What's holding back web analytics?


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About everyone in the web analytics industry knows Eric Peterson. He's been an early evangelist. He wrote the "Big Book of Key Performance Indicators", which, to this date, remains an excellent reference for anyone starting in the field. He also leveraged a fantastic idea from June Dershewitz called Web Analytics Wednesday.

Eric asked on Twitter:
"What do you think is holding the #measure industry back? Pls share!"
Replies were plenty.

Incidentally, two days earlier, someone for whom I have the utmost respect spent an amazing amount of time shedding light on the web analytics industry. Joseph Carrabis is an amazingly bright person who is somewhat of an outsider to the web analytics industry, and thus, can shed a different light on it. He looked at us, collectively, asked questions, and shared some very interesting thoughts in Part 1 and Part 2 of "The Unfulfilled Promise of Online Analytics". Joseph is an observer, a listener, a thinker, and a very honest and respectful person. Joseph opened up a conversation.

Back to the Twitter thread

@immeria: @erictpeterson wht's holding #measure back? My take is the Web Analtyics Maturity Model http://bit.ly/fAavu Nevr got feedback from U abt it

@erictpeterson: @immeria I'm not a believer in the value of models. I worry that they are the new "Web analytics is easy."

@immeria: @erictpeterson What's holding back #measure? Additional comments in my nod to @JosephCarrabis at http://bit.ly/4CAvEc #measure

@immeria: @erictpeterson never claimed WAMM would make #measure easy, but certainly easier. It's a start, don't you think?

@erictpeterson: @immeria let's agree to disagree, shall we? Either way, glad you got an A+ on the thesis paper. Congrats!

@immeria: @erictpeterson Solving problems when #measure is "hard": 1) acknowledge the problem 2) understand it 3) act to solve it. WAMM helps do that

I waited and thought about this thread because I simply don’t get it. I was to reply privately but decided to post a public response instead. The comment “let’s agree to disagree” is what Wikipedia defines as a "thought-terminating cliché". Hopefully, this will be a way to continue the conversation because without conversation, there is no learning, and no evolution.

So, what's holding back web analytics?


My opinion, based on 18 months of study on top of over 20 years of experience that led me to this industry - looking at other fields of expertise and interviewing practitioners around the globe - it turned out there were some clear patterns. The result is a proposal for the Web Analytics Maturity Model - a document where I ask for feedback and peer review.

I received and continue to receive amazing feedback about it. Even when something looks wrong, people offers very constructive feedback. That's perfect: it's the goal of peer review. Very few people ever said something against this work. "I don't believe in models, they are the new "web analytics is easy"" and bold claims like "I'm a maturity model atheist" are really the exception and as you guess, offer no solution.

There seemed to have a level of consensus in previous research (lets not call them “models”) and among the feedback I gathered.

What's holding back web analytics is:
  1. A lack of trust, engagement and support from management: the 1st "pillar", or critical success factor.
  2. Unrealistic or undefined objectives & scope: the 2nd & 3rd key success factors.
  3. Nonexistent change management, politics and bad communication.
  4. Lack of process and best practices: the "Team & expertise" dimension of the model.
  5. Difficulties in taking action, going into a continuous improvement process that brings positive outcomes. The 5th dimension of the model.
  6. Technology was the least important of the factors leading to a successful, positively accepted web analytics program.
Joseph concluded to similar issues when he said "So far three matrix elements — time, a lack of leadership and realism — have been identified". If they were to be regrouped, the Twitter replies to Eric would pretty much fall in one of the above six categories.

People can tell me I'm off track with the Web Analytics Maturity Model - everyone is entitled to an opinion. But critics should lead to suggestions. The concept of a model - although not perfect and obviously open to improvement - as proven a valuable tool to facilitate assessment of organizations web analytics status and spark constructive discussions. That being said, I repeat, a "model" is a black magic recipe to success. I'm also warning that using the model as a comparison tool between organizations is not necessarily a good use of it.

Let's continue the conversation

I'm open to any and all types of comments, positive or not, as long as they are respectful an not bold unilateral statements. I invite people to collaborate and participate in the conversation, either here or through Joseph's excellent threads. Tweet @immeria or feel free to email me privately at shamel67@gmail.com.

26 comments:

Eric said...

While I don't have time now to address some of your other points I wanted to clarify one thing. "Let's agree to disagree" was not meant to be rude, disrespectful, or harmful to you in any way.

In my circles this is the ultimate compliment --- one that says "I respect your opinion but have one of my own. Rather than thrash and churn and potentially feel bad, let's agree to respect each other and the work we've put into developing our opinions" and, as the phrase says, "agree to disagree."

I am very sorry you misinterpreted my comment but I can assure you, beyond any shadow of a doubt that no disrespect was intended. I'm happy for your enthusiasm for your model and grateful for your contribution to the sector.

I look forward to our next meeting.

Sincerely,

Eric T. Peterson
Web Analytics Demystified
http://www.webanalticsdemystified.com

Richard Sedley said...

Hi Stéphane

I thought I'd chip in with a few of my experiences as to what might be holding back Web Analytics. (I need to qualify these experiences as they are mainly limited to larger corps. and I confess WA is not my main focus but a part of what our team use within our strategy, design and development offering).

Hands down the winner in terms of problems for me is the lack of change management skills within businesses. My experience here is that most change management focuses around large projects that are to get from A to B rather than to increase flexibility and the actual embracing of constant change. Web Analytics seems to fall between the cracks in projects or sits outside the more substantial and more research based business analytics processes.

The second problem is that many in Web Analytics find it to easy to provide attractive numbers i.e. pages viewed, unique visitors. Not that these aren't important, but what these numbers do is make stakeholders less inclined to look beyond them to the actual business benefits.

Finally, I think it is worth recognising that most of the way we focus on WA is drawn from our interactions with customers. We're asking our business people inside the organisation to understand the importance of those interactions, something they've historically had difficulty doing. Often the higher up an organisation the further removed people become from the customer.

My instinct, and feel free to shoot me down here, is that WA will continue to be slightly marginalised until there is a focus on the business itself. Where are all the books from the WA community helping my team with Intranet analytics? Where are the blogs looking at metrics for Employee Engagement? Where are the dedicated seminars and events helping me analyse and understand collaboration patterns in local and global business units? (n.b. Do please point me in the right direction if you have useful resources on these issues).

Believe me I don't in any way mean to trivialise the work done by yourself and many of the others within the WA community (I use your stuff all the time) but I do think that much of the focus on Ecommerce could be one of the reasons why WA is being held back.

Regards

Richard

Anonymous said...

Thank you for taking on Eric. His antics on twitter and within industry are getting very old.

Stephane Hamel at immeria.net said...

Richard: Thank you for your very constructive comment!

- "WA is not my main focus": few people spend there day doing accounting, yet, basic understanding of financial concepts (and models!) is essential to run any business, to be a manager, drive a project, define a strategy, etc. It can be the same of WA and doesn't "disqualify" you at all to have your say about the difficulties of leveraging web analytics (or it's results) in your role. To the contrary!

- "lack of change management": this is one of the topmost issue and is expressed in many different ways (I've put it under the 1st pillar: "Management, Adoption and Governance").

- "WA is drawn from our interactions with customers. We're asking our business people inside the organisation to understand the importance of those interactions". Bingo! You got it! We're asking companies to shift from a short-term profit culture to a long term customer centric approach! Where all truth used to come from balance sheets, we're now saying "hey, look here, we can improve customer satisfaction, customer ability to complete their tasks and make them happy... and at the same time, be more profitable!" This is at the core of what Tom Davenport defines as "competing on analytics". And if I'm wrong thinking a model can be of any help, then I must be damned because this is also how Davenport presents it! But this, as you suspect, requires a fundamental mindset change that can't be accomplished without serious change management!

- "WA will continue to be slightly marginalised". Again, right on! I've said in the past that web analytics has been hijacked by marketing. Not because I don't like marketing folks... But because marketing is often responsible for analytics, an the natural tendency is to work on what you know and what you can control: campaigns and ecommerce. To become more competitive and sustain the advantage, organizations must optimize all their business functions (be it Intranets to communicate more effectively or improve tasks, or B2B to improve external efficiencies, etc.) In this context, WA can be used to identify improvement opportunities and measure ROI. As WA tries to merge different data sources and when marketing reaches the limits of what they can control, WA will naturally shift toward business intelligence and business analysis...

As for readings and other sources of info: "Competing on analytics" is an absolute must. The International Institute of Business Analysis (theiiba.org) published a great "body of knowledge" to conduct business process analysis. There are also books on defining KPIs and dashboards (not the ones looking at it from an online perspective...). Take a look at my bookshelf, you might find some interesting reads in there.

Again, thank you for your great comment!

Stephane Hamel at immeria.net said...

anymous & others: While we all have our own views on Eric's opinions, bias or involvement within the industry, I don't want to create a uproar. I posted this comment as an example, but I will withhold any other comments that do not offer a constructive feedback on how to improve our field.

I will, however, accept any respectful and constructive comments that offer a diverging opinion than what I expressed.

Thank you for your understanding.

Stéphane Hamel

Eric said...

"Anonymous and others",

I too will add that I welcome criticism of my points of view on the web analytics industry and have always been very open to discussion and dialogue. Rather than putting Mr. Hamel in the position of having to moderate nonconstructive feedback, please consider bringing your concerns about my "antics" directly to my attention.

You are welcome to email me directly at eric at webanalyticsdemystified dot com or, if you prefer to talk more directly, my phone number is on my web site.

Sincerely,

Eric T. Peterson
Web Analytics Demystified
http://www.webanalticsdemystified.com

Stephan said...

Stéphane, thanks a lot for hosting some more debate on the matter. WA needs it - sorry, *deserves* it.

What's holding it back? Basically, the fundamentals of human / corporate politics. What you call "Nonexistent change management". I fully agree with you, and Joseph really hit it on the nail when he wrote "Online analytics is a discipline of numbers. Whenever there’s a discipline of numbers it means there’s an evidentiary trail for decisions" (read again the 4 paragraphs that follow that phrase in Part 1).

As a former outsider of this discipline, I read more than was reasonable, practiced more than was humanly adequate... then one day went to a Web Analytics Wednesday in search of that marketing grail (because that's how WA presents itself to the world - wrapped in Web Marketing glaze). Here I agree again with you, I need to say that in WA the marketing is really, really thin. I have the utmost respect in the WA community, believe me WA is really a fantastic practice with formidable potential. But I am so, so sorry to confess that the fine audience I witnessed in that WAW was plainly stated a geek audience. I mean, not geeks like you or me would define as geeks, but what C-levels would think. The stance, the speech, the contents... in WA just won't speak to C-levels.

So here's the gridlock as I understand it:
1) WA, as is evangelized today, speaks to the middle management. Limpid books and best practices that anybody with a decent brain can grasp and apply. Avinash (million thanks to him!) will make even the dumbest middle manager feel like another corporate Hero. The problem for middle managers is, why take chances in implementing that "evidentiary trail for decisions"? Why take risks? Why on earth would any manager want to introduce accountability for the Web channel, when geeks are just happy to play? Joseph really hit in on the nail.
2) But even conversion rates and campaign ROIs are too low-level for C-levels. They want strategic stuff, and reasonable confidence that you can execute the strategy. Everything else is operational detail. Again the fear for the "evidentiary trail for decisions".

There's no issue with WA maturity models. Personally I prefer the Gartner model to yours, but that's for another discussion maybe and I haven't formalized why I have such preference... As you have said (excellent!), Maturity Models are only tools to support discussion. Where are we today, where do we want to go... The WAMM is only as good as it can support dialogue, and that's quite good enough for me. But which dialogue? Who to talk to?

To move past the unbreakable barrier created by fear of accountability, WA must let go the bottom-up approach, and instead melt into something of broader scope that can speak to the C-levels. Not sure how to label that. The Big 4 would probably coin a new term like "Web Channel Strategic Excellence" or something of the sort. WA would then derive from it, top-down, as a means and not an end. Which probably means WA would dissolve into the broader goal and disappear as an independent discipline - which I think is inevitable in the very short term. Am currently taking part in designing a service offer in that respect.

Jean-Francois Monfette said...

Hi Stéphane,

I found Richard's comments about the need for Intranet Analytics very true.
I used to work for a large organization in which the Intranet was so inefficient that countless hours were lost searching it while clients were waiting on the phone. A redesign was done, mostly dictated by the HIPPO's comments, and the result were a lot worse. Web analytics could have helped in the Intranet redesign and this could also have been used as an entry point for showing the value of using web analytics on the corporate website.

As for why analytics is not getting as much traction as we would want, I think the big boom will come a few years after some web analytics class is taught in business schools around the world and the graduates start reaching mid-level positions.

Stephane Hamel at immeria.net said...

Stephan: Thanks for a very insightful post. Maybe the WaW you attended was "geekier" than others, but it gave me a little chill to read how you presented the C-level perception of geeks :)

I told the story a couple of times, but here it is again. As a senior web architect in a C-level meeting, I was told "you don't understand, you're in IT". It was a turning point... I decided to do my MBA :)

Joking aside, I think you are right. It's not how we perceive ourselves among peers, it's how we are perceived by the decision makers and top executives. Your reference to Joseph might very well be true: why take the risk when things doesn't seems to be running too badly... or when the C-level can give the impression it's running fine!

The evocation of "Web Channel Strategic Excellence" reminds me of the days when some people thought a website would magically become a competitive advantage... I was one of them... it doesn't. Competitive advantages comes from top notch process execution throughout the whole user experience. Top notch execution comes from continuous improvement (not Bing Bang), and to know what to work on and measure accomplishment toward goals, there you go, you need analytics. The web (or the online channel) is only a tiny fraction of success.

Again, maybe you are right, web analytics as it is handled today is tactical. Maybe it should remain as such? Just like execs at UPS probably don't care how the mechanic tuned the truck to improve mileage... For that matter, we all know what's the analytics of CEOs, it's called a balance sheet...

Stephane Hamel at immeria.net said...

Jean-François: When you say "the big boom will come a few years after some web analytics class is taught in business schools around the world and the graduates start reaching mid-level positions" I would rather say "analytics" than "web analytics". "Decision making" is already being thought in business schools. WA is just a different data set, maybe those courses just need some slight adjustments :)

As Jim Sterne mentioned, "so much has been written about why web analytics is valuable and how to make it work technically. The major stumbling block for most organizations is change management. Once convinced that they need to look at business from a different perspective, companies need a roadmap. The end game is so far off and the next steps are unclear."

That's my main area of interest right now. This is what I will start teaching at Laval University this winter and present in workshops in several cities in 2010 (see http://immeria.net/wamm)

Brian Clifton said...

Great post and reader comments.

Change Management, or the lack of ability to do it, in my view is the largest obstacle to moving beyond web metrics being just a pretty hit counter.

Organisations of any size are simply reluctant to change anything that "works". They will fix it if you can demonstrate its broken, but changing a process, design or marketing channel that you *know* is under performing, is like pulling teeth.

In my experience, a fast moving, dynamic management team with the confidence to change, test and experiment in a "web" time frame, is rarer than a Siberian tiger...

I consider it a generational thing. Today's 20-somethings work with data much more efficiently than ever before. I am referring to information in general terms (think sms, chat, ipods, games, social networks). I really can't remember the last time I saw that generation reading a newspaper. - they know the story before its printed (boy, I sound old!)

When today's university generation become tomorrow’s managers and CEOs, will be the day when web analytics becomes the central research channel, feedback channel and driving force for businesses.

I feel that is 10 years away. What I find ironic is that today's web analytics tools can do this for you, so it will be interesting to see how these evolve.

Best regards, Brian

kleoplogger said...

Points 1-6 in "what's holding web analytics" are very true. But rhey are also very tru to "what' sholding SEO", "what's holding SMO" or even "what's holding the peace process".

Ophir

Jacques Warren said...

For people wondering about intranet analytics,

I have analyzed a good 15 of them from all kinds of businesses, and can tell you that if you have a phone directory, new job postings, and the cafeteria menu in it, that's about 80% of the intranet activity ;-).

Stephane Hamel at immeria.net said...

Brian: Change management is coming back in about every comment so far.

Interestingly, Wikipedia mentions "change management": the changes of a system are implemented in a controlled manner by following a pre-defined framework/model with, to some extent, reasonable modifications.

- the "system" is what I refer to as being the "online ecosystem", it's boundaries being the "scope".
- "implemented and controlled" implies a process
- "framework/model": what if we can't even agree on a framework/model? Are we doomed to craftsmanship and gurus running around claiming everything is so "hard" forever?
- "reasonable": implies realistic goals

That's not all! "change management (people)" talks about "a structured approach to transitioning individuals, teams, and organizations from a current state to a desired future state". Now we have a concept of "stages" and "maturity levels".

So yes, I totally agree "change management" is at the heart of web analytics adoption.

Sadly, I also think you are somewhat right that in lots of cases, the cultural shift might only be fully adopted only when new waves of managers will take control.

Thank you so much for your comment Brian! Warmest regards,
Stéphane

Stephane Hamel at immeria.net said...

Ophir: Interesting point! It's certainly not a coincidence if the model can be applied to other things and I think it a way it only reinforce it's validity. You could certainly think back in the early days of CRM, when everyone was crazy about Seibel Systems. So many companies failed at deploying Siebel because they were focusing their energy at point #6, rather then looking at point #1, 2, 3, 4...! Same for the early days of the Web... Same for about every situation where a technology is used to bring an organizational mindset change.

Again, the proposed model isn't a magic recipe for success. It's a tool to evaluate current vs desired state and offer a guiding light for the thought process leading to change, adoption - and hopefully - success!

Stephane Hamel at immeria.net said...

Jacques: Maybe you are right (for 80% of them it's sufficient). If I can add to that, intranet success stems from tools & info employees want, not from a top-down "management wants to talk to employees" type of thing.

In terms of success, I have seen some intranets with extensive searchable libraries of each and every product guide and document reference, product configurators especially suited for fast entry, customer files lookups. Incidentally, it's interesting to measure how many employees use the externally-faced/consumer website just to use the versions of the online tools that are easier and more friendly than the arcane back-office interfaces. Basically, organizations are shifting proprietary interfaces to Web interfaces embedded within single-signon portals. Same for B2B websites.

Jacques Warren said...

Yeah, sure, there is a 20% that's more interesting to analyze, and which bears the real business value of having an intranet...

Joseph Carrabis said...

Brian Clifton mentioned that today's college graduates "...work with data more efficiently than ever before."
I have a challenge with that statement and it might be definitional in nature. There's been repeated evidence that the vast majority of recent college students (all levels as noted near the end of my response to Mike Mitchell's comment on The Unfulfilled Promise of Online Analytics, Part 2) can't correctly reason through the data they are given. This was something I noted in researching the Part 1/Part 2 posts, people are being asked to make "logic/reason" based decisions, have never been trained to do so and end up making decisions based on instinct (usually filled with errors because the brain parts that provide "instinct" aren't the brain parts that provide "logic/reason").

I also have a challenge with the concept of doing "something-something analytics" and not electing to either produce, use, evaluate, etc., models (in the scientific sense - a framework of definitions and exactions that take data and turn it into either explanatory or actionable information). Models help people determine if goals are obtainable, if decision paths are actionable, if conclusions are valid or dismissable, ... . I'm neither defending Stephane's WAMM (because it will live or die on its own) nor attacking Eric here. I only offer that the concept of models must remain, especially if the terms "...analytics", "...analysis", ... are to have meaning. Remove the concept of models, of evidentiary trails for decision making, and the industry may as well resort to open augury.
People may think I've taken a side because I've stated I'll be applying WAMM to different fields (health industry then risk-evaluation). My interest in WAMM is no different (to me) than the work I did to add some rigor to Eric's Engagement equation (model?) a while back.

Stephane Hamel at immeria.net said...

Joseph: Two points.

1) Maybe students are not well trained to take decisions based on facts/numbers, I guess I would have to defer to my MBA program manager and ask him what he thinks. Ever since I started my career I always did requirement gathering, solutions recommendations and soon enough, "numbers" were involved. In the MBA program at least, there were specific courses on decision making, playing with numbers (mostly $, but also others), stats and such. So the "possibility" of being trained for fact-based management exists... maybe people just don't have that background?

2) Regardless of the term "model", and regardless if it's the WAMM or something else, there is an underlying methodology/path/concept to problem solving, fact-based decision making. WAMM might live or die on its own, evolve into something else, be folded into something else, or disappear completely in favor of something better. This is part of the evolution process and would certainly be a good indication we are moving forward as an industry.

I offered something to the community - I could have kept it to myself. My biggest reward is the positive and constructive feedback I get, which encourage me to work on a 2nd iteration. Hopefully, the non-constructive arguments such as "models are useless" are the exception, because they leave a bitter taste...

Thank you for your continuous willingness to share and help!

Hugh Gage said...

This is a very interesting discussion and thank you to Stephan Hamel and Immeria for hosting it.

I think Change Management or even the willingness to act on insight derived from web analytics depends to some degree on the size of organisation. I’ve always thought, regarding WA, there is a correlation between organisation size and willingness to take action. I think that people who work in web analytics need to learn & know how to communicate with the decision makers in each kind of organisation.

Owners of small businesses, if they have the time and resource which most don’t, tend to want to know everything because they’re more hands on i.e. they’ll make the effort to focus on the kind of detail that Richard Sedley mentions even if it’s a foreign language to them, of course they ultimately still want to know what to do but they’re likely to be more tactical than strategic. Senior management in midsized organisations will be looking for insight and recommendations that they can act on but, depending on the person, they may well also want to know the science.

I think when web analytics gets to C-Level in large organisations it becomes diluted with strategic insight from other areas. Beyond the big purchasing decisions such as signing off on Omniture I really don’t think these guys could pick it out from the crowd & that’s precisely because it gets blended with bigger picture stuff. Having said that I think it also depends on business sector.

I think there are two other points, one is translation the other is tactical Vs strategic. I think budget holders and key decision makers in each of those organisations are going to need the insight from web analytics explained in different ways depending on what is most relevant to the individual and the situation. As I say, I think this depends on organisation size. Where corporates are concerned part of the problem is that many web analysts tend to be lower down the food chain so in the short term there needs to be somebody to translate the web analytics speak into the senior management speak which may then find its way to C-level with a little further tweaking. In other words there needs to be some kind of ‘web-analytics-into-senior-management’ Bable Fish, unfortunately these people are in short supply right now but as web analysts grow and their careers mature more will come online. I think that will happen in the next 5 years or so but Cory Prohens would be better able to answer that one.

On the ‘tactical Vs strategic’ front, perhaps part of the problem is that many people working in web analytics are focussed too much on the operational side and not so much on the longer view as mentioned above by Stephan quoting Jim Stern. Given that WA is a discipline that requires a constant monitoring / layered approach to deliver best results it’s unsurprising there is a strong tactical element to it but that needs to be distilled into longer term strategies – back to Change Management and communication again.

My overall impression is that communication / translation is the biggest stumbling block and to overcome it requires fluency the language spoken by the decision makers in all sizes of organisation. That means until web analysts come to occupy those positions web analytics professionals must make a bigger effort to understand the needs of those people.

Stephane Hamel at immeria.net said...

Hugh: Interesting. When you say "willingness to take action" do you mean "ability to take action"? The larger the organization, the more difficult it gets to act quickly and effectively because of all the inter-relationships any action might have on other aspects of the business. Of course, "politics" gets more complicated the larger the organization is...

On one end, there's many people flocking to the field of web analytics that needs hands on experience (training) and knowledge of the concepts (education). But there's also a need for bridging the gap between the tactical know-own and the strategic business decision makers. To your point, we need to speak the language of business.

I think there are different needs: tactical, hands-on analysts don't need as much business acumen then, say, middle-tier managers who needs to bring analytics insight to C-level decision makers. As the role evolve, so does the job positions, just like in the early days of the web the "webmaster" was the jack of all trades of the web, coding HTML and talking to C-level! Not anymore...

Thanks for you comment Hugh, I appreciate!

Hugh Gage said...

Hi Stephan,

WhenI say "willingness to take action" by and large I do indeed mean 'ability', but I also think that if communication is poor then decision makers will not fully understand what they are being told, confidence will fall and with it actual 'willingness' to take action'.

I think this then plays to one of Joseph's points which is that in some cases web analysts are dispondent about what they do because they don't feel like they are having a positive impact. I think if web analysts could appreciate that better communication of their recommendations will lead to greater liklihood of implementation that in turn would give them greater job satisfaction, then their lot would be a happier one. Basically a little empathy would go a long way.

Cheers, Hugh

Michael Notté said...

My comment will not be as elaborated as the ones from all the experts who took part in this conversation but as a practitionner I think that Stephane has added a great tool in the existing toolbox that we - practitionners - have at our disposal in our hard quest to turn data into actions, to develop a data-driven culture...

I personally don't care if the WAMM can not be applied to the whole Web, to every single website or business. If it is not perfect... It works for me. I find it useful - for me, it is a great communication & assessment tool. In my case, I see it as an additional resource I can use to explain to higher management (who barely understand why Web is important) where we are, where we should go (and why) and what are the important gaps to fill in to get there.

If you talk to high management about WA tools & technology - you are likely to lost them in the first minutes. Now if you talk about organization, process, governance... These are words they understand.

On top, WAMM is an external model i.e. it is somehow "objective". It is not a model I invented to sell me (and my work). It is based on well-defined criteria. This add value when I present to stakeholders (who are often quite impressed by the fact that such model exists).

My two cents (and bit more :-))

Good work Stephane and keep it up!

Cheers,

Michael
Kaizen Analytics

Stephane Hamel at immeria.net said...

Michael: Thank you so much! We don't have to be afraid of telling things as they are. WAMM is certainly not perfect but it's only through its actual "test of fire" and collective feedback that we're going to improve it for the benefit of everyone.

I have other ideas to further improve the model. But with the recent events regarding the concept of "crowd sourced analytics to help non-profit organizations", I must admit I'm a bit afraid of revealing too much!

Stay tuned!

Joseph Carrabis said...

Stephane, I commented, expanding on something Hugh Gage had referenced, analysts' despondency.
Surprise, my comment was too long for this platform.
I've posted my comment on TheAnalyticsEcology.
Hope that's okay.
Joseph

Lennart Svanberg said...

Why aren't management more interested in Web Analytics at the moment? Simple answer; they're occupied with understanding Social Media.