I don’t expect someone with 2 years experience to be as “smart” as someone with 10 years experience. What I might expect is a person with 2 years experience would have the fundamentals right e.g. visits are preferred to hits as a base measurement.

So, while I think most people understand this particular idea now, what I’m really asking is how did that happen? And why has it not happened with other fundamental ideas, like quality versus quantity?

I also realize I’m probably not doing a great job of explaining this, so I’m going to keep trying and continue this thread here.

To your question “Why does quantity ends up as being more important than quality?”

Could it simply be part of the learning process? I don’t think teaching is failing, it is out there (for the most part - although there are many really good books, good blogs and sometimes pretty good training material, notice how there has been no attempt to create a “classic” text book - with the formal approach and thorough research & references - something I’m working on right now!). The learning might be failing, but one learns to walk, and fall, before running marathons… Even if someone tells you there’s a better way, there’s a basic element of walking you must learn by yourself through trials and errors.

You are at the top of the ladder, viewing “newbies” mistakes you’ve seen so often before as a waste of time. What seems to be “the same mistakes over and over” to you is totally new to those who live them! And it’s part of their learning experience, not yours. Maybe some of them will find even better ways to accomplish their tasks and achieve their goals. To some extent, we might be victims of the Curse of Knowledge.

“Again, did we not learn anything in the past 10 years?”: Yes, you, Jacques, I and several others learned a lot over the past 10, 15, 20 years. But 10 yeas ago there’s a huge Crowd that wasn’t there, and in some cases, we shouldn’t aim for the Stupidity of the Crowd, but the Wisdom of the Few… It depends if you aim to educate the “mass” (raise the lower control limit?!) or elevate Knowledge of the elite (push the upper limit). In either case, the “average” would appear to be higher…

So let me ask you and Stéphane if he’s still “Engaged”…

Premise:

The Online Marketing world seems to repeat the same mistakes over and over; it’s almost like every new generation of technology is a clean slate and somehow people expect doing something that was stupid in a previous generation won’t be stupid this time.

For example, putting a high value on “quantity” of activity when every past generation has found that “quality” ends up as a more important metric. In other words, despite the “testing” mentality online, people seem to ignore the results of the past.

Question: Why does this happen? Is it because:

1. The Teaching is failing - books, conferences, courses, blogs, newsletters, etc. just are not conveying the correct principles

2. The Learning is failing - people simply don’t want to rely on the lessons of the past and want to experience every new platform as a blank space.

3. Other - Your reasons? Or problems with the Premise?

Quite fascinating questions you’re bringing up. Yes, we seem to believe these days that the proclaimed Genius (!) of the Connected Crowd should bring us to a better level of knowledge. Heck! Wikipedia was right more times than Britannica in some research !

But have we forgot that the Crowd can be very wrong? At some point of time on this planet, EVERYBODY (laymen, pundits) thought the Earth was flat and that the Sun revolved around it.

Is online Marketing condemned to the Eternal Return of the Same? Is it because the object of knowledge, “human beings buying stuff”, is so fuzzy that true knowledge (in the scientific sense) is hard and long to come by?

Or, is it because, after all, the blogosphere spreads more urban legends that truths? That economic interests trump the truth?

(See, Epistemic Cultures, by Karin Knorr Cetina)

The “Tool Learning” versus “Marketing Learning” issue overlaps with this “Consensus of the Crowd” issue. The amount of Marketing Swill dumped down the drain into the Blogosphere just to sell tools and services is incredible. The tech audience loves this because it’s “new tool time” but the messages the tech audience is getting about Marketing are corrupt and misleading.

It’s a lofty discussion, but one that I increasingly think needs to happen - unless we want to just keep repeating the Marketing failures of the past every time a new tool comes out…

But perhaps that’s what people do want, at least on the Tech side, because it creates the need for “experts” to spread yet more Swill while ignoring these failures of the past.

If so, I never want to hear whining about the % of Marketing budget spent online or slow adoption or anything like that again from the tech side, because they are simply driving Marketers away by not speaking the right language / creating useless FUD / turning simple ideas into complex “problems” that need “solutions”.

Web analytics as a discipline has done a very credible job (at least I think) with keeping a balance between the tech toys and business focus. But now we have a huge legion of the (blogging) Crowd who seems to want to go back to “you just gotta believe”.

Again, did we not learn anything in the past 10 years?

But as you say, the “knowledge” is out there. In books, in courses, in blogs, in consultants. Yet, people usually listen, get “wowed” at the latest industry trend (last year was mobile, this year was voice of customer, next year?) or technology, or nice charts, and go back to their desk and continue the “fight” to get things done differently. Or they simply loose hope and start hunting for a greener pasture.

The same apply for tools. It amazes me how many people think switching tool will solve their problem. The problem is often not the tool, but the person (ha! if we could get rid of people! tools would be so simple to use!) The problem is the culture and getting one (simple) thing done after the other… I heard it’s called “a process”!

You lived through the CRM era… we know history repeats itself: the holly grail will turn out to be a nightmare, lots will try, few will survive. But those who do will be empowered like never before.

Does it mean “education” is a waste of time? I don’t think so, on one hand it’s important to focus on the concepts and the strategy, on the other there are lots of people who are seeking more tactical and hands on learning opportunities.

“Making web analytics easier” obviously must address both through different types of learning opportunities.

Cheers,
Stéphane
http://immeria.net