It’s been a ruthless couple of weeks, with tons of Web Analytics Association work on top of the usual client / Lab Store stuff.  Why do the folks in the pet supply industry change packaging and labeling going into the holiday season?  That’s nuts, if you ask me, unless you think all your customers are offline stores – which I guess most of them are.  Still, there’s a large enough mail order pet business out there you would think the suppliers would catch a clue or two.  I have plenty to do during the holiday season without having to re-write copy and re-shoot photography…

Anyway, the weeks that were.  First was a WAA Webcast on Money, Jobs and Education: How to Advance Your Career and Find Business Opportunities (site registration required, but you don’t have to be a WAA member) to get ready for and execute.

And there was the ongoing wrestling match to establish a framework for higher educational institutions to create course offerings in Web Analytics, leveraging the course content the Web Analytics Association has developed.  Very tricky stuff dealing with these Higher Ed folks, but we think we have it figured out.  The WAA’s first partner in this area will be the University of California at Irvine – not a bad start, methinks.

Then of course, it’s Conference season.  I’m going to be on a “Measuring Engagement” panel at WebTrends Engage October 8 -10.  The following week is of course the eMetrics Marketing Optimization Summit where I will be doing a conference presentation in the Behavioral Targeting Track and then sitting on a no holds barred “Guru Panel” with Avinash Kaushik and Bryan Eisenberg immediately after. 

Part of getting ready for the Summit this year was a review of the WAA BaseCamp teaching materials, a pretty substantial piece of work all by itself.  We’ve done some tweaking based on comments from students in previous classes.

Unfortunately, I have to split the Summit right after the Guru panel for the Direct Marketing Association Conference in Chicago, so if you’re going to eMetrics and you are looking to chat with me, make sure you hit me up before my presentation Tues at 1:30 PM (I will be there Sunday 10/14 @ 4 PM for the WAA meeting). 

At the DMA, I’ll be doing a presentation with fellow web analytics blogger Alan Rimm-Kaufman in the Retention & Loyalty Marketing Track called Smart Marketing: Advanced Multichannel Acquisition and Retention Economics.  Control groups, predictive models, oh boy.

The next day, I’ll still be in Chicago doing a real “stretch event” at the invitation of Professor Philippe Ravanas of Columbia College Chicago for The Chicago Community Trust.  Nine (9!) non-profit arts groups are battling for grant money to help execute their marketing plans, and yours truly is going to vet those plans and teach donor / membership marketing in a live format – with all nine institutions exposing their guts to me and each other –  in real time!  Budgets, response rates, web sites, direct mail, newspaper, radio, database marketing, it’s all on the table.

Should be a real kick – if I survive the format, that is.  As a musician, I have always had a great interest in arts / donor marketing and this will be a great opportunity to interact directly with the folks in the trenches.

So, I apologize for the lack of posts the past couple of weeks as we now join our regularly scheduled life (in progress).