We the People

1Aug/11Off

We the People

Last week Wired.com published the results of an investigation involving KISSmetrics and their ethically questionable practice of placing an “undeletable cookie” on users’ computers that allowed users to be tracked across multiple web sites…even when those users did not wish to be tracked. While the results may have been good, the means used to obtain them were not. So it’s telling and commendable that KISSmetrics customers like Hulu and Spotify immediately suspended their use after being contacted by Wired and learning of the practice. To see this happen, knowing how much time and energy our digital measurement community has spent developing and evangelizing the Web Analysts Code Of Ethics, is quite troubling.

I was recently at the National Archives in Washington DC, where I stood next to my fellow citizens and viewed the founding documents of our country, and perhaps I am being sentimental about this, but I can’t help but draw some comparisons between the importance of those documents that laid ... Read the rest of this post

Tagged as: Measure, WAA Comments Off

14Jul/11Off

There is no Spoon ~ A Lesson in Data Governance

“Do not try to bend the spoon — that’s impossible. Instead, only try to realize the truth: there is no spoon.”

It is true that there is no spoon, no magic potion, or super-shiny new piece of technology that will solve of your digital measurement issues, solve your implementation issues, or create that ever elusive value in the investment that your company has made in time, talent, and money in this world of digital measurement in which we are all working.

Over my next few blog posts we will explore the core components that are fundamental steps that companies should be taking and excelling in to be able to truly create and find that value.

Data Governance
Optimization, testing, and analysis
Data Architecture
The dreaded implementations

Chapter 1 – The mystery of the missing governance.

As we at Keystone Solutions are working with our clients to create sustainable digital ecosystems. We are called on more and more to help bridge the gap between digital, data governance and resource / technology issues. The biggest... Read the rest of this post

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28Mar/111

Like sand through the hourglass.

I was listening to Car Talk on the radio the other day as they were reviewing a trivia question they gave the listeners.

“RAY: This week's puzzler is historical in nature, and it doesn't need any additional obfuscation or declarification. It has built-in obfuscation. Here it is:
I'm thinking of two inventions from long ago. One of them has thousands of moving parts. The other has one part, and it doesn't move.
They both do the same thing.
TOM: Are they still around?
RAY: Of course. Are they still in widespread use? Of course not. What am I thinking of?”

Right before they gave the answer they gave out one more hint . Each item measures something. Naturally whenever I hear the word “measure” my ears perk up. Both of the mystery items measured time. An hourglass and a sundial. Thousands of pieces of sand in the hourglass all working together to perform their task and the classic sundial which does not move, but only reports on what the world around it is doing.

Sure each and every piece of sand on its own might seem pretty insignificant but we know that is not true. The amount of sand needed was measured, the size of the hourglass measured, the opening between the two halves of the glass measured, to make sure that the end result was as accurate as it could be. Sound familiar?

The trick is to recognize the importance of each and every detail in a digital measurement project but at the same time to not get lost in the sand. If we get consumed by just one small item, and it derails the whole project then we might as well be the sundial. Just sitting there, waiting on the world to turn and our shadow to be cast in order to provide meaningful data.

So which one are you? The hourglass or the sundial?

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Tagged as: Measure 1 Comment

11Jan/103

5 Rules for Waging War

The February 2010 issue of the American History magazine had a great article on "George Washington's Five Rules for Waging War With Honor". As is often the case these days I could not help but think about how these rules apply to analytics. Not to say that working in analytics is like fighting a war, but there are many "battles" that each of us face in our daily tasks.

Washington's Rules were:

Don't Assume You Are Welcome
Cultivate Your Local Support
Respect Local Religious Practices
Don't Abuse Prisoners
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.

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Tagged as: American History, Best Practices, Measure, Web Analytics Continue reading

1Sep/091

Omniture/SalesForce Integration Part 1: Configuration

As I set out on my latest adventure with Omniture, I decided to begin this project by actually reading the manual first. So, I downloaded and read the SalesForce: Genesis Integration Guide from Omniture. Ok..fine..maybe I skimmed some pages, but I read most of it. What I took away from it, was I was going to need to really plan this project out.

For starters, I was a bit stunned to discover that the default integration would take 9 eVars and 22 Custom Events, with an additional 33 custom events. (Holy smokes! 50 plus custom events!)

So based on the information from the manual, which is about the only information online I could find about the process, this was my initial task list:

1. Confirm SalesForce requirements with resident SalesForce expert.
2. Determine list of integration Custom Events needed. (which iof the 53)
3. Activate SalesForce Genesis plugin
4. Make changes to primary s_code files
5. Initial testing
6. roll out s_code changes to other report suites.

1 & 2 were easy.

#3. This was a whole other beast. I quickly realized that I needed to have the help of our resident SalesForce Expert to help with the configuration. There is simply too much about SalesForce data fields that I do not know. Not to mention the little bits of information that the Integration Guide leaves out.

Here are the items that were more of a challenge in the process, due to either missing information in the guide or lack of SalesForce knowledge.

eVar Classifications:

You must set up classifications for each eVar.
The select box provided to select SalesForce data fields is way way too narrow to be able to read the data field names.

Configure the SalesForce.com Dashboard:

You must add classifications for all elements on this page.
The options provided to add classifications on this page are directly pulled from the classifications selected on the eVar Classifications.
If you have to go back to edit your eVar Classifications any options selected here will not be saved.

Map SiteCatalyst Events

Even though the Integration Guide says that the Marketing Sourced/Touched: Opportunitiy: New is optional...it's not. I had to add a mapping for this.

#1 thing I learned in the configuration: make darn sure you have a great SalesForce person to assist you with this. I am sure I would never have selected the right objects to classify without their help.

It is also apparent that I need a new task list, one that contains a lot more details and steps than I first planned. I will be working on fleshing this out as I progress through the rest on the integration.

This ends the configuration portion of my adventure, off to make changes to the s_code.

-Rudi

Part 2: s_code & more

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Tagged as: Genesis, Measure, Metrics, Omniture, SalesForce, SiteCatalyst, Web Analytics 1 Comment