The web analytics conference season is upon us and I find myself sitting on several panels dealing with analytical culture issues.

“The Culture” is a tremendously important issue and am pleased to see the progress since developing the Creating and Managing the Analytical Business Culture course for the WAA.

At eMetrics Toronto, I will be moderating a Round Table discussion group called “Getting Buy-in and creating an Online Analytics Culture” and on a panel moderated by Jim Sterne called “From Web Analytics to Online Intelligence“.  At Webtrends Engage, I’ll be on a panel called “Socialization of Data” moderated by Barry Parshall.

With all this activity surrounding the Analytical Culture, I can’t help but suggest 3 books for those of you who are interested in / struggling with these analytical culture issues.  The first book you probably know about, but for the sake of providing a complete toolkit, I include it – best book for “CEO buy in” I can think of. 

The 2nd two books are probably off your radar screen because they deal with organizational issues, but trust me, these are the concepts the senior people need to understand to get any action going.  I find the biggest impediment to creating a proper analytical culture is the “roadmap” problem, and these two books together pretty much spell it out for you, including lots of tools to get you moving.

Here’s the list:

Competing on Analytics – give to CEO
This book describes why your company should care about advancing the discipline of measurement – you’re more likely to win.  If your CEO already gets it, should pass it on to other C’s who don’t.

Levers of Organization Design (Accountability Systems)- for COO / CFO
Assuming CEO buys into the “why”, this book talks about how to create and manage a “reporting structure” for the org which drives the success of measurement programs. Not surprisingly, the “best” model is different depending on what kind of org you are.

Transforming Performance Measurement – give to C-Level HR
Assuming you are getting the org ready structurally to leverage the power of measurement, this book tells you how to get the people ready by creating a proper analytical culture.  Very breezy style and chock full of examples; if you can read only one book, make it this one.

OK?  These books will help get your org ready to start acting on data instead of just analyzing it.  Comments on these books, or suggestions for other must-reads on the topic?