I had a great time listening and speaking at the Toronto Data Mining Forum at SAS this morning. I think that there are some pretty exciting opportunities for web analytics folk to get together with data mining folk over the next three of four years. Three key points I wanted to express: -Businesses increasingly want web data combined with business intelligence-We’re going to have to get along (Las Vegas eloping or shot-gun wedding, it’s our choice)-We need to start getting to know one other now, (because the differences are quite substantial) Three key points I took away from the forum: -The perils of significance and Type I error in segmentation abound. Watch your confidence intervals folks!-The BUMP algorithm, while greedy,[…]
I apologize in advance for the lengthy post: I’ve been in business plan purgatory for what feels like 6 months. One of the greatest challenges to any web analytics practice over the short and medium runs is the base skillset of interactive statistics. First, a definition of interactive statistics. Interactive statistics is the body of knowledge that is based around the derivation of insights out of web analytics and/or business intelligence software. A brief rant. I only really got into statistics in high school math honors. The New Brunswick honors curriculum emphasize practical applications of statistics (as opposed to traditional LaPlace style urns and cards) to the real world. Those who really know me well frequently chortle that I’m capable[…]
According to the WAA website: “The WAA is hosting a Web Analytics Championship where Web Analysts will be able to review the site and traffic data for webanalyticsassociation.org. Analysts can submit their analytics reports, insights and observations about the site to the WAA, where the most insightful presentations will win prizes!” http://www.webanalyticsassociation.org/wachampionship/ And what’s the goal? “Our intention is to create an opportunity where Web Analysts can interact and share their professional knowledge with their fellow analysts in the Web Analytics community. As part of our efforts to promote the Web Analytics field, the WAA choose to launch the Web Analytics Championship on the official WAA Web site. We believe that this will be a wonderful opportunity for Web Analysts[…]
The latest book I’m reading is “The Origins of Wealth”. It’s another HBR endorsed book, I think, but I really love it. Beinhocker has this way of expressing really complex causes using, at times, very frustrating Grade 12 HBR language. (4 pages spent describing what endogenous means versus exogenous). But it’s incredibly accessible. Much of it is relatively easy for traditional economists to attack. And that’s fine – I think they might be missing the real point of the book: “The Origins of Wealth” is to complexity economics as “A Brief History of Time” is to quantum physics. Both works are essentially “pop literature”. (And, editorially, there’s absolutely nothing wrong with making science, even if it is social science, popularly[…]
Challenged with the question: “But how can you possibly measure innovation?” Alright, here’s my stab at it. Do what most web analysts do – ask another question, definition related. “What do you mean by innovation?” If I may quote Wikipedia (and I will) The term innovation may refer to both radical and incremental changes in thinking, in things, in processes or in services (Mckeown, 2008). Invention that gets out in to the world is innovation. In many fields, something new must be substantially different to be innovative, not an insignificant change, e.g., in the arts, economics, business and government policy. In economics the change must increase value, customer value, or producer value. The goal of innovation is positive change, to[…]
There’s a nice little thread going on at the Yahoo WA thread. Here are some of the best bits of Eric Enge’s article: http://searchenginewatch.com/showPage.html?page=3629590 The Challenge of Mobile Web Analytics By Eric Enge, Search Engine Watch, May 21, 2008 The mobile Web is a dynamic and challenging environment. One of its biggest challenges is that conventional Web analytics applications don’t do a good job of tracking mobile Web site usage. That makes it difficult to tune and enhance your mobile Web site’s performance. Today, we’ll talk about some of the different mobile analytics methods, and the strengths and weaknesses of each approach. … Mobile Web Analytics With such a large and growing market, it’s reasonable to presume that more people[…]
“I still can’t figure out what you do” Comes the common refrain – to be a Web Analyst in…well, anywhere. There are not that many of us. Officially, web analytics is supposed to be about “understanding the behavior of visitors on a website”. I’ve posited a second definition (now I’m previewing June 11) that it’s about “understanding digital behavior”. (We’ll see how that flies.) I can break web analytics out into 3 broad categories. There’s a technical side of my job – last week I analyzed log files and the results of javascript executed tags. This week I’m into Omniture and Google Analytics. There are a few flavors of web analysts who make all their money implementing difficult to code[…]
Web analytics knowledge isn’t really centralized. Jim Novo’s efforts at professional certification through the UBC courses are to be lauded as a direct effort to centralize authority in the web analytics space. After all, not everybody should be considered to be a web analyst. Let’s consider the broad space that is web analytics. So far, as with most technologies, it tends to be heavily vendor based. “Do you know Omniture”, “Do you do WebTrends”…they’re common questions. When it comes to universal web analytics knowledge, we, as a community, have 3 or 4 seminal books – and a collection of a blogs. But there’s an entirely different discourse on web analytics that’s taking place with very few practioners around the table.[…]
Goal Hierarchies are critical if you want to understand how institutions change, and why analytics need to respond to those changes. The origins of the work on goal hierarchies goes back to 2005. I worked with Dr. Perl on the first look at road safety public policy in years. We produced the first published paper linking institutional strength with a goal typology. Then we observed common sense – strong institutions set concrete goals…weaker institutions set abstract goals (or no goals!). We got it published in 2007. I took this thread and applied it in the thesis. I went further, noting that most institutions have a broad set of goals, but they almost always fall into some sort of hierarchy –[…]
Pre-Click Analysis involves examining all the things we can measure before somebody actually reaches your website. It includes taking a look at all the sites that are linked to yours, and the context in which they’re pointing to you. (Are most of the links on forums, on blogs, or other types of sites? Are they saying good things about you? Are they recommending you? Are they condemning you?) It involves taking a look at all the keywords that people are using to find you. What’s your page rank on those search queries? How far down the search page are people going to find you? Examine the context that your banner ads are in. What is your offline strategy like? Is[…]