X Change Web Analytics Conference
I'm not a huge baseball fan - just sort of a lukewarm follower. So it was fun to have the All-Star Game in SF this year but not really that big a deal. Of course, we heard endless hype about it here - and countless interviews. The common theme among the first-time players - and I don't think it is entirely a case of giving the approved "media" answer - is what a thrill it is to play with all those fantastic players. I get that. When you've grown up living and breathing baseball, it must be pretty incredible to take the field with all of these players you've watched and emulated and admired.
Well that's pretty much the way I'm feeling looking forward to our X Change Conference in September.It’s about midway through August – still more than a month before X Change – and I figured this was a pretty good time to talk about how X Change and the current roster of expert facilitators for our 1st ever Web Analytics Conference.
First, a little background. In my original post announcing X Change, I laid out the reasons why we were tackling X Change and what we hoped would be different about it. If you’re like me, you’ve probably been to quite a few conferences. And while many of them are excellent in their own way, it seems to me that their value tends to decline if you’ve attended them more than once or twice. And as Conferences grow, they need to increasingly focus on large presentations where speakers talk at – not with – an audience.
I’ve pretty much found that the best moments and biggest take-aways from most Conferences come from conversations that occurred in between the presentations. So the idea behind X Change was to have a conference that just was those conversations.
X Change is made up almost entirely of small group discussions (we’re calling them huddles). Each huddle will be facilitated by an expert in the group topic and will have between 4 and 12 people participating. So they will very intimate – a real opportunity to talk peer-to-peer with industry experts and fellow practitioners.
Of course, a big part of what makes any Conference worthwhile is the speakers. So what I’m mostly going to talk about today are some of the current line-up of speakers – especially speakers we’ve added since the initial annoucement.
And I’ll start by saying that I’m thrilled. Ecstatic. Very, very, very happy about the people who’ve committed to X Change. It’s an amazing team.
I will begin, of course, with our Keynoter Eric Peterson. I’ve talked often and extensively in my blog about Eric – and I think it’s already clear that unshackled from a vendor he’s an even more powerful force in our industry. Eric is really setting the debate about what analytics is and what companies need to accomplish to do it well. He’s a great speaker – and loads of fun to talk with too. So I’m looking forward to seeing him in a small group and hearing what he has to say to all of us.
I’m also excited about two new experts we just added: Terry Cohen and Matt Jacobs of Digitas. We share some clients with Digitas, so I’ve known Terry for many years. She is fearsomely smart, very experienced, and much more attuned than most of us to making measurement matter. She’s also head of Digitas’ Digital Media Analytics Practice and she’ll be huddling on measuring return on engagement.
I first met Matt Jacobs (Digitas’ Vice President of Strategy & Analysis) under very different circumstances. He and I crossed swords in our blogs – and I’m afraid he was the recipient of one of my occasional "acerbic" posts. But as I read more of Matt’s writing and then met him in person, I realized that I had been very mistaken in my initial impressions. Not only is Matt funny and cool, every time I hear what’s he working on I think it sounds about twice as interesting as the work most of the rest of us are doing. Matt will be leading huddles on customer and web behavioral integration – and believe me – he’s done really deep work on this topic.
Digitas is becoming quite an important part of the web analytics space – and I really don’t think they could possibly have sent better people.
I’m just as pleased by the response from the major vendors.
For instance, Omniture is sending out Matt Belkin. Matt isn’t just – or even primarily – a blogger. He’s Vice President of Omniture Consulting – and so on the front lines leading what may be the largest web analytics team in the world.
Visual Sciences is countering with Olivier Silvestre, their Director of Web Analytics and Optimization Consulting. Olivier will be huddling on optimization techniques (that should be cool) as well as the VS tool suite.
From WebTrends comes Aaron Gray, Executive Solutions Architect and noted speaker. Aaron will be covering WebTrends tools and using Web Behavioral Data - a big topic for most of our clients.
Each of these guys is amazing. They are among the very few people in the world who combine Senior Management Level expertise with deep web analytics knowledge. And they’ve all been on the front lines of helping build web analytics teams and deploy real-world measurement. They really are the best of the best from the leading vendors in our field. And thinking about how much it would cost to sit down and talk with any one of these guys – much less all of them in small group, no sales settings, I can’t help but think X Change will be an extraordinary bargain.
I used the guy word in that last paragraph and Web Analytics seems like such a "guy" world that I have to work in June Dershewitz here. June has been an independent consultant and a prominent figure in web analytics here in Northern California. She’s worked on a range of tools and done some heavy-duty work with data integration for Fortune 500 clients. She’s going to be huddling on analyzing web activity data without (or beyond) a commercial web analytics tool. You can see by the topics that lot’s of our experts think data integration is the hot-button area of enterprise analytics. And this is an area, more than almost any other, where theory should take a back seat to real-world, hands-on knowledge. June has that knowledge and will be sharing it at X Change.
One of the hottest interest areas I see in our clients is integrating attitudinal research on the web. And of the leaders and hottest technologies in that space is iPerceptions. Duff Anderson, their CTO, will be huddling on just that topic. It’s essential, in today’s analytic space, to understand the current thinking about how to deploy and use attitudinal research. Duff has been on the front-lines – helping build and deploy advanced research and research measurement tools.
For most of us, social networking sites and marketing strategies are just starting to bubble up into real significance. One of the functions of a Conference like X Change is to put you ahead of the curve on using and measuring the new stuff. We’ve actually got a great line-up in this area: Manoj Jasra of Enquiro – also quite well known as a blogger – and Marshall Sponder of IBM and WebMetricsGuru – ditto in spades – and Joseph Carrabis whose specialty is customer-oriented research will all be dealing with various aspects of measuring and marketing in this new space. These guys all have done real work in the area – so it isn’t smoke and mirrors and platitudes from people who just hopping on the next hot trend.
I’m also very excited that Phil Kemelor – you know him from CMS Watch – will be there huddling on Executive KPIs. I’m doubly excited because Phil has just recently joined Semphonic – a topic I’ll be blogging about in more detail soon. Phil’s a great guy. I first talked with him after reading his book, ‘The Executive Guide to Web Site Measurement and Testing.’ The clarity of his presentation and the lack of hyperbole really resonated with me. I think he’s fantastic at helping Senior Managers understand what to make of web analytics and helping analysts understand what Senior Managers actually need. Jacques Warren of WAO Marketing (and someone I’ve had great blog exchanges with) will also be focusing on the more "executive" view of the world – as well as how to optimize and report on web marketing campaigns. Jacques is one of those no-nonsense web analytics guys who are deeply connected to the real marketing world.
For people heavily focused on Search Engine Marketing, both Paul Breummer and I will be doing huddles in this area. I’ll be focusing on SEM Analytics – an area near and dear to my heart (I might even be done with my n-Part Blog series on SEM Analytics by then) and something Semphonic has always been deeply involved in. Paul is my favorite guy in SEO work – his no-nonsense, matter of fact approach makes a subject that is often intimidating both interesting and clear. Plus, he’s another guy who is just great to talk with.
I’m also excited to be sharing a Huddle with John Quarto-vonTivadar, CTO of FutureNow. John co-invented the Persuasion Architecture and we’re going to huddling on how Functional measurement and Persuasion architecture might fit together. If you’re interested in either or both of these approaches, this should be a lot of fun!
And, of course, virtually the whole Semphonic team will be out at X Change as well. I think what’s most cool about the current line-up of speakers and huddles is that they actually fit a pretty broad interest range. Broader than I originally envisioned or expected when we first started down this path.
If you’re interested in SEM, Social Networking, Executive Reporting, Attitudinal Research, Data Integration, Tools, Methodologies, Analytics Process and Culture, or just general practice – there are going to be at least a couple of great huddles for you. And put all of these people in one space for a couple of days – along with some good wine – and I expect a truly heady experience!
Yes, there are more speakers up my sleeve - people who’ve just committed and who we haven’t done press about yet and few we’re still talking to. But as it stands, I think X Change will be amazing. I’m hoping people come away from X Change convinced it was the best Conference they’ve ever attended – and the best educational value they’ve ever gotten for their dollar. I think we have the speakers, the format, the venue and the location to deliver on that. As it turned out, the All Star was pretty great. And I'm hoping we can hit our own kind of home run!
You can register to join us at X Change at http://www.semphonic.com/conf
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