Blackbeaks Blog….All things Analytics

I was recently posed the question; Are Social Technologies Taking over our lives and what are the new rules of etiquette?
As they say in Thailand; Same! Same! but different.
I don’t think it’s taking over our lives as such they have just evolved into different technologies that help us communicate faster and further than before. Communication is [...]

One of the key concepts in my book (you can get the 1st 3 chapters for free here) focuses on what I call the Insight model. The promise of this model is to help you find insights you can act on by combining clickstream data, user experience data and competitive data. I was discussing this [...]

I’ve just become a blog partner for the eMetrics Stockholm event on the 28th and 29th September.
I will be helping with hosting the 1st day and sitting on a panel on the second. I hope to see you there.

All the discussion at the moment seems to be around where Analytics is headed. Omniture’s acquisition, followed by CoreMetrics and all the associated buzz led me into some interesting debates lately. Stephane Hamel whom I met for the first time at eMetrics London recently has a quite popular opinion that it’s going to be a [...]

So I was critical and to be fair the WAA listened at the emetrics summit in London. Specifically thanks go out to Jim Sterne, Aurelie Pols, Stephane Hamel, Vicky Brock and Jim Novo whom aired their points and we eventually came to an agreement that a knowledge test should and will be created. This will [...]

I started this post as another answer to Jim Novo in this long and interesting discussion around how I am disappointed by the WAA and its certification program. The debate centered on the value of proctoring the exams, the price of the exams and then evolved into a discussion on whether the WAA should also [...]

People accuse me rightly or wrongly for not doing enough to help the WAA despite my involvement for the last 5 years (see the first comment). I have continued to help where I can and even recently applied for a seat on the board though I wasn’t voted in, either because I am largely unknown [...]

Recently at the SES London Jim Sterne discussed the hot topic of his new book Social Media Metrics. One of the things that stood out from his keynote was Sentiment measurement, or rather the inaccuracy of it. Jim basically said it sucks, which I’m delighted about because someone needed to say it.
Sentiment or attitude analysis [...]

A short break from Analytics today to proudly crow about my colleague Terhi Mertanen (Mertanen means crab catcher in English by the way), who won an Olympic bronze for Finland yesterday by beating Sweden 3-2. We’re all of course delighted for her and the Finnish ladies team. Congratulations Terhi! Onnea!
Personally I find standing up in [...]

We’ve all worked or work for global organizations. The way they are run is that usually there is a central set of rules, standards, global controls and global belief and culture passed down to locals who then execute the vision.  I believe that the WAA is attempting to do the same thing (essentially) whilst maintaining [...]