Friday, November 9, 2007

Analytics University

I was "surfing" (if that exists anymore) the other day and happened to notice that a few bloggers referenced my reports on Analytics University a while back. For the sake of prosperity and the longevity of content, I decided to repost this work that I created in July 2007 while at the Aberdeen Group here on this blog.

The first brief, Analytics University: Part I, discusses the lack of qualified web analysts practicing today. Not that there aren't many brilliant web analysts currently working in the field, it's just that there aren't enough of them. I go on to describe vendor sponsored programs and the industry's self proclaimed academic accreditations such as Coremetrics University, Google’s Conversion University, Omniture University, Visual Science’s former Digital Marketing University. I also cite the work of Analytics Consultants, Blogs and Gurus Sessions.

The sequel, Analytics University: Part II, delves into Community Forums, Industry Associations and real academic programs. The eMetrics Fall event showcased how far the industry has come over a short period of time. With nearly 550 attendees, the conference was a hive of networking, information and excitement around analytics. This excitement is evident in the Web Analytics Forum at Yahoo! Groups as well, where I voluntarily receive a daily email summarizing the dozens of threads and fascinating conversations shared across the globe on an ongoing basis. And finally, the academics are ramping up to educate the next crop of web analysts on both the tactics and fundamentals of analyzing data in an infinitely quantifiable online society.

We are lucky enough to work in an industry that values shared knowledge and distributed information, so there is no shortage of prolific blogs to visit, gurus to talk to, or resources available. 2007 was the year that gurus hit the road: the WAA offered its Base Camp workshops in numerous cities and ZaaZ initiated their Marketing ROI Executive Workshops around the country as well. These endeavors and others like Gary Angel's Web Analytics Exchange, a non-traditional sit down of analytics professionals, spark creativity, shared ideas and plain old goodness throughout the industry. I for one am excited about my job every day and get jazzed about each new shred of news or acquisition that takes place in the market. I’m sure that many of you are there too – that’s what makes this so much fun.

2 comments:

David Flinn said...

Hi John,
It's a nit I know, but it looks like your references the Analytics University are stale. I get 404's when I click them :-(

david

John Lovett said...

Thanks David,
I just pushed the site from Blogger to my own URL yesterday, so I guess a few of the links didn't make it.

Thanks for noticing, you can do my QA anytime :)

~John