I’ve been putting together the Huddle Line-up for this year’s X Change (you might have seen the initial Press Release a week ago) and while there are still a few open slots and potential leaders trying to work out travel and schedule, it’s mostly nailed down.
It is, as always, a remarkable group. In all, I expect to have around 30 Huddle Leaders (the most ever) – each covering two topics. That will give us 60 different break-out sessions of two-hours each.
Let me put that in context. People think of X Change as a small, intimate Conference. It is. But with 60 distinct break-outs, we’ll have almost 50% more break-outs than a much larger Conference like eMetrics. Not only that, X Change break-outs are twice as long as at most Conferences (a full two-hours). Because we strip away all the extra stuff, that means X Change delivers twice (and in some cases much more than twice) as much time in the meaty content stuff as any other analytics conference.
The differences don’t end there of course. X Change break-outs (Huddles) aren’t like break-outs at other Conferences. X Change break-outs aren’t ever by led by us, they aren’t ever trying to sell you anything, and they aren’t ever regurgitated presentations from 2005. Every Huddle is an open conversation between and led by Enterprise experts with no axe to grind except a desire to do Digital Analytics well.
It really makes for an astonishing difference and an experience totally unlike anything else in the industry.
So who’s leading Huddles this year? Returning from previous stints as Huddle Leader we have:
- Andrew Bakonyi from HP
- Tom Cattapan from Turner Broadcasting
- Kiele Cauble from American Airlines
- Colin Coleman from Turner Broadcasting
- Matthew Fryer from Hotels.Com
- Bill Gassman from Gartner
- Dylan Lewis from Intuit
- David McBride from Comcast
- Kelly Olin from Nike
- Bob Page from eBay
- Judah Phillips from Monster
- Joe Stanhope from Forrester Research
- Jared Waxman from Adobe
New Huddle Leaders who were participants in previous years (always one of my favorite groups):
- Tom Betts from The Financial Times
- Susan Fariss from ACS
- Sue Feldman from the National Cancer Institute
- Michele Lambert of QVC
- Andy Ma from Adobe
- Ann Poritzky from the National Institute of Health
- Alice Watson from Macys
Then we have our group of completely new folks:
- Enrique Gonzales from AARP
- Stephane Hamel (lending an academic perspective)
- Jim Olstrom from Nickelodeon
- Katie Reagan from Marriott
I still have a few folks who are getting final travel approval but it’s already the largest, most interesting and I think the most diverse group we’ve ever had. In addition to our usual stellar Media representation, we have outstanding coverage in whole bunch of industries including technology, retail, hospitality and travel, non-profit and public sector and even research and academe.
That blending of viewpoints from senior measurement leaders across industry is one of the most enjoyable aspects of X Change.
A big part of the process of getting Huddle Leaders is deciding on topics as well. We’ve pretty much done that too – and it’s a fascinating and typically individual set of subjects. Huddles will be covering everything you’d expect: infrastructure and universal tagging, strategic mobile measurement, big data, organizational theory, and VoC integration. They’ll cover topics at the cutting edge of today’s digital analytics like social CRM, predictive analytics, and personalization. They’ll even be a raft of topics focused on my own favorite subject, actual analysis, including paywall analytics, analytics for anonymous traffic, advanced re-targeting, and data-driven approaches to hypothesis generation.
This is cool stuff. It’s a chance to talk at a deeper level in our subject than is common – at Conferences or anywhere else. It’s a chance to talk with real peers and share problems and solutions around topics that often get short shrift everywhere else. It is X Change – a truly unique and special experience. If you’ve been out before, you know how enjoyable it is. If you haven’t, I hope this year will be the one where you decide to join the conversation!
Registration for X Change is open – and the earlier you get in the better!
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