Web Analytics Wednesday – London – March 2010
Web Analytics Wednesday – London – March 2010Last night was the monthly Web Analytics Wednesday in London. Held in the usual location (Bluu in Moorgate) yet I was surprised to see how many people came from such distances. Some from West Midlands (Stoke) and some from East Midlands (Leicester).
Alec Cochrane – Web Analyst for Business Link presents REAL Data
The evening was Alec Cochrane’s (web analyst of the Business Link website). He has kind enough not to give a presentation on
a product or pitch on his services but on REAL DATA. Now this was quite an innovation because 1. internet data is protected very well because it was give a competitive advantage 2. it was government data (apparently available under the Freedom of Information Act).
Alec talked us through a presentation he made to government departments and it was about how visitors used their site rather than how they perceived it was used. The most interesting aspect that must have come from this is that reading “page 1″ first is common sense but, not necessaryily the first page that the visitor finds. Perhaps the first question that we need to answer to all management is “Is the homepage truely the most effective landing page and does it deserve the lion’s share of the budget?”
He also went to talk about the context in reports. So in spikes in traffic does it mean that people are visiting because of some government initiative (e.g. boiler scrappage scheme) or because of something external such as (tsunamis). Bringing this context into presentations should be a key focus for all analysts. It completes the picture!
Alec (even with a bad foot from a Football injury) gave a great presentation infront of one of the largest audiences I’ve seen at a London WAW for some time. Well done Alec. If you are interested in hearing more of Alec’s thoughts then click here for his blog.
I’d also like to say how good it was to see so many new faces. The usual suspects where there Andrew Morris, Tim Leighton-Boyce, John Wyllie, Michael Fiener, Nils Berge, Vinesh Chauhan, Martin Banfield, Peter O’Neill, Luke Adams but, there were so many others that I’d never seen before and sadly didn’t get chance to speak to everyone so apologises to those that I missed. Hope to chat to you next time. I hear that Bob may be trying to arrange the next Web Analytics Wednesday on eMetrics week so we can get some power speakers to talk about the show. If not I’ll update you on some of the highlights as I’ll be blogging from the show.
Web Analytics Association – UK Chapter
Bob Mitchell organised the event and he was keen to talk about the UK chapter of the Web Analytics Association and how we can grow the member-base and promote the Web Analytics Association as a source of knowledge and education. Matthew Bragg has recently taken over the country manager role from myself and he will shortly be communicating the strategy.
If you’ve got an interest in web analytics and want to know more. Perhaps you’re a beginner or a seasoned professional with a few years under your belt. Then we’d love to hear from you. Visit the contactus page on this site and we’ll let you know how you can help. We’re always keen to hear from new enthusiasts.
Related Links
Alec Cochrane’s Web Analytics Blog
UK – London Web Analytics Wednesday
Miles,
Kind words as always. It was interesting to hear the variety of opinions people had of a talk giving up some real data for a change. The challenge we face now is persuading someone else to be able to do it for a commercial organisation for the next Web Analytics Wednesday.
Cheers,
Alec
Agree with everything Miles has said about the presentation.
It was also refreshing from my point of view to see someone else talking about non transactional analytics as it often feels that there are not many of us out there ploughing than furrow!!
Shame I couldn’t stick around longer to catch up with people.
cheers
Andy
Also count me in for any WAA UK chatter