An immersion in analytics

From time to time, I catch up with my friend Joseph Carrabis to chat about strange topics. Take last week, our "topic du jour" was about company tag lines. Simple topic, interesting outcome!

Web analytics is easy to do badly

I was thinking of changing immeria's current tagline from "an immersion in analytics" to something else, something more representative of my goal "to make web analytics easier by fostering education, processes and tools".

Interestingly, while reading "Discovering Knowledge in Data: An Introduction to Data Mining" from Daniel Larose I stumbled on a nice quote readily applicable to our field:

Just as with any new information technology, (data mining) web analytics is easy to do badly.

A mentra for immeria

Guy Kawasaki's book "The Art Of The Start" covers "mentras" in the first chapter. My thought process went from immeria = "an immersion in analytics", to "making web analytics easier" and then, simplified even more, just "easier analytics". Joseph and I reflected on taglines for other companies in the web analytics and marketing space. I felt "easier analytics" would be quite good, simple and to the point. And I must admit it would be a pun to those who say web analytics is hard... :)

Alliteration and syllabation: here comes M.Carrabis!

To which Joseph argued, with his never resting scientific mindset, that my current tagline is better because "alliteration combined with increasing syllabation causes things to go into memory quickly, stay there for a long time and be easily recalled when necessary".

He continued: "an immersion in analytics works as a mnemonic device because it has a driving syllabic rhythm (1-3-1-4) and because the alliterative elements are echoed (an ... ANalytics), (...im...IN...). The sense given from this tagline is that we're going to go into something to learn how to deal with it on the outside. Very good and probably the way you think of things, knowing you somewhat."

Joseph, you are amazing! (and I will stick to "an immersion in analytics").

Back from vacation

Disconnect

I was away at my camp for a week, totally disconnected from modern society: no computer, no cell phone, not even a land line, no TV, water comes from a well and there is barely enough electricity to sustain the fridge and the oven. The camp is at the far end of a gravel road, surounded by 500 acres of wood and farm fields. 500 acres is enough to get lost, encounter dears, racoons, porcupine, maybe even moose and bears. Disconnected.

Introspect

As I shared a while back, every couple of months I take a pause pause to think about my career. I made the jump to become freelance last December, but the decision was really taken about a year ago. Lest look back at my 3 + 1:

1. Am I increasing my value in the market?
2. Am I bringing the right value to my employer clients?
3. Am I being rightly compensated for my value?

And an extra one proposed by Avinash Kaushik:

4. Am I happy?

The problem I'm facing is interesting: I can safely say a resounding "YES!" to all of those. So is there any problem? Read on.

Clean

Vacation is a good time for cleanup...

I had enough! I'm defaced, de-twitted and still alive! Some people say Facebook and Twitter are the next greatest thing in life, I simply have enough of it. I deactivated Facebook and deleted my Twitter account. I also cleaned up my RSS feeds and will now read my Hotmail and GMail only once a day, while I keep my immeria.net email account strictly for business. However, I still find value in LinkedIn and to some extent, Plaxo, so they both remain in my toolbox.

I also cleaned my cable-TV, internet, phone and cell services. It's amazing how much we end up paying if we don't review all the great "extras" that gets added over time.

Reallign

immeria's tagline is "an immersion in analytics". Web analytics is an emerging field and demand for experienced people is high. Consulting, developing WASP and education: I love the three aspects. The problem is I'm being pulled into many directions, sometimes too deeply. It's easy and tempting to do consulting work, but consulting is mostly a one-to-one knowledge transfer; it doesn't scale easily. However, this is also how I can "stay in touch" with the field and identify pain points and think about learning, processes and tools to make web analytics easier. So here are the results of my introspection:

1. Consulting: Keep a few consulting clients but refer to trusted partners whenever possible
2. Tools: Pursue WASP development, especially for quality assurance and market research, and delegate more sub-contracting work. WASP being the first of a serie of tools to make web analytics easier.
   
3. Education: Continue tutoring and teaching; actively work on educational content, especially the documentation of web analytics processes, toward a new full semester class on web analytics coming up this winter at Laval University (graduate level).

Summary

In short, what I want to do is this:

As a free spirited, independent consultant, I want to seize every opportunity to make web analytics easier by fostering education, processes and tools that are solution agnostic and largely applicable.

Quebec 2008: Paul McCartney, I was there!

In case you don't know, I live in Lévis, just on the other side of the St-Lawrence river, in front of Québec city. Québec city is celebrating its 400th anniversary this year. The party is going, events are one after the other, and the latest one was...

Sir Paul McCartney!

He does four shows per year, and we were over 200,000 to hear him sign 36 songs in a non-stop 2 hour and 45 minutes show. Amazing!

The amateur video of "Hey Jude" shown bellow (or follow the link) gives an idea of the ambiance. I have the chills just looking at it. This will remain among my best souvenirs for the rest of my life.





It's still time to come visit what a lot of people consider to be the nicest city in the world (nothing less!) and "Canada's European jewel". If you can by, let me know!

What to do when you suspect your hard work is being stolen?

Update: the author of the blog I'm talking about apologized and made some changes to his site and post. The important is to learn from our mistakes :)
Tip of the hat to him for acting quickly and being honest.

I started working on the Web Analytics Solution Profiler (WASP) over a year ago, first as a personal challenge and proof of concept, and more recently as a true viable commercial product. I've spent countless hours on this, and even got a group of "angel advisers" who I am forever grateful for helping me out.

Thank you Avinash!

This morning, an email from my friend Avinash brought me to a new web analytics practitioner site working at a large company. I will not disclose that company name or link to the blog... This guy had good words for Avinash's style and his article on Benefits of blogging. Avinash is one of the greatest guy I have ever met and is rightfully highly respected in the industry, he has a chearful personality and he is always ready to help. But I think Avinash might be as disapointed as I am about what follows...

Plagiarism

There are only 2 blog posts on this guy site, along with an About and a Tools list. Let's look at it more closely:

• The first post, "What is web analytics", is a copy & paste from wikipedia and a PC Magazine article...
• The second post could have been a great praise for WASP... except the guy called it differently and didn't link to the official source. He even went as far as actually ripping of the page code from wasp.immeria.net so that the extension installer can be launched from his own site. There is no way he can have done all of this without knowing about the real name and about my site.
• The tools list is a ripp off of my page at wasp.immeria.net/faq/solutions.htm, which is generated from the WASP configuration file. For God's sake, even the wrong alphabetical ordering of the products and the imperfect HTML tags are the same! The minimum he could have done is to mention/link the original source.

When I grade students assignments, if I suspect a copying and pasting was done (and believe me, it's easy to spot!), I do a search on Google with those couple of phrases or even the whole paragraph. If there is no reference to the original article and the abstract is more than a phrase long, I consider it to be stupid plagiarism. Thankfully, it only happened once... (and the horror: she said she did that all the time!)

Credit where credit is due

Mitch Joel posted about "One thing you should never do as a blogger" this week. I guess the flip side is:

The other thing you should never do as a blogger:
Never use others work as if it was your own, without citing or linking back.

Several blogs mentioned WASP, and I appreciate it greatly. They all follow the unwritten rule of linking back. Some commercial sites offering downloadable files also manually or automatically scrape my content and re-distribute the installer on their own site. When they do this, people often end up downloading an older version of WASP, which might cause some frustration for the user and additional support on my side. But at least, they clearly state the author and the official site.

What about you?

Am I pissed off at this guy attitude? You bet! And I hope he will act quickly to correct this situation.

Did people copy your work? What did you do? What would you do?

The reward of tutoring for UBC's Web Analytics Award of Achievement

Take this as self-promotion or inflated ego, I though I would share some comments I received for the various UBC Web Analytics Award of Achievement classes I'm tutoring.

It basically took me 20 years of experience to strike a balance between my three main interests:

• Teaching, coaching, speaking: helping out others through the UBC classes, speaking at various conferences, doing Web Analytics Wednesdays, etc.
• Consulting: bringing valuable and recognized expertise to companies and agencies when it's needed
• Research and Development: the fun of creating and solving challenging problems, mainly through WASP

Comments from students

Of course not all comments are THAT positive, those who know me well will understand that they represent a lot to me.

• Very involved and clearly "living" his subject.
• Excellent Tutor. Smart, insightful, very responsive!
• Stephane was my tutor during my first course with UBC-WA, knowing someone prior helps. And it did. I should repeat in this course too... He is a great guy. And an amazing teacher too
• Stephan is a very engaging, friendly and helpful instructor. I found the content very interesting and pertinent to what I am doing at work.
• The tutor. Stephane Hamel was great!
• Yes he was the best so far of all my classes he added a lot of value to the message board with discussion topics beyond the class work.
• This way the best course so far of all 3 classes I have taken. Both in content and in tutor.
• This instructor was the best I've had so far. He didn't just do the minimum. He continually tried to have discussion topics available and continually encouraged students to join them.

I'm passionate about web analytics, online business optimization and I love tutoring. So far I have tutored the first two classes, Introduction to Web Analytics and Web Analytics for Site Optimization. This fall I will add Measuring Marketing Campaigns Online and if I can tutor Creating and Managing the Analytical Business Culture I might become the first tutor to have made all four classes!

Celebrating immeria.net and life in general

Today, June 4th, 2008

I've been working for 21 years, actively involved in the Internet and Web development for 15 years. Been blogging for over 5 years and posted over 300 messages.

I found this morning that I now have over 500 subscribers to this blog, plus close to a hundred to the web analytics conversations. Although my roots in analytics might date back to the days when I was an Oracle database administrator, or when I was looking at CERN HTTP logs, the graph below clearly show when I started to blog more seriously about web analytics.

Retrospective

• December 2007: Officially became web analytics freelance and entrepreneur while pursuing an eBusiness MBA. Of course there are some constraints, some hard work and some stress, but I've been enjoying the past 6 months like a child in a toy store.
• October 2002: First blog post, in French, where I welcome hypothetical readers and explain what is a "blog".
  
• 
• October 1994: After explaining why it was so important to have a web presence and literally building the first site over nights and week ends, Softimage, then a subsidiary of Microsoft, launched a first website (this version comes from a snapshot in 1997, when I was part of a team dedicated to the web).
• August 1994: First proof of a website I built for an R&D project at Hydro-Quebec
• June 1993: My first archeological presence on the net (a bit scary to still find it!). A message about system administration on SunOS machines.

See my full profile on LinkedIn.

The gift of trust from Avinash Kaushik

Going trough my usual round of blog reading this morning, I noticed a new post from Avinash Kaushik. Must be good: Avinash is a well respected and trusted source. In two years he has become one of the (I would dare to say THE) greatest influencer trough his very high quality blog posts, his book, speaking and now being the official web analytics evangelist for Google Analytics. The personality plays for a lot: cheerful, always willing to give, very attentive to his interlocutor regardless if its face to face or millions of pixels away.

Trust and influence is something people give you, not something you claim.

You could become an influencer, looks like I'm one now!

What happen when someone like Avinash says this:

A email Stephane wrote to me made me realize how fantastic blogs are at creating “influencers”. He described how at the eMetrics Insights Day he was invited to present industry insights on a panel along with Jupiter and Nielsen.

Pause and think about it for a second.

Two big established companies with budgets of millions and years in the “business”. And one, like me, “small” blogger. And he has the power and the authority as a result of his blog (and WASP ).

Now to be honest Stephane is brilliant and get’s invited to do this all the time. But even someone like me gets invited all the time to “analyst briefings” (sadly I decline most of them) and meeting with CEO’s and yes even gets sent nice gifts. :) Trimmings that in the past were reserved for the elite few.

For the longest time the loud voices belonged to the “experts” and “analysts”. Forrester and Jupiter and Gartner and others had a hold on the “influencing” market. They continue to have a voice, but it is no longer the voice.

Through your blog you have the power to be a “influence powerhouse”, provide an authentic voice of someone who actually knows, and provide a valuable service to the world.

The ability to influence others is now a lot more democratic. Next up on stage, Stephane, Nielsen, Forrester and You!

And that is a good thing.

I fell off my chair... When I woke up I felt good, honored, happy. Thank you Avinash!

"Where did I want to be today?"

A twist on the slogan "Where do you want to go today"? My career spans 20 years, most of which was in IT, the past 15 or so dedicated to the Web. Every now and then it was "review time", depending on the culture of the company and the quality of the boss it was not always fun, not always very constructive...

Some gems:

• "Your grades are not good enough, don't even try going in IT" (a high school teacher trying to help us find our way in life...). I'm now twice on the MBA honor roll...
  
• "You can't understand this, you are an IT guy". A marketing manager when I recommended changes to a site. This was the trigger that got me to do an MBA!
  
• "You've got the defaults of your qualities". From a particularly clueless manager...
• "I'll show you everything I know so you can take my job. Then I will do something even more fun!". A great manager.
• "You failed the break-even math question. Sorry, we won't hire you". After spending a full day of interview with about 10 people...
  
• "You don't have enough dedication to the company". After doing way too much unpaid overtime for a company that was shortly after purchased and cut 10-15% staff.
  

But I got asked a few times "where do you see yourself in 5 years" and my answer was always the same: I want to share my knowledge and be recognize as an expert in my field. Some viewed it as "inflated ego". Credit goes to a book called "Becoming a technical leader"...

I didn't want to be a boss, nor did I want to be rich. Simply that I wanted to be trusted and continue to grow my expertise trough knowledge sharing. Thus my inclination for consulting, teaching, speaking and doing R&D.

Today I feel a lot closer to my goal.

On my way to the Summit...

The title can take several significations.

Omniture Summit

The most obvious one is my trip to Salt Lake City to attend the Omniture Summit. I will be reporting about the event until Friday. First thing: not obvious to go from Quebec city to Salt Lake City... 3 flights with hour long connections: total time, door to door was 13 hours. I knew it would be long, so I came in early to be in shape for Tuesday's opening reception at 7:00pm. Spare time? Not really, I will catch up on client work!

Skiing at Snowbird

The other summit takes the form of a 3,000' ski hill; base elevation: 7,000', top: 11,000', on average, 500 inches of snow! My first time on such a huge mountain. On my way in I had a good chat with people who also skied on the East cost. Quite a difference from our dammed icy slopes... I can expect powder up the belt! I'm going there on Friday, I'll take it easy...

A personal high

The last way I can think of a "summit" is how I feel about what I've been doing since the past few months. I wanted to enjoy the "freedom" of being freelance, I wanted to push the envelope of what I can do, I wanted to learn more & share even more. I have not attained the summit, but I feel I'm actually living trough what is a big personal objective.

Hey! Thanks Joseph!

Sometimes we say "thank you" as a form of social best practice, a bit automated and cold. Sometimes we say "thank you" from our heart, a real and sincere "thank you" for making us feel the warmth of being listened to, for the pleasure of sharing and spending time that makes us better persons in our professional and personal lives.

Thank you Joseph!

Honestly, that's what I felt this week end when my friend Joseph Carrabis and his CEO wife Susan came visit us in Quebec city. How in the world can people from different countries, different background and (sorry Joseph!) different ages get along so well? I don't know, but it just happen to be. My wife is a bit shy, but at first glance, she knew Joseph and Susan would be friendly and "compatible". It's a strange feeling, why do we meet people and we instantly know "it doesn't fit", and others we know we'll have great time with? Of course we talked about web analytics and the upcoming eMetrics conference where we will be on a panel to discuss about cultural behavior, and he gave me great advices for WASP. But we also discussed hunting, religion, history, politics, career, etc.

According to Wikipedia, a handshake is "a short ritual in which two people grasp each other's right or left hands". The formality stops there. If you give the right hand and put your left hand on the arm or shoulder, it demonstrate respect & friendship. If two nearly 6' tall men hug each other and their wifes say "HOooo!"... priceless :)

Member of the jury for "Jeux du Commerce 2008"

"Jeux du Commerce 2008" is an annual inter-university competition bringing together the top management students from 13 universities in eastern Canada. The 20th edition of the Jeux will run from January 4 to 6, 2008 at Université du Québec à Trois-Rivières (UQTR). The event will be presented under the theme "Innovation, the solution."

1,400 students will square off against each other in academic cases from ten different disciplines, including Management Information Systems, for which I will be one of the three member Jury. The case students will have to solve is taken from a real life situation and is very representative of todays challenges for IS/IT managers.

Being a member of the Jury is both challenging and rewarding. On Saturday, in a fast-paced schedule, each team will have one hour straight to put their Business Process Analysis skills to work and come up with their recommendation. Evaluation criteria are rigorous and as in real life, it is likely there won't be one single best solution, but a multiple of small elements that will make one team stand out. This is going to be fun!

A nice touch from the WAA

Just in time for Christmas, I received a small package with a Certificate of Recognition from the Web Analytics Association for my involvement in the field of web analytics. It's signed by the hand of His Honorable Mr. Jim Sterne himself, father or web marketing, founder and chairman of the Web Analytics Association and producer of eMetrics. A nice touch from an organization that is mostly run and energized by volunteers who get involved because they enjoy what they do and are fascinated by the field of web analytics.


By the way, did you know Jim Sterne will be in Montreal on February 6th?

Web Analytics training: mix concepts and hands on

This morning, while taking my first coffee and making my daily round of blogs and emails, I noticed the Press Release from Omniture "More Than 5,000 Trained Through Omniture University As Demand for Online Marketing Skills Increases". There's this quote about me in it:

“Omniture University training goes way beyond Web Analytics 101,” said Stephane Hamel, a Canada-based Web analytics consultant and thought leader that recently attended Omniture University training in Montreal. “People who attended left the training armed with specific skills they could implement right away—from quick wins to longer-term, strategic areas that will lead to new revenue opportunities for their company.”

As a local web analytics enthusiast and events organizer, I helped Omniture set up this course in Montreal. We managed to get a full room of local Omniture clients and it really fostered communication and networking among participants. Feedback was absolutely great and people asked for more!

At the same time, I'm also tutoring the UBC Award of Achievement in Web Analytics. This 4 course curriculum is just amazing for anyone who wants to get broader knowledge about the concepts and expertise regardless of a specific product. In my opinion, what might be a perfect path to web analytics is to take the UBC courses and pursue and mix it with training specific to the tool you use. Attending events such as local web analytics get together or the upcoming breakfast and eMetrics is the cherry on top of the Sunday.

For 2008 I'm working on other types of local events that will address specific needs expressed by people who attended the "[WAM] Web Analytics in Montreal" and "[WAQ] Web Analytics in Quebec" events. I'll keep you posted!

P.S. If you would like to sponsor one of the future [WAM] or [WAQ], or are willing to present a business case, please contact me.

immeria: small but highly experienced

"Small but highly experienced", that's what Forrester's Megan Burns says in the executive summary of "Where to get help with web analytics".

Firms looking to improve their use of Web analytics data to boost Web site performance should assign dedicated staff to the effort, then hire an
experienced professional services firm to jump-start the learning process and
establish a strong foundation on which to build a robust Web measurement
platform.

Small but highly experienced.

immeria might be a "company of 1", but with 20 years of field experience, the last 13 on the Web, I think I can bring breadth: having worked with numerous employers on countless projects of various size and industries, and depth: from the nitty gritty of web development and business intelligence up to ebusiness strategies.

What Forrester doesn't mention is the level of "coopetition" going on between those small firms. I spoke or met in person with most of the Canadian companies mentioned in the study and there's a general agreement that while we compete in some ways, we have much more opportunities and leverage if we help each other. Plus, it's even better value for our clients!

More focused on business than technology

While most people focus on the marketing aspect of web analytics, I'm much more interested in what happen once they get on the site. Here, my technological background and analytical skills helps me get the most out of the technology in order to support the business strategy, and even recommend actions to achieve the business objectives in a more efficient way.

Hiring web analytics consultants to jump start the efforts

Burns concludes that "Companies should use Web analytics consultants to help new Web analytics managers define roles, responsibilities, and requirements for the collection and use of Web data in their organizations." I can't agree more! What I have also seen are companies striving "to implement Web analytics platforms so they provide reliable, high-value data". Things that I especially like doing is coaching and helping out staff employees develop a process and a methodology to address the business needs by themselves: ad hoc requests, defining KPIs, doing analysis, communicating results, etc. I guess it's my UBC Award of Achievement in Web Analytics and conference speaker that transpire into my consulting practice!

A word about immeria

The company name stems from "an immersion in web analytics" and offers ebusiness strategy and web analytics consulting services, education & conferencing as well as some R&D with the Web Analytics Solution Profiler:

• Web analytics needs assessment
• Web measurement strategy
• Web analytics vendor selection
• Implementation planning
• Platform customization/development
• Dashboard & report design and creation
• Data analysis & recommendations
• eBusiness strategy
  
• Web analytics education & conference speaking
  

If you would like to know more, don't hesitate to contact me!

I've been quiet, but quite busy!

On the surface, I've been more quiet than usual for a couple of weeks. But behind the scene, there's a lot going on! Here's some highlights.

Webcom Montréal

Webcom Montreal is coming up next week, November 14th in Montreal. I will be on a panel with Jacques Warren and Simon Rivard discussing about "how to optimize your conversion rates with web analysis?"
Don't forget Web Analytics Association members get a 15% discount!

"[WAM] Web Analytics Montreal" and "[WAQ] Web Analytics Quebec"

[WAQ] Living in the nice Quebec city area? Book your agenda for November 21th at Taverne Urbaine Chez Mo where we will repeat last month's experience of joining the YULBiz group. At the same occasion, there will be the launch of a book entitled "Pourquoi bloguer dans un contexte d'affaires" (why blog in a business context), a collective work of 10 bloggers in Quebec .

[WAM] Close to Montréal? Book your agenda for November 28th, around 6pm at Café Melies, for the next get together of Montreal's Web Analytics community. This month sponsors are Coremetrics and the Web Analytics Association. I will provide more info as we get closer to November 28th.

eMetrics Marketing Optimization Summit

I'm working with Andrea Hadley, June Li, Alex Langshur and Joseph Carrabis on the upcoming Canada's eMetrics Marketing Optimization coming up in Toronto March 31st-April 2nd. We're putting a final touch on the agenda and making contact with potential sponsors and speakers.

What about WASP?

It's been a while since I talked about the Web Analytics Solution Profiler. I have made some major improvements since the last version: a status bar, more tools detection, improved interface, much better handling of multi-tab browsing, optimization, etc. Sadly, it's been rejected twice by the approval team at Mozilla because of some changes in the End User License Agreement and the introduction of some data collection in the tool itself. Basically, I will collect usage information in order to improve the product and provide market share data (this feature can be turned off). I hope to have the stamp of approval within two weeks.

UBC Introduction to Business Process Analysis

I'm tutoring the UBC course "Introduction to Business Process Analysis", which is part of the Certificate in Business System Analysis. This first experience as an online tutor is a great opportunity to view elearning from the mentoring side instead of being a student. Starting in January I will be tutoring the "Introduction to Web Analytics" course, which is part of the Award of Achievement in Web Analytics program.

eBusiness MBA at Université Laval

I took a break this summer and for the fall semester, but will get back to it for the winter semester in order to complete the MBA within a year. In the meantime, I will be attending the Honor Roll reception on November 13th for achieving higher grades (top 20 students for the eBusiness MBA program).

immeria

Between all of this, I'm getting closer to November 30th, which is the date I will be officially "freelance" and 100% dedicated to web analytics. Setting up the business is a lot of work in itself: incorporating, lawyer, finance, setting up a decent presence, defining the exact services I want to offer, finding some contracts, etc.

On the opportunity side, it's beyond my expectations! I already have some work going on, and two major contracts on the way. The work I've put in networking, getting some attention and word of mouth are paying off and I'm very excited by the way things are turning out.

Some might ask, why "immeria"? It's already hard to find a name, even more a name that can have some meaning and good pronunciation in French and English! immeria can have several meanings:

• The word immeria is inspired by the german word "immer", which mean "always", "forever".
• It refers to the notion of immersion or flow: an experience that is at once demanding and rewarding, from the theory of M.Csikszentmihalyi
• It can simply be a contraction of "immersed in Internet and Analytics"
  

Anil Batra interview's me

In previous posts I referred to the sense of community and mutual collaboration that (still) characterize the web analytics industry. I'm thinkful to Anil Batra for doing his series of interviews with web analysts.

Anil interviewed me about my current position, how I ended up here, my background and my take on education and how to get in the field.

Hope you'll find it interesting, and of course, your comments are always appreciated!

The NextStage of web analytics

I'm often asked about my blogging activities and the time I spend working on WASP. Most people don't understand why I'm taking so much of my free time on "this" even if I'm not getting paid to do it.

The answer is simple: I'm not doing it for money.

My reward is otherwise and goes back to the history of humanity: recognition as in "the state or quality of being recognized or acknowledged". It might sound selfish, but I think it's not: recognition is not something you decide, it's something people give you, just like leadership is determined by your peers. You have to nurture it, to be profesional and ethical in your approach while remaining true to yourself and to others.

What is rewarding to me?

• Knowing I can help others with the things I know, and learn from them for those I don't. A simple comment on my blog, an email with feedback and sugestions, meeting someone in person, etc.
  
• Meeting someone in person who I would have never met if I was not blogging. Be it fellow web analytics practitioners or world renowned web analytics gurus and authors.
• Speaking at conferences like eMetrics, doing research on topics of interest such as the attention economy or having the chance to meet and work with people I recognize as masters in their field of expertise.

One thing leads to another greater one

As Jeremiah Owyang said recently "remember that even the smallest thing will lead to something bigger, and it will snowball" which is akin to Malcolm Gladwell's "How little things can make a big difference".

I had some interesting email exchanges about web analytics and the attention economy with Joseph Carrabis. His extensive profile is impressive, meeting the man is even more! If you haven't met him in person, think of Professor Henry Jones Sr. from the Indiana Jones movie: quite a fascinating character! :)

Think of it, if Jim Sterne is the Godfather of web analytics, Joseph must be Indiana Jones father!

The NextStage of web analytics

One thing leading to another, I met Joseph in San Francisco. Then he helped me out with my article on "The human metric of web analytics" and we continued to exchange on various topics. Now Joseph suggested we work together on a training or a presentation that would convey the NextStage of web analytics. Joseph Carrabis is the chairman, CRO and founder of NextStage Evolution LLC, a company dedicated to predictive analytics, persuasion engineering and interactive analytics with strong roots in the social sciences and behavioral analysis.

Joseph, I'll be honored to help and I'm sure it will be a rewarding experience!

Business Design Intelligence

I read the most recent article from my friend Joseph Carrabis on iMedia Connection: "Intelligent Website Design". The article could as well been entitled "Business Design Intelligence" because it goes far beyond designing the website and address the brand and positioning of the whole company.

There are some unique nuggets of wisdom in his article, a must read for people who are beginning with web analytics and the concepts of site optimization. Even experienced web analysts will find it worthwhile: Joseph takes eMetrics.org, the brainchild of Jim Sterne (a web marketing guru himself), as an example.

"The first message is not from you to your market, it's from your market to you"
Joseph Carrabis

The eMetrics rich persona

In his article, Joseph presents the rich persona for speakers that presented at the San Francisco eMetrics Summit. The nice thing is this was done BEFORE the summit, without knowing much about who would actually be presenting. This work was based on NextStage Evolution's own methodology (Joseph Carrabis is president of NextStage). Here's what the persona looked like:

• 35-45-year-olds who have been analyzing websites for 10-plus years both in and out of corporations
• That have been doing web analytics for 5-10 years, and ditto for large and small businesses
• That have spoken/presented at major conferences
• That have "hands-on" knowledge of at least five different analytics platforms
• That have product neutral (no commercial affiliations)
• That are patient with ignorance

I had the chance to be a speaker at the San Francisco eMetrics Summit conference, and not surprisingly, my profile match very closely this persona. I think one of the only element that didn't work out very well is the fact that English is not my mother tong, so some communicational elements were a bit harder to convey without the perfect fluency of the language. But still, I look forward to other opportunities to be a speaker, something I truly enjoy and find very motivating.

What should eBusiness Architect do?

Whenever I think of something interesting, I create a draft entry in my blog and get back to it later. I started writing this entry about a week ago, and this morning while swifting trough 100+ Google Reader entries, I noticed the post from Holly Buchanan: "If Architects Had to Work Like Web Designers".

There was also that interesting discussion thread on the Web Analytics group about "Does a web analyst have to know how an I.P. address is constructed?". Although useful, I don't think it's essential and you can read my opinion and those of others in the discussion thread.

A thing leading to another, I got an email that sparkled some interesting discussion about the role of an ebusiness architect. I also realized some of my co-workers don't know/understand what is my role as a "senior ebusiness architect".

So? What's an architect?

Let's borrow from Wikipedia: "an architect is a person who translates the user's needs into physical, built solution. An architect must thoroughly understand the building and operational codes under which his or her design must conform. That degree of knowledge is necessary so that he or she is not apt to omit any necessary requirements, or produce improper, conflicting, ambiguous, or confusing requirements. Architects must understand the various methods available to the builder for building the client's structure, so that he or she can negotiate with the client to produce a best possible compromise of the results desired within explicit cost and time boundaries."

As we read this definition, it's obvious it perfectly applies to Information Systems/Information Technology and more specifically, to ebusiness and Web initiatives.

Some caveats (and a legal disclaimer)

In some countries, like Canada, job titles such as "engineer" or "architect" are regulated professions. So officially, I'm not a "senior ebusiness architect", I'm a "senior ebusiness advisor". Just like a few years ago, I tried to explain that I was not a "software engineer" simply because I couldn't use that title.

An architect for every soup

There's often confusion around the job titles. Put any of those words in front of "architect" and you've got a new field of expertise and a new career: software, technical, organic, functional... ebusiness, enterprise...

What should an ebusiness architect do?

Simply put, my role is exactly that of an architect: take the business requirements and plan for the solution. A bit too simplistic, let's look more closely at that phrase:

• take: this implies a lot of listening, communicating and explaining the process that will lead to the solution
  
• business: have the right interlocutor and that he/she is empowered to take decision/action
  
• requirements: one of the biggest challenge is the fact that "requirements" are often (almost always!) expressed in terms of "solution". From the requirements, we must strive to understand the initial objective. To take the home analogy, the client knows he/she wants a "3-section with side-panels triple-glass wooden-frame 6 feet by 4 feet window" on that wall, but probably doesn't know how the wall will need to be reinforced to support the 2nd floor. The objective would be something like "The dining room as a view on our garden and we can see really beautiful sunsets. I want the largest window possible as long as it doesn't increase the overall cost of the house more than X$". It's the architect responsibility to read between the lines and translate those requirements into realistic objectives.
  
• plan: It's also the architect responsibility to work within the constraints of time, budget and quality. This implies a vast understanding of the subject and the collaboration of field experts to gather the elements of the solution and mutually challenge the solution to come up with something as efficient and as realistic as possible.
  
• solution: Solutions are mutually accepted compromises. That last point is critical: sometimes it's the role of the architect to go back to the client and explain why the requirement can't be met, or why another approach might be better or at least, satisfy a fair percentage of the goal without necessarily constraining future enhancements.
  

Key skills of an ebusiness architect

Just like the construction architect, the ebusiness architect doesn't actually "build" the solution, but he/she has to take responsibility for it's conception and overlook the work so the job is done according to plans. Strong knowledge of the various work expertise, supporting technologies and best practices, trends and evolution of the ebusiness field, strong analytical skills and be solution driven, as well as acute communication skills are all essential ingredients of a good architect.

The feet strongly grounded in IT, the brain on the business side

One of the most interesting challenge of the ebusiness architect is to "translate" the business lingua into more technical terms, and vice-versa. We often see this latent tension between "IT" and "business", "us" and "them". Sometimes, the ebusiness architect is merely a communication gear between two quite different worlds. Being strongly grounded in IT while at the same time being able to walk the talk of the business is probably the most important role of the ebusiness architect.

Omniture Café - Case study of DGAG

At the recent Omniture Café in Montréal, I had the great pleasure to present a case study about my employer, Desjardins General Insurance Group. If you attended, missed it, or are just plain curious, I'm making a slightly modified version of my presentation available to the world.

(If you are reading this post trough an RSS Reader, you might not see the presentation. Visit my blog to see it.)

(click here for a larger view)

Enjoy! And as always, your feedback and comments are appreciated!

If you would like to attend future Web Analytics events in Montreal, contact me!

Code of ethics

I was reading René Deschamps excellent post about OX2 code of ethics and I thought I should state my own position toward the Web Analytics community, my blog and my employer.

The Web Analytics community

My involvement in the Web Analytics Association and various committees, as an organizer of the local Web Analytics Wednesdays and a speaker, and my relation with several practitioners, vendors, consultants and fellow bloggers. I will respect...

1. Vendors: not do product demos or provide product information to competitors;
2. Clients: any information about someone's actual or intentional use of a solution will be solemnly respected;
3. Practitioners: empower the users with their actual solution without influencing them to change unless it’s in their best interest.
4. Consultants: try not to interfere between a vendor-consultant-practitioner relationship. If it happens, the practitioner's best interest will always be favored.

Blogging

I'm borrowing from O'Reilly's proposed code of conduct:

1. Take responsibility for my own words and for the comments I allow on my blog.
2. Won't say anything online that I wouldn't say in person.
3. In case of conflict, I will connect privately before I respond publicly.
4. Will filter comments that are against my personal values, but will gladly accept constructive comments.
5. Will post constructive comments to other's blogs.
6. Will link & reference others contributions in my posts.

My employer

As a web analytics practitioner and a Senior eBusiness Architect at Desjardins General Insurance Group, I will abide the following code of ethics, as described in the Desjardins Group Code of Ethics and Professional Conduct:

• I will disclose all the details of the situation to my immediate superior if I think a conflict of interest might occur.
• I will never accept or solicit gifts, tokens of appreciation or benefits, financial
  or otherwise, for myself, an associate or a third party, if accepting such gratuities impairs my objectivity or my judgment in the performance of my duties.
• Will not engage into any contract without abiding by the prescriptive conditions of my employer.
• Will not perform an activity or hold a position or a job with a competitor if doing so places me in a position that may prejudice the interests of my employer.
• Will ensure that the activities I perform outside the scope of my job do not prejudice the interests, image or reputation of my employer.
• When expressing opinions, I will not give the impression that I'm expressing the official position of my employer unless I receive prior authorization to do so.
• Will never disclose confidential information or use confidential information for my own benefit.
  

Full disclaimer

• I'm currently using Omniture SiteCatalyst on the job
• I'm using Google Analytics on this blog
• My previous employer was a reseller of WebSideStory and I did several implementations
  
• I contributed to a large Coremetrics implementation
• I used WebTrends for several years
• I used LiveStats for several years
• Please see my full profile on LinkedIn for the employers I worked for over the last 20 years.