Since then IQWorkForce has launched one of the most engaging facebook fan pages I have ever seen, and just this week I was asked to be interviewed by Corry about the Beyond Web Analytics podcast.     I jumped at the chance!  I have to admit that I am really geeked out seeing the interview posted.  So thank you Corry, for not only being a guest on the podcast but for the interview as well!

IQWorkForce Interview

To read the whole interview, which I highly recommend , visit the IQWorkForce site.

You may wonder, 'How can I leave it all behind if I am just coming back to it? How can I make a new beginning if I simply return to the old?' The answer lies in the return. You will not come back to the 'same old thing.' What you return to has changed because you have changed. Your perceptions will be altered. You will not incorporate into the same body, status, or world you left behind. The river has been flowing while you were gone. Now it does not look like the same river. [The Book of the Vision Quest]

I was not able to shake this quote from my mind, so I went out and purchased the book and quickly read through the book in one sitting.  Maybe it was the connection to the river, or the overall message of the quote.  What I really connected to was the part about how your perceptions of the events around you create the new reality that you are in.  It's this interpretation that led me to read this quote a few months back when we had the scattering of my Mom's ashes.   I am a firm believer that one of the few, maybe the only thing, you can control in life is how you react to situations.

Part of these reaction is what you are perceiving.  This perception, right or wrong, is your reality.   This holds true with your reactions with other people, with how you proceed with projects at work, or even with sets of data that you are trying to analyze and make sense of.    All of your past experiences will affect how you interpret the data, and what changes to your website or a/b tests or advertising choices that you have to make.    This complete perspective and understanding of this perspective should give you the confidence to try new things, to ask new questions about the data, or to even question the data itself.    Let's face it, no matter how much time and energy is put into an implementation, mistakes happen.

How you handle this reality defines not only your career, but you as a person as well.  Will you be limited in your efforts by your experience, by the tools you have to use, by your technical knowledge?  Or will you find ways to gain more experience,  ways to get the most out of whatever tools you have or use other tools, ways to expand your technical knowledge?

Me?  I will be volunteering for the Analysis Exchange and the Web Analytics Association.  I will read all the analytics blogs and books I can find and work to practice the techniques and strategies I find.  I will work to improve my technical and analytic skills.

This is my reality.

What will your reality be?

As promised here are the presentation materials:

• Presentation
  • Blog Posts with examples from presentation:
    • Form Abandonment
    • Social Media
    • Video Tracking
    • Page Load Times
• Code Samples
• Tools / Links Referenced:
  • JW  Player (LongTail Video)
  • W.A.S.P.
  • Tamper Data
  • Omnibug

Bonus Resources:

In addition to numerous articles I have posted here on my blog, below are some great resources related to Omniture and web analytics in general.  If you have questions or comments, please leave them below.

Omniture Resources:

• Omniture Blogs
• Omniture Developer Forums
• The Omni-Man Blog
• @OmnitureCare on twitter

Web Analytics Resources:

• Occam's Razor
• Web Analytics Association
• Beyond Web Analytics - Podcast
• Web Analytics Land
• The Empty Mind

Books:

• Web Analytics: An Hour a Day
• Web Analytics 2.0
• Competing on Analytics

-Rudi

Earlier this week, I set out to see if there was a way I could get access to the page load data and send it along to Omniture so that I could first get a benchmark of what the performance of the web site was over time, and second be able to tell if changes we made to the site had any impact on performance.

My first attempt in accomplishing my goal was to try and access the same Java object that the debugging code used to get the execution times.  I thought, well I see it in the output on the screen, it should be easy enough to grab that data element and pass it along.

    <cfset codeFactory = CreateObject("java","coldfusion.server.ServiceFactory") />
    <cfset getDebugDataSet = codeFactory.getDebuggingService()>
    <cfset getDebugData = getDebugDataSet.getDebugger().getData()>

This call returned an object that I was able to parse using  the same methods you would use to parse a query object.  It ran great on my development box, but when I moved it to production: Fail.   ColdFusion provided this lovely error message:

Detail Its possible that a method called on a Java object created by CreateObject  returned null.

I tried adjusting a few settings and was not able to resolve the issues.  I reached out to the Atlanta ColdFusion community, and received some very good guidance on the matter.  The reason for the error was I had debugging enabled on my development box, but did not on my production server.   And no matter what creative method I could come up with, would not justify enabling debugging on a production ColdFusion server.  The performance loss by doing this would outweigh the data gained.

The method that turned out to be the best, was also the easiest.   ColdFusion applications can take advantage of a global application file and two great methods within it: onRequestStart() and onRequestEnd().   The functions do exactly as their names would suggest, they will execute the code within each of them at the start and end of every request for every page in the application.

So inside the onRequestStart() function, you get a start time. And within the onRequestEnd() you get the end time and take the difference to get the page load time in milliseconds.  Pseudo code below:

<cfset startTime = getTickCount() />
<!--- something that you want to measure --->
<cfoutput>That took #(getTickCount()-startTime)#ms!</cfoutput>

Note: While the methods I used are specific to ColdFusion, any site that uses a global header and footer, should be able to achieve the data data with javascript or jQuery.

Now I have the the page load times and I began to pass the data into Omniture.  Soon I had results like this.

It did not take long to determine that data in this format would not be very useful as I could have values from 0 to in excess of 10,000 milliseconds.   So I created a quick SAINT classification and was able to group the data together into more logical sections.

Now, this was better, but not perfect and I did not like the data groupings and the time being reported into milliseconds.   After thinking a bit on this, I decided to convert the time to seconds on the ColdFusion side and do the grouping on the web side as well.  I grouped the data into the following sections and passed the data into an sProp:

• < 1 Second
• 1-2 Seconds
• 2-3 Seconds
• 3-5 Seconds
• > 5 Seconds

I then took this data and concatenated it with the page name to send in a second sProp:  < 1s | Home Page.   Doing this gave me these sets of data.

....and....

Note: These may not be the absolute accurate page load times, but they will be close enough to get a good idea of overall site performance.

Success!  Now, before and after major code changes to the site we will be able to go and see if the changes we made had an impact on the performance of the site.   So why go through all the effort to put this into Omniture, when there are other methods to get this type of performance data?  Now that you are able to send this data to Omniture, what else could you do with it?

• Send it in an eVar to see how performance impacts conversions.
• Apply a bounce rate metric to see how performance impacts bounce rates.
• Justify the modification or removal of  slow pages/functionality.
• Add pathing to the second concatenated sProp to see how users move through the site with performance

These are just a few ideas I had.  What would you do with this data inside of your Analytics tool if you could?

-Rudi

As I sat there watching him ride his bike, I started to think about what he said.  That he was "ready for a kickstand", and how that expression is different than the one I have heard more often of "ready for the training wheels to come off".

Being ready for a kickstand is to embrace the next challenge, to face what is ahead of you, and is a powerful, confident stance.   Being ready to have the training wheels removed is still a good thing, but it does not give the impression of charging ahead into the next challenge.  It is more of  an acknowledgment that you are ready to face current task or challenge on your own.

How often in our jobs or projects have we been ready to charge ahead to the next, more challenging stage?  To ask the more difficult questions? To begin to tackle things that in the past you would not have done.  This is especially meaningful to me as over the next few months I am setting out to do things that a year ago I could not have imagined.  I will be presenting at two different ColdFusion users groups on the benefits of adding web analytics to ColdFusion based web sites, applications.  And if all goes well, I'll be giving a short customer talk at the Omniture summit on how my company is using the Omniture API's.  This is something I am truly looking forward to.

And yes, I'm ready for my kickstand!  Are you?

-Rudi

I put this book on my list to learn more about the technical requirements of implementing and working with Yahoo! Web Analytics.    I had the basic vanilla code on my blog, but had not attempted to do anything more with it.  This book proved to be just the guidance I was looking for.

I was pleased with how the book jumped right into the details of implementation without having to wade through chapters of background information and useless history.   The instructions to get the basic tracking in place were clear and concise and provided all the the technical details necessary.

From there the book goes into the basic and advanced tags that can be employed to track just about anything of interest on your web site.    What I especially liked about the book with regards to the explanation of the tags were the real world examples of how to use the tags within your site's code base, and then how these tags related to the settings and reports within the Yahoo! Web Analytics gui itself.

The pace of the book does not slow down as it goes into demonstrating how to get the most out of your data with leveraging all the tools and settings available to you with the Yahoo! Web Analytics interface.    I went through the book while sitting at my pc so I could try each example as I read through them and feel that this method is the best way to get the most out of this book.

I have read many, many technical books before and I would definitely place this book in the top tier of technical books, and would highly recommend it to anyone working with the Yahoo! Analytics tool .  It will go along side the other books I've read and continue to refer to frequently.   This is the first technical book that prompted me to go out and try some more of the advanced techniques right away, as I relied heavily on this book as I have been working on a Yahoo! Web Analytics plugin for Wordpress.

-Rudi

Washington's Rules were:

1. Don't Assume You Are Welcome
2. Cultivate Your Local Support
3. Respect Local Religious Practices
4. Don't Abuse Prisoners
5. Withdraw if Your Objectives Are Unobtainable

Washington provided these rules along with some instructions to his officers on how they should conduct themselves in war and in conflict.  If you examine the instructions, you can see how these rules can be applied to most projects or new ventures.  Here is my take on how these rules can be applied to working with analytics in a corporation.

Rule 1: Don’t Assume You Are Welcome
“You are by every means in your Power to endeavor to discover the real Sentiments of the Canadians towards our Cause, and particularly as to this Expedition, ever bearing in Mind, that if they are averse to it and will not cooperate, it must fail of success.”

Analytics can show you where you biggest success are, but look at the bottom of the report and see where the biggest failures are.  Even though you might be able to provide some insight to help those responsible for the items at the bottom of the chart they might not be receptive to your assistance at first.   Start with showing them techniques used on some of the better performing sections and see how and if they can be applied to their content.

Rule 2: Cultivate Local Support
“Conciliate the affections of those People and such Indians as you may meet with by every Means in your Power, convincing them that we come, at the Request of many of their Principal People, not as Robbers or to make War upon them; but as the Friends and Supporters of their Liberties, as well as ours. And to give Efficacy to these Sentiments, you must carefully inculcate upon the Officers and Soldiers under your Command that not only the Good of their Country and their Honour, but their Safety depends upon the Treatment of these People.”

Local Support, Executive Sponsor, Vote of the Hippo.   Without the support of your management, and the support of the other departments in your organization, there is little hope of continued success.  To gain or grow this support, you may need to start small.  Get the basic tracking / analysis in place, then pick one page or section or content group and work to optimize that.  Then take the improved numbers to your team, your boss, other in the company and show them what is possible.   Having proof in hand of a singular demonstrated success is more powerful than any sales demo or prospective filled with potential success.

Rule 3: Respect Local Religious Practices
“As the Contempt of the Religion of a Country by ridiculing any of its Ceremonies or affronting its Ministers or Votaries has ever been deeply resented, you are to be particularly careful to restrain every Officer and Soldier from such Imprudence and Folly and to punish every Instance of it. On the other Hand, as far as lays in your power, you are to protect and support the free Exercise of the Religion of the Country and the undisturbed Enjoyment of the rights of Conscience in religious Matters, with your utmost Influence and Authority.”

You might feel that you have the knowledge or skill in your area of expertise that can improve your organizations website.  But if you do not respect the people and the process that are in place, you will find it hard to make any progress.  You need to take the time to talk with all the groups that have a vested interest in the data you can provide, to see what their goals are and then develop a plan with them to meet those goals.

Rule 4: Don’t Abuse Prisoners
“Any Prisoners who may fall into your Hands, you will treat with as much Humanity and kindness, as may be consistent with your own Safety and the publick Interest. Be very particular in restraining not only your own Troops, but the Indians from all Acts of Cruelty and Insult, which will disgrace the American Arms, and irritate our Fellow Subjects against us.”

This one is not as clear as the others.  I see "prisoners" as the groups in your company or organization that for whatever reason might not be the easiest to work with.  Like it or not, they are dependent on you to deliver the data and analysis to help them succeed as much as the groups that are easy to work with.  If you do not treat them with the same respect and with the same level of data and analysis as other groups you are not doing your job or assignment to the best of your ability.  Then you are not only hurting them, but your company and yourself as well.

Rule 5: Withdraw if Your Objectives Are Unobtainable
“If unforseen Difficulties should arise or if the Weather shou’d become so severe as to render it hazardous to proceed in your own Judgment and that of your principal Officers (whom you are to consult), in that Case you are to return, giving me as early Notice as possible, that I may give you such Assistance as may be necessary.”

Face it, there are some projects or goals that just can not be met.  There are some things that can not be tracked reliably enough to gain any sort of meaningful insight.  You have to know when it is time to stop waiting time and energy on that task and move on.  Also, with this data, you might be able to help your company see that a campaign or product offering is just not working or meeting it's goals, and it may be time for the company to focus it's resources on a different more successful campaign.

These "rules" provide at a minimum some great points to think about and consider as you go about your interactions with your clients or colleagues.  Just as you need to optimize your site to provide the best experience for the visitors to a web site, you should optimize your approach to working with others to bring analytics to a point where the data can be used to make intelligent business decisions.

This episode covered everything from the release of the Flex SDK 3.5 to the new Nexus phone to the recent AOL - Time Warner split.

So if you are a fan of RIA items with an strong slant towards ColdFusion, Flex and the likes you should check it out!

-Rudi

James Dutton wrote a great article on his Insightr blog on creating a measurement plan, and I believe that most of the steps that he outlined can be taken and applied to your personal and professional goals as well.

His steps for creating a measurement plan are:

Stage 1: Set your objectives and parameters
Stage 2: Visualise your measurement scope
Stage 3: Identify metrics and dimensions (including external data)
Stage 4: Identify business and operational KPIs
Stage 5: Identify KPI analysis drilldowns
Stage 6: Map out your Data Sources
Stage 7: Propose processes for target and goal setting
Stage 8: Identify business owners and visualisation / sharing process
Stage 9: Distribute, gather feedback - then publish

The steps that are important for setting a personal & professional or individual measure plan is similar:

Step 1: Set your objectives
Step 2: Identify metrics and KPI's
Step 3: Map out your Data Sources
Step 4: Define targets
Step 5: Identify support resources
Step 6: Gather results & share

I have combined a few of the items from original list, but the core of the steps to developing a measurement plan is there.  So now we have a list of the steps to create an individual measurement plan, but how do these steps translate into actionable items?

Step 1: Set your objectives

As with any task there is an ultimate goal, or a set of goals.  "I want to get more page views than any other web site in the world" or "I want to lose weight".   They are the brass ring, the world series, or insert your favorite cliche here.  Nice and fun to put down, but often contain little substance that can truly be measured.  My objectives are no different.

Personal:

• Exercise more
• Read more
• Play more

Professional:

• Read more
• Improve development skills
• Improve analytics skills

These are nice, short, and fill the requirements of most New Years resolutions.  This is where the plan stops for most people, and why many people (myself included) have not been successful in the past with stopping here.

Step 2: Identify metrics and KPI's

The objectives I have set for 2010 are fun to put down, but how can I track these?  What metrics can I define to provide a framework to track my success or failure?

Personal:

• Exercise more:  # of times walked per week
• Read more: # of non work related books read per month
• Play more: # of fun outings with family and friends per month

Professional:

• Read more: # of work related books read per month
• Improve development skills: # of code development events attended/viewed per month
• Improve analytics skills: # of analytic development events attended/viewed per month

Now I have a set of metrics that I can track and use to determine success.

Step 3: Map out your Data Sources

Unlike in the world of analytics there is not an easy way to automate the recording of data for most of my objectives.  However I can set up a few items that can help nudge me to record the data.  Nagware at it's finest.   I have set up a spreadsheet with a column for each item and set a weekly alert in my calendar to pop up and remind me to enter the data.  It's relatively low tech, but hopefully it will be effective.  Depending on the type of goals you set you might be able to automate your data collection.
Step 4: Define targets

Here is where the process gets fun.  What is your target for each metric?

Personal:

• Exercise more:  # of times walked per week (3)
• Read more: # of non work related books read per month (1)
• Play more: # of fun outings with family and friends per month (4)

Professional:

• Read more: # of work related books read per month (1)
• Improve development skills: # of code development events attended/viewed per month (3)
• Improve analytics skills: # of analytic development events attended/viewed per month (3)

Step 5: Identify support resources

Who are the people that can help you meet your targets?  What resources are out there that will help you with recording the data, or keeping you on track?  The answers to this are different for each person and each target, but it is crucial to determine what these are and to use them!
Step 6: Gather results & share

After you set your objectives, metrics, targets, and recorded all the data, share.  Write a blog post. Tweet about it. Post it on facebook.  Tell someone and enjoy the success or determine what steps you need to work on to get back on track.

My sharing plan?  I intend to blog here about my goals once a quarter.  Hopefully, I'll be reporting good news!

Do you have a plan?

-Rudi