Courtesy of PhilanTopic:
The most important things a leader can bring to a changing organization are passion, conviction, and confidence in others. Too often executives announce a plan, launch a task force, and then simply hope that people find the answers — instead of offering a dream, stretching their horizons, and encouraging people to do the same. That is why we say, ‘Leaders go first.’
I’ve had a lot of analytics discussions lately, with clients and colleagues, and not only are people still struggling with the terminology they’re misunderstanding the entire point.
From Online Spin:
The basic gist was this: because marketers were demanding metrics (i.e. impressions, clicks) that did not necessarily equate to value for a marketer, and could be faked or gamed, traditional media metrics were creating a lose-lose-lose eco-system on the Internet for publishers, advertisers and people.
One of the most frequent questions I get is about the “time on site” number. This is useless, in my opinion. There are all kinds of technical and logical problems with this, to start. How it’s implemented isn’t always clear – is it tracking first to last request, or is it tracking actual time via Javascript? How do you account for users that leave their browser windows (or tabs) open for a long time while they focus on another site? Does it include bots or search spiders? Is your site intuitive and efficient, thereby reducing the need to spend so much time looking for information?
The biggest reason to ignore how long users are spending on your site is because it isn’t important! Walmart isn’t trying to maximize the time you spend in their store, they’re trying to maximize the money you spend. On your website, you should focus on the conversion goals: filling out the contact form, ordering a product, or whatever your business demands of your website.
So when clients ask about time on site, I ask them why it’s important for users to spend more time on their website. I focus on four areas:
Don’t get distracted by all the available information. Focus on the prize.
When I was in high school, I listened to my dad and his friends talk about the cars they used to work on. Two brothers had worked together to rebuild an engine and had to drop it back in on their own – one on his back holding the engine in place with his legs, the other tightening the bolts to anchor it. I cracked a joke about dropping in a new motherboard and having to anchor it to the aluminum case I had custom-ordered.
Today, working on the engine in my junker of a boat, I reflected on the similarities between my hardware tinkering and the world of the grease monkey. I might call these guys engine geeks or car hackers. These are the guys who built transistor radios or took apart the toaster. They share something in common with today’s computer geeks: fearlessness. Fearlessness is knowing that you might screw something up but that you can probably figure out how it works and how to fix it.
Tinkering is about trying something, figuring out how it works, and then trying something else to get the best results. This translates to business, too. There’s a thrill in taking risks and being fearless, and it’s the only way to innovate.
I’m heading back out to the boat now… we’ll see if my tinkering paid off.