Analytics is a Culture: Why you must attend eMetrics and join the WAA
In the Web Analytics Forum, Patrick asked whether the eMetrics Marketing Optimization Summits were really worth attending. As some of you know, I’m already on record as having said that eMetrics (formerly Emetrics — sorry, Jim!) is the one conference that you MUST attend, if you have anything at all to do with web analytics — even if your employer won’t sponsor you, so you have to use personal vacation days to get the time off of work, and pay the travel, lodging, and conference fees out of your own pocket. I’m partial to the “big” Summit in San Francisco (formerly in Santa Barbara), but all of Jim and Matthew’s Marketing Optimization Summits are amazing, and definitely well, well worth the investment.
Anyone considering attending the Washington, DC, eMetrics Marketing Optimization Summit — or anybody reading this, for that matter — should join the Web Analytics Association. I’m a big proponent of WAA membership, and believe all of us have a responsibility to join it in support of our profession and our peers and colleagues who in turn support us and our industry in numerous ways. The Web Analytics Forum is moderated by WAA volunteers, and even though I have the pleasure of serving as primary moderator, I still pay for my WAA membership personally. It’s sort of like being a master chef and owning your own knives — you don’t expect the restaurant you work for to teach you how to cook, and while they may own the pots and pans, your knives are a personal investment and contribute an essential ingredient to your skills as a chef. Why trust something so critical to the whims of an employer?
Of course, there are numerous benefits to being a WAA member — the occasional free pass to webinars and seminars, and hefty discounts to some of the best trade shows and conferences in our industry and related others. For eMetrics, the discount more than pays for your WAA membership, so you have no reason not to join!
So getting back to eMetrics — why is it so valuable? Well, with all due respect to Jim, Eric, Avinash, and the rest of my esteemed colleagues, web analytics is not easy, and it’s not hard, and it’s not a process — analytics is a culture, and the best way to become “of” the culture is to immerse yourself in the company of your peers. (That’s emic, as opposed to etic research, for you academics and cultural anthropologists.)
Immersion in the culture of web analytics doesn’t mean, “read summaries online,” nor does it mean “attend, watch, and observe,” but instead, “interact, converse, explore, and respond, in intimate small groups, as well as in large ballroom presentations.” Sure, the Web Analytics Forum is a great way to continue the persistent conversation — based on my extensive experience, I’d say it’s one of the most well-run professional social networks for any industry. But it’s still no substitute for Web Analytics Wednesdays, or eMetrics Marketing Optimization Summits, or hanging out for “a beer or something” with the Aussies.
Now when I suggest that analytics is a culture, I mean that in several different ways. Like a seed in a petri dish, it has to be incubated and cultivated carefully until it’s strong enough to take root. If you’re the only evangelist within your organization who is not only quantitatively metrics-minded, but also driving management to make decisions based on realistic interpretations of the data, then you’ll have a difficult time succeeding until you network with peers throughout the organization to gather support.
Another hallmark of our culture that those smarter than I have written about is that analytics is an ongoing process, and a mindset. It’s not a tool so much as an attitude. Not a report, so much as a perspective. And it’s not undertaken by an individual (no matter what their title) so much as by a group — a group committed to improvement at the expense of sacrificing sacred cows and overturning widely-held historical beliefs using the pry-bars of reliable data.
Okay, so maybe I’ll retract some of what I said earlier — analytics is easy, and analytics is hard, and analytics is a process. But one thing analytics is not, is a solitary practice. The practice of analytics requires a culture of support. Not simply within your organization, but oftentimes across a team of tool vendors, partners, and consultants as well. And most importantly, given the rapidly changing pace of the technological advancements we see regularly, the successful practice of analytics requires the shared knowledge of all the practitioners within our community. And that, is why adopting the perspective of viewing analytics as a culture will help guide you to success.
But analytics is not only about culture — it’s also about influence. That’s a topic for another post, though.
What do you think? What value have you found in attending the eMetrics Summits? Thanks for sharing your thoughts!
