One of the slightly different things we are trying this year for X Change is the X Change Scholarship. The idea is pretty simple – submit a description of a cool/interesting piece of web analytics work and potentially win not just a free pass to X Change but the opportunity to lead a Huddle on the topic. In addition to fleeting glory (and what other kind is there?), you get all the other benefits of leading a Huddle – X Change Conference attendance, discount for fellow employees, and, of course, accommodations at the Ritz. It’s a pretty good deal and – I hope – potentially a lot of fun. As a networking opportunity, I don’t think it could be matched!
Of course, you can sanitize the work as necessary. You can send me your entry or check out more details on our web site.
In other Semphonic news, we’ve just released an updated version of the Omniture Implementation Toolkit. What’s new?
Quite a bit actually. First, and perhaps most important for many potential users, is the new HBX to SiteCatalyst Transition Guide. Lots of people are realizing it’s time to make the switch. And while going from HBX to SiteCatalyst isn’t the most drastic transition you could ever make, it’s also no piece of cake. The Transition Guide includes detailed discussion of the likeliest issues faced by HBX customers, a discussion of the key differences between the systems and a detailed mapping of the HBX tag to SiteCatalyst equivalents.
I think the guidance here will really help if you’re beginning this migration.
Another piece of the Toolkit that is quite important for HBX customers and is also generally a big addition to the Guide is a considerably expanded discussion of best practices in using Omniture custom variables and events. Hands-down, this is where you spend the most work in any Omniture implementation and it’s also the area where HBX customers tend to struggle (since there really is no good corollary in the HBX world). The best practices sections includes extensive treatment of variable encodings by industry and delves into a number of common problem areas like tracking online forms.
Finally, we’ve added a new section dealing with AJAX, DHTML and interactive Flash components. This section includes a framework for thinking about tagging these components in Omniture as well as some very useful javascript helper functions to make the task easier. This is becoming a big, big issue for many web sites!
The Toolkit is intended for companies new to Omniture and is targeted primarily at the Implementation Manager. In addition to the new stuff I’ve mentioned, it includes an extensive discussion of the implementation process, detailed descriptions of the most common Omniture configuration issues and how to think about them, a robust testing plan and checklist, and a detailed glossary of Omniture terms/administrative settings/etc.
You can check it out and see some samples at our web site.
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