going to watch it at least once, with my favorites being Survivor and Top Shot.

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

I have a few different superheroes in the web analytics community. My first superhero is Rudi Shumpert, with a picture like this how can he not be?

My second superhero is Emer Kirrane (yes, you) because anyone who will read a governments privacy laws cover to cover, understand them, and NOT fall asleep is my hero.

Lastly, Jason Thompson as he is very outspoken and says things that most of us are thinking and he pushes the vendors to do the right thing. But most importantly he is about the community and getting involved in the community. Honestly, there are probably a few more, but I will stop there for now.

What is your favourite conference of 2011 and why?

Does the Keystone Speaker Series in Austin count? Of course, I might be a little biased on that one.
Really, this is pretty easy answer for me as I have only attended two conferences this year and both conferences were completely different from each other. I attended the Omniture Summit and SXSW.  Of the two, I preferred the Omniture Summit, but SXSW was a lot of fun as well.

What is your wish for the remainder of 2011?

To take the fashion industry by storm!
While I am not going to be a designer or know how to design clothes, I want to start my new position off on a good note at Neiman Marcus.  I want to add tracking and preform analysis for all of our sites that the fashion industry has never seen before. The Neiman Marcus name is known for high quality, awesome designers, and relevant fashion and I have the same standard for our web analytics team as well.  Another way to put it is a quote from Jerry Maguire “Show me the money, testing, and analysis!”
OK, so I added the last part, but I think that fits perfectly.

What is the easiest mistake to make and hardest mistake to rectify in web analytics?

The easiest mistake in web analytics is the overall planning of a web analytics strategy. This covers picking a web analytics tool (free or paid), staffing a team, and implementing the tool. I have seen several times a company not ask the right questions and pick a vendor that does not fit the company, or not implementing the tool correctly.
A bad tool choice or a bad implementation can take years to recover from and get the company back to where they should have been to do analysis on the site.

Tell us something most people probably don’t know about you.

As I mentioned earlier, I am a complicated individual and there are a lot of things that most people do not know about me. One of things that comes to mind that is not well known about me is that I lived in Germany for three years when I was a kid unfortunately over the years I forgot all German that I learned.

Is it ok to skip implementation testing if your web analytics strategy is well-designed?

Well, I guess a serious question deserves a serious answer. It is never OK to skip implementation testing, even if the web analytics strategy is well designed. I have countless number of stories where testing was skipped and the tracking did not go as planned.

I also have a number of stores where testing was performed and code still went live that should not have.

If you have an egg in the hand, how many birds are in the bush?

Two birds, one male and one female.  Does anyone have any potatoes to go with the egg?

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.