UPDATE ON JANUARY 19, 2009: Peter Black from BPA Worldwide who was also on the IAB working group with Josh Chasin, wrote in and disagrees with Chasin’s characterization of who the “Unique User” language is targeting. I have email into the IAB and MRC’s George Ivie to clarify the situation. Watch this blog!

UPDATE ON JANUARY 18, 2009: Josh Chasin from comScore, who was a member of the IAB working group that defined the guidelines described in this post, wrote in to point out that I misinterpreted the IAB’s intent. While their web site clearly says …

“The IAB believes that all companies involved in audience measurement should be audited for their processes.  These audits are intended to establish the source of any measurement discrepancies and to find potential solutions.

All measurement companies that report audience metrics have a material impact on interactive marketing and decision-making. Therefore, transparency into these methodologies is critical to maintaining advertisers’ confidence in interactive, particularly now, as marketers allocate more budget to the platform.”

… according to Chasin the IAB is excluding web analytics vendors from “all companies involved in audience measurement” and the type of companies  that have a material impact on interactive marketing and decision-making. Since this doesn’t sound right to me at all I will warn the reader that some of the questions I raise in the following post may, in fact, be totally irrelevant (at least in the context of the IAB Proposed Measurement Guidelines.

If nothing else, with two days left in the open comment period, the IAB may want to use my confusion as an example and clarify the target for the recommendations made in the document.

Reader beware!

As long as we’re talking about web analytics standards I figured I would take the opportunity to offer up a few thoughts on the Interactive Advertising Bureau’s Audience Reach Measurement Guidelines that are open for public comment until January 20th. If you haven’t had a chance to read these proposed guidelines you should, especially if you have an interest in how we collectively communicate about data.

At 34 pages the document is certainly a slog to read–and I say this knowing full well that I have a tendency to write 50 page white papers! Since you’re all bright folks I’m just going to address some of the proposed language that stood out to me.  And, as always, if you have any thoughts or positions on the proposed guidelines I’d love to hear from you!

Starting in Section 1.2 the IAB clarifies the relationship between “Unique Cookies”, “Unique Browsers”, “Unique Devices” and “Unique Users / Visitors”.  The discussion about “Unique Devices” is interesting because this is a clear indication of the impact that mobile devices like the iPhone are having on audience measurement.  Things start to get really interesting, however, in Section 1.2.4 where the IAB says (emphasis mine):

“However, in order to report a Unique User, the measurement organization must utilize in its identification and attribution processes underlying data that is, at least in a reasonable proportion,, attributed directly to a person. For instance, data collected from registrants is one possible source that can be utilized in creating a Unique Users measure by a census-based measurement organization, if registrants represent a reasonable proportion of the total user-base and when appropriate scientific projection methods are used for non-registrrants (sic).  In no instance may a census measurement organization report Unique Users purely through algorithms or modeling that is not at least partially traceable to information obtained directly from people, as opposed to browsers, computers, or any other non-human element.“

Did you get that? Keep in mind that while at JupiterResearch I was among the first to publicize the decline in accuracy of visitor counting due to cookie deletion. In fact the report was subtitled “Addressing the Decline in Accuracy of Cookie-Based Measurement.” At the time people called me crazy and Seth Godin even accused me of living in an echo chamber (I have since forgiven Seth.)

Now, three years later, the IAB is expressly telling measurement vendors to stop reporting a metric called “Unique Visitors” or “Unique Users” unless they have a research-based strategy for determining the correct proportion of cookies to “real people” and have applied that calculation in a transparent way.

Whoa.

Think about this for a minute. Every one of the fine census measurement packages (nee web analytics) out there is reporting a Unique Visitor number, but I’ll go out on a limb here and propose that none of them are even vaguely adhering to the IAB proposed definition of a “Unique Visitor.”  I’ll go a step further and postulate that, at least in the base offerings, these vendors don’t currently have the technical capability required to report an estimated/algorithmically derived “Unique Visitor” count based on scientific projection methods.

If I’m wrong about this I suspect I’ll hear about it, but I don’t think I’m wrong when it comes to the base offerings like SiteCatalyst, WebTrends Web Analyics, Coremetrics 2009, etc.  And yes, I’m aware that end-users can use higher-end products like Discover on Premise and the data warehousing tools to apply a correction factor to UV counts, but that is not what the IAB is saying. This guideline is saying that correcting for cookie, browser, and device-related over-counting of unique visitors is the responsibility of the measurement vendor.

Again, whoa.

And as if that’s not a radical enough move, the document goes on to state in Section 2.2 that the vendors need to actually break out these correction factors across three components: first-cookie acceptance, deletion, and browser denial (again, emphasis mine):

“Cookie deletion rates, calibration methods and sources or estimation methods used to account for first-use, deletion, and non-accepting cookie groups should be disclosed by the audience measurement organization. The audience measurement organization should disclose census-based unique cookie counts and the estimated unique activity from first-use, deletion and non-accepting cookie groups separately and in aggregate. If the measurement organization relies on a unified model that makes reporting among these separate groups impossible, it may report these counts in aggregate only, but should be prepared to demonstrate in an audit the ability of its unified model to address each type of cookie completely.”

The IAB goes on in Section 2.4 to start to push web analytics into what is an uncomfortable position for some people, the use of algorithms and data models, to better report on unique visitors:

“As noted above, Publishers and Ad-servers will generally need to rely on algorithms (data models) to estimate the number of users attributable to the counts of Unique Cookies they develop. The underlying basis for this algorithm should be a study of actual users (i.e, people).  Ideally, such a study would be based on direct contact and/or observation of people using the browser at the time of accessing web-site content or ads with the unique cookie, as well as observation of the number of browsers in use by these users.  Additionally, inferences will need to be made about advertising activity of users with non-cookied browsers, so these types of users should also be contacted and observed.  Also, the activity of users who access content from multiple locations (home, work, school) on different browsers should be factored into these algorithms.”

Finally, the IAB is telling the vendors they need to report the results of their research to their customers, essentially exposing flaws in their technology for all to see:

“The resulting study should be representative of, and projectable to, the users of the web-site or property, and periodically re-performed to reflect gradual changes in audience.  Known weaknesses in the projection processes should be disclosed to users of Audience Reach Measurements.“

If  you’re keeping track, the IAB is telling the vendors A) to completely change their definition of “Unique Visitors”, B) to start to actively research sources of inaccuracy on behalf of their customers, and C) pro-actively report known weaknesses in their system to their customers. Anyone want to place any bets on when the vendor community will adopt these recommendations? I’m going to be a little snarky here and put my money on “never in a million years.”

Seriously you have to love the IAB for putting this out there.  Unlike the Web Analytics Association’s Standards which I believe are an excellent start but are a little soft in areas, the IAB is basically telling the measurement vendor community that they are doing the entire world a disservice by reporting unique visitor counts that are complete bollocks and they need to stop doing that post-haste! Okay, maybe I’m over-reading the document but the scope of changes required for any vendor to become IAB-compliant is dramatic, both technically and psychologically.

I’m not sure if Brandt Dainow had seen the IAB proposal when he besmirtched the fine work of the Web Analytics Association’s Standards Committee, but if you compare the two proposal documents (the WAA’s proposal can be found here in PDF form) you will detect a noticable difference.  Personally I’m glad that my good friend Judah Phillips bridged the gap between the IAB and WAA and I find myself wondering, at least a little bit, whether the IAB+WAA relationship should be even deeper.

This all brings me to an excellent point that Bryan Robertson made on my last post on standards regarding how standards are defined and moved into common use. Bryan’s thesis is based on the W3C’s move from HTML 1.0 to XHTML and his point is that this transition to the XHTML standard came about because of A) a powerful standards body, B) a vocal community, and C) passionate thought leaders.  Regarding a powerful standards body, Bryan specifically make a point that other folks have made, usually behind closed doors:

“Is the WAA powerful enough at this point in time, or do we need to continue to build momentum before the standards can be more bold? For example, is the WAA hand wringing too much over the polite “we’ll share with you if you share with us” arrangement with the IAB over standards definitions? Is the WAA in a tough position in trying to bring practitioners and vendors together at the same table?”

Bonus points to Bryan for willing to be direct on the conflict of interests arising from having two masters, vendor and practitioner.  Again, I have nothing but profound respect for Angie and all of the other members of the WAA Standards Committee, but since I do know that vendors participated in the definition process I wonder a little bit how much impact they really had.

Anyway, I’m doing all the talking here and it’s a beautiful day so I will ask what you all think — either about the IAB proposal, Brandt Dainow’s assertion, Bryan’s thesis about the strength of the WAA, or anything else that strikes your fancy. Do you think the IAB standard for “Unique Users” has a snowball’s chance of being widely implemented? Do you think Brandt Dainow makes a good point (even if he does it in a lousy way)? Do you think the WAA may be better off working more closely with the IAB on Standards, given the IAB’s relative might?

My site host assures me that my comments table will not crash again so I look forward to hearing from you all.

Readers who are enthusiastic members of the web analytics community are by now familiar with Brandt Dainow and his sometimes antagonistic missives published at iMediaConnection. While I try pretty hard to follow the old “if you can’t say something nice” rule I occasionally fail in my efforts. Perhaps the best evidence of my failing was my calling Brandt Daniow insane when he suggested that Google Analytics version 2.0 was “simply a quantum leap above any other analytics product on the planet.”

While I firmly believe that Google Analytics is a great, valuable, and appropriate application for a wide range of needs, I think that Dainow’s “quantum leap” claim and statements like “What Google has done is simply take every feature in every product on the market and put them all into one system, and then make it available for free” are so obviously hyperbolic that they beg criticism (which Mr. Dainow got in spades from many within the analytics community.)

Dainow has since turned on Google Analytics, more recently pointing out what he describes as “disturbing inaccuracies behind Google Analytics” and again getting our  attention with irresponsible statements like “Google Analytics is different from other products in that it has been intentionally designed by Google to be inaccurate over and above the normal inaccuracies that are inevitable.“

Oddly enough, his rant about Google Analytics included some statements that rubbed members of the Web Analytics Association the wrong way.  When folks like Jodi McDermott commented on the article and questioned some of Dainow’s assertions, Brandt did what any normal person would do …

… he wrote a nasty follow-up piece critical of the Web Analytics Association and the WAA Standards Committee!

I will let you read his piece yourself, but the two-sentence summary of Dainow’s opinion is that “the work of the WAA standards committee is a disaster for the web analytics community. It will take years to undo the damage and create proper precise standards that can be implemented in software. The WAA “standard” is not a standard, it’s just second-rate muttering.“

Clearly Dainow is not worried about making friends in the web analytics industry.

I personally am a big fan of the Web Analytics Association.  I am pretty loyal to some of the current Board of Directors, I’ve done a bunch in the past to support the WAA and am about to announce more of the same, and I’ve even gone out of my way to help promote the work of the Web Analytics Association Standards Committee.  So it is was with great trepidation I wrote this article’s title … but I find myself agreeing with one small part of Dainow’s otherwise unnecessary rant.

Towards the end of his article, right before he declares that some pretty nice people’s work has been little more than time wasted, he says this:

“The WAA should be setting the agenda, not following the crowd. The task of the WAA standards committee should be to determine how web analytics metrics should be calculated in order to achieve the highest degree of precision possible. The WAA should be laying out the roadmap for the way things should be. It then falls to the vendors to bring their software into line.”

I more or less made this same comment, although I like to believe I used a great deal more tact, when I commented on the original Web Analytics Association Standards published under the direction of former Director Avinash Kaushik back in August 2007.

At the time I preferred to focus on the reality of the situation–the fact that the WAA had proposed a set of standard definitions that, for good or ill, were better than anything else out there.  Instead of being openly critical of the definitions as written, I preferred to ask the question, “Now that we have these definitions, what are we going to do with them?”

While my call for a web analytics standards compliance matrix has since been answered by all of the major vendors except for Omniture, I personally don’t believe that the Standards process is serving the needs of our community as best possible.  We all continue to be vexed by a lack of standard definitions, a situation that will likely get worse with the decline of the web analytics economy.

Not having participated in the process of drafting the WAA Standards I can only express gratitude towards those members of the community who have volunteered  their valuable time for this work.  In my humble opinion, people like Jason Burby and Angie Brown are to be congratulated for their efforts, not denigrated and accused of having set our industry back into the dark ages.

But, in the spirit of having an open mind and building consensus, I would be interested in hearing my reader’s collective thoughts on Dainow’s point that the WAA should be setting standards without regard to their practicality today. Put another way, should the Association have written definitions that would be robust and useful in an analytics context and then presented that guidance to the entire community–vendor, consultant, and practitioner alike–saying “this is the result we should all be working towards.”

For example, should the WAA have been more explicit in their definition of a “visit” and proclaim that a visit is terminated after 30 minutes of inactivity, instead of saying “if an individual has not taken another action (typically additional page views) on the site within a specified time period, the visit will terminate by timing out.”  Being explicit about the timeout duration would make a clear statement about our collective expectation for the definition of a visit, and any technology or analysis that choses to use a timeout other than 30 minutes would also need to justify their decision to eschew the WAA Standard for another value.

I know that the WAA is doing the best they can, and I am enthusiastic about the work Angie, Judith and their fellow volunteers have all been doing.  But I do think Dainow’s assertion that standards should be set based on overall value to the community in the long run, not necessarily the near-term practicality, is worth exploring.  Taking this approach would definitely penalize some vendors and reduce their self-generated “compliance score” but it does kind of make sense to be working collectively towards a more precise set of definitions we can all work from.

Doesn’t it?

These are the kinds of conversations that aren’t just magically resolved and so I’m sure we’ll have to add this to the list of issues worthy of discussion the next time we all meet.  I’m sure it will come up at some of the upcoming vendor events, in San Jose at Emetrics, and likely at our own web analytics conference, the X Change (where last year Forrester analyst John Lovett led a conversation on the topic.)

As always I welcome your thoughts, feedback, open disagreement, pointing out flaws in my logic, etc.  I consider myself fortunate to have such thoughtful and experienced analytics practitioners among my most loyal readers and sincerely hope Dainow’s otherwise disturbing rant will lead to something of value for our community.

ANOTHER UPDATE: WebTrends just posted their own WAA Standard’s compatibility matrix at the new WebTrends blog. I have to say that when I first suggested that we needed a vendor-by-vendor assessment of Standards compliance back in August of last year I didn’t think it would take this long for the information to materialize. That said, despite the wait I’m glad to see most of the vendors stepping up!  I suppose I expect to have to update this post again when Omniture and Nedstat publish their information.

UPDATE: Coremetrics just posted a press release that describes their application’s WAA Standards compatibility at their web site. With Coremetrics participating in the creation of a global standards compliance matrix the only remaining vendors that need to provide this type of documentation are Omniture, WebTrends, and Nedstat.

One of the key challenges we face as an industry is without a doubt the lack of standard terms and definitions applied across different vendor solutions. John Lovett from Forrester led a huddle for us at the X Change conference this past August and the subject just keeps coming up.

The fine folks at the Web Analytics Association are actively trying to do something about this situation and have recently published a draft update of the WAA Standard Definitions.  When the definitions were first published back in August of last year I offered hearty congratulations but also commented that standards without any kind of transparency or enforcement are unlikely to be applied in any meaningful way.

Since that post three companies have publicly offered up any kind of documentation regarding their level of standards compliance — IndexTools (now Yahoo Web Analytics), Google Analytics (via Justin Cutroni at EpikOne), and most recently Unica (thanks Akin!) — but I am hopeful that this is about to change.  I am hopeful because of a conversation I had at Emetrics with Angie Brown, the head of the Standards Committee.

Angie and the Standards Committee will be presenting the updated definitions on Thursday, November 6th at noon Eastern / 9:00 AM Pacific.  I think this call is open to everyone (Angie, correct me if I’m wrong) but to help build awareness for this call and the Standards Committee in general I was lucky enough to interview Angie.  My questions (in bold) and Angie’s answers follow.

Tell me a little bit about the recent update to the standards document?

We took the feedback we received from last year — emails, blog postings, rumors, etc. — and revisited each of our original 26 definitions. This review caused us to drop one term (the distinction between “single page visits” and “single page view visits”, too confusing and not useful), we added four terms (frequency, recency, conversion rate, and impressions), and we spent the majority of the last year comparing our definitions with the tools we use in our everyday jobs.

As a result of the review, we’ve included a list of “ask your vendor” questions where we’ve been able to identify different methodologies used by different tools.

Who are some of the key people working on this project with you?

There are so many wonderful contributors on the Standards Committee. Most meetings have 8-12 participants, and they change over time based on employment status, workload, travel schedules, etc. But we do have a core group of people who joined way back in 2006 — Judith Pascual (my co-chair extraordinaire), Aseem Patel, Anna Long, and Bob Russotti — who are still active in the committee today. We have many newer members that contributed tons to this document as well, but having some continuity as we move from version to version to version has been critical.

We are also fortunate to have had outstanding guidance, enthusiasm, and representation on the WAA Board while we worked on this document, first from Avinash Kaushik and now from our current Director, Robbin Steif.

Which of the web analytics vendors are participating in the project?

Both Coremetrics and Unica are regular participants: Coremetrics since early 2006, and Unica since early 2007. A representative from Omniture came to our last meeting, and we’re looking forward to more participation from him in the future. I had a chance to talk with some of our other WA vendors at eMetrics last week, and hope we can get them interested.

Can you describe some of the ways the definitions/this work have been adopted so far?

I have heard from several vendor contacts that people are asking about compliance with the WAA definitions when sending out web analytics RFPs. We’ve also heard from people who have distributed the definitions throughout their company so everyone has a common terminology when discussing analytics.

Even more gratifying is the response from the international web analytics community, especially in Europe. Their WA market is much more fragmented than it is here in the US, with a larger variety of tools, so having common terminology is even more meaningful. One of our vendor members has a customer who translated the document into French on their own so they could share it with their coworkers! A high priority for next year is to work with the International Committee to get our document translated into other languages.

Awhile back I congratulated you on the work but complained that there needed to be teeth behind the document.  Since that time only IndexTools (who’s CTO is now a WAW Board member) and Google Analytics (via Justin Cutroni from Epik) have produced any kind of documentation describing their application’s compliance with WAA definitions.  Why do you think the other vendors are slow to respond?

I applaud both Dennis and Justin for taking that initiative without any prodding, and I think it says volumes about both men and the companies they represent. To be fair, I should mention that both Unica and Coremetrics also presented comparisons to the committee as part of their regular participation, although neither has published their results publicly. (NOTE: Unica has since published their comparison via Akin Arikan’s Multichannel Marketing Metrics blog.)

I’m merely speculating on why there hasn’t been more public response, but I suppose it’s because we haven’t asked them point blank to do so. However, this will change. Part of the feedback we’re soliciting from the industry this year will include a letter to each of our WAA member vendors asking them for comparisons, and we intend to publish the responses through the committee. The only reason we haven’t done this yet is because we’re putting the finishing touches on some scenarios (more detail later) that we also want our vendors to address.

Do you support the idea I proposed of a “Percent Standards Compliant” rating for every web analytics application/vendor?  If so, why?  If not, why not?

For now, the committee’s focus is on transparency over compliance. When the “ask your vendor” questions are answered, and the scenarios addressed, we will be able to include methodologies in the definitions in such a way that an overall percent compliance will be more meaningful. I’m not opposed to the idea, nor would I try to discourage anyone else from doing so; I just think it’s premature. Here’s why:

Our current definitions are broad, and we know that vendors use different calculations. In fact, that’s the whole reason we created the “ask your vendor” questions. There are also cases where the metrics described are not exposed in “standard” reports, but can be easily configured by the analyst in some tools. Or situations where a concept exists, but is called something else or simply isn’t exposed in the tool. Because of that broadness, I don’t think percentages calculated today will be different enough from vendor to vendor to provide much differentiation. Or worse yet, “compliance” for specific metrics will be open to interpretation.

For example, look at both Dennis’ and Justin’s responses to our “Return Visitor” definition. Dennis says IndexTools does not comply, while Justin says Google Analytics does. Because they’ve given good explanations (yay transparency!), it’s clear that both tools treat this concept in a similar manner: neither exposes the “return visitor” in the tool, but rather the visits made by returning visitors. If that’s the prevailing way this concept is exposed in the other tools, then it’s not so much a matter of compliance/non-compliance (an argument can be made either way, and indeed both interpreted compliance differently), but perhaps we on the Standards Committee should be defining Return Visits instead of Return Visitors.

So while I want the vendors to publicly tell the web analytics community how their tools stack up to our definitions, it will be as much about informing our Standards as about compliance.

What’s next for the standards document and standards committee?

1) Finish scenarios (more info below) and submit to vendors
2) Keep soliciting industry and vendor feedback on our 9/22 document (download it here)
3) Once feedback has been incorporated, work with the WAA International Committee to translate the final document into other languages

One of the more interesting things we’re doing right now is creating scenarios to find out how situations are handled in different tools. Not only will this provide critical information for practitioners who are transitioning from one tool to another (yes, we’ll publish the replies), but it will form the basis for more specific methodology-based standards.

For example, if the only activity a visitor performs on a site is a non-page event, do our tools count this activity as a visit, and what are the properties of this visit (entry/exit/duration)? Another example concerns average time on site: does the tool include bounced visits, and if so what value is used for these visits (zero? an estimate based on non-bounced views?)?

These are just two of the many situations where tools make different calculations that ultimately affect the numbers you use in your analysis, and why running multiple tools on the same site can lead an analyst to drink. But before we address how we should calculate, it will be beneficial to know the different ways we do calculate.

We’ll talk more about the scenarios during our upcoming WAA Webcast on Thursday, November 6, “Web Analytics Standards Update.” You can sign up on the WAA Site.

How can my readers help the WAA and the standards committee out?

Your readers can help us by giving us feedback. If the document is useful, please tell us. If not, what can we do better? Feedback can be broad or it can be specific to a certain metric. Ultimately, standards need to help the web analytics practitioner, and if we’re not on the right track we need to know.

Download the latest document from our WAA Standards Committee Page. If you attended eMetrics Stockholm or DC, you received a paper copy in your bag. We’ve started a blog post soliciting public comments on the WAA site. Other ways to provide feedback are by email (standards at webanalyticsassociation dot org), participating in our webcast, or starting a discussion about a specific term on the Web Analytics Forum.

There are so many bloggers in our space right now that if feedback consists solely of a post on one’s own blog or a comment on someone else’s, we may not find it so please drop us a line or post a comment on the WAA Blog to let us know.

Anything I forgot to ask you?

I want to expand a bit on the issue of standards with “teeth.” Above, I mentioned that we are more interested in transparency than compliance right now, but I don’t want to mislead anyone and make them think compliance isn’t important. It is, and compliance is our ultimate goal.

However, our industry is still young. There are any number of industry reports that will tell us most of the major tools provide similar basic functionality. A competent analyst can get valuable business insights out of any of them. And compliance to standards most certainly carries a cost, not just to vendors who will have to rewrite scripts and database queries, but to practitioners who will have to explain to their stakeholders why a number they’ve been reporting for years as 11.5 is suddenly 9.2.

Not having that happen any more is one of the best arguments for standards, but in order to get there we’re all going to have to get through the transition. The Committee wants to make sure that the standards are well-vetted, reasonable, and that they ultimately benefit the practitioners of our trade and confer a competitive advantage on vendors who comply. After all, if nobody complies, then why bother with standards?

As I discussed above with my Return Visitors vs. Return Visits example, if we find that the industry is already used to seeing a concept expressed a certain way, we’re not interested in forcing the entire industry to change their mind if both metrics are equally valuable. In that case, we want to standardize on the metric that people already find useful. We can’t do that without your feedback. And we can’t be sensitive to changes we’re asking from vendors if they don’t tell us how they do things right now. We have tried to figure it out for ourselves, but honestly? Most vendor documentation sucks.

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Again, you can register to attend the WAA Standard’s Committee webcast on Thursday, November 6th by going to the Web Analytics Association web site.  Thanks again to Angie for taking the time to answer my questions!

You may have already seen the press release this morning about some of the industry experts that we have coming to the X Change conference in San Francisco, August 17, 18, and 19.  If not, you should check it out!  Some highlights:

• Jim Sterne, yes … that JIM STERNE, will be joining us as a participant!  I’m not sure if I have seen Jim at an event where he is not the absolute Master of Ceremony and running the show so it will be nice to see my old friend (hopefully) relax and have the time to share his own experiences in our industry
• Many of the most influential vendors in the digital measurement ecosystem are coming, including Aaron Gray (WebTrends), John Squire (Coremetrics), John Dawes (Tealeaf), Eric Hansen (SiteSpect), Mark Treschl (OpinionLab), Eric Head (ForeSee Results), and more I am surely forgetting.
• We’ve also invited some of the best and brightest consultants in the business including Josh Manion and Bill Bruno (Stratigent), Jacques Warren (WAO Marketing), Aurelie Pols (OX2), Andy Fisher (Avenue A/Razorfish), Matt Jacobs (Digitas), Dan Sheilds (Wicked Science), Craig Danuloff (Commerce360), and of course the team from Semphonic!

By design, the X Change conference will be about 1/5 expert practitioners (the huddle leaders, who are amazing), 1/5 experts from the vendor, agency, and consulting community, and 3/5 practitioner attendees.  Given that the huddle leaders are practitioners themselves, we feel that we have a pretty solid (and extremely rare) ratio of experts to attendees, and that this arrangement will provide amazing value to attendees.

It doesn’t hurt that the experts we selected are among the best in the business.

Yeah, there are some folks that are missing, to be sure.  It would have been great if someone from Google Analytics could have come, and the guys from ZAAZ, and folks like Steve Jackson from SATAMA and others across the U.S.  But there is always next year, right!

Anyway, if you’re thinking about joining us in San Francisco the time to register is now.  Check out the official web site at Semphonic and get signed up today.

Since summer is nearly here and since I am trying to be more European in my approach towards business (read: wanting to take long holidays during the summer) I have been somewhat lazy in my regular blogging (as opposed to my lazy-blogging on Twitter, where I have also been somewhat lazy …) But thinking about being more European brought my mind around to my idea of a European Web Analytics Association (EUWAA) that I proposed before the Emetrics Summit in San Francisco last month.

Since that post a few things have happened:

1. My good friend Mr. Jim Sterne, Chairman of the Board at the WAA held a nice meeting over drinks in London to discuss the idea with Europeans in attendance. You can read Jim’s summary of the meeting and some interesting notes about the WAA Board of Directors over at Jim’s blog.
   
2. The WAA held a more formal meeting on May 22nd with some very high-profile Europeans in attendance including Neil Mason (England), Jim Williams (Scotland), Marianina Chaplin (England), Vicky Brock (Scotland), Zeljka Stojanovic (England), Tim Leighton Boyce (England), Rene Dechamps Otamendi (Belgium), Oliver Schiffers (Germany), Julien Coquet (France), Miles Bennet (England)

I certainly wish I could have been at the meeting since it sounds like it was pretty productive. Still, I have one concern as I read the summary document provided by Board Member Vicky Brock — it sound like the pro-EUWAA conversation revolved around multiple local WAA chapters in Europe as opposed to a single, pan-European organization able to respond to the needs of “chapters” across the continent.

Perhaps I’m just reading the document incorrectly, and hopefully if I am one of the participants will write me and clarify the point. But if I am interpreting this correctly, I think this is a dangerous idea and one very likely to fail.

I suspect that the organizational process and volunteer commitment to create and maintain multiple local WAAs would be far greater than is reasonable. Were this not the case, I suspect the WAA would have a local presence here in the U.S., instead of ceding most local web analytics efforts to Web Analytics Wednesday. Web Analytics Wednesday works because it is A) low effort and B) high value. I suspect the establishment of several mini-WAA’s across Europe would be the exact opposite, at least in the short- to mid-term.

Instead, I would encourage those European’s taking the lead on this issue (Neil, Vicky, Rene Dechamps Otamendi from OX2) to focus on first creating a single, pan-European organization able to provide reasonable organizational structure for all Europeans. A single organization should be able to:

• Provide focus for Europeans working in the web analytics arena
• Create critical mass for EU-focused networking events, conferences, etc.
• Publish in more languages to accommodate non-English speakers
• Develop EU-focused content via blogs, social networks, etc.
• Streamline organizational processes like reimbursement
• Schedule meetings at a reasonable time of day locally

Fundamentally the idea of a single EUWAA was put forth to reflect the need for more value and more opportunities for European members of our global community. And while I have tremendous faith in Rene, Neil, and Vicky, I suspect that many more people will be necessary to provide the level of value I think the WAA is capable of providing.

According to the document, the WAA is planning to have a vote of Europeans in the next few weeks designed to gauge member (and potential member) response, theoretically to the idea of a separate EUWAA. It will be very interesting to see how the questions in this survey are worded and how the response is managed, but I suspect this process is in good hands.

Vicky concluded her letter with the following statement:

“Every action item in this report needs volunteers to step forward. If you would like to see any or all of the above come to fruition, please find something (research, identify, explore, review) and raise your hand.”

Nothing could be more true. Any association like the WAA or EUWAA depends on volunteer action for its lifeblood. Hopefully all of you who commented on my last post, and all of you who wrote me directly in support of the idea of a EUWAA, will take Vicky’s point to heart and step up when the time is right.

Since I’m not European I suspect my involvement from this point on will be tangential at best, although I’m not opposed to volunteering my own time, but I welcome your comments and critique of the ideas I put forth in this post. Also, if you’d like to know when the pan-European vote on this subject is, and if you’re not a WAA member, please don’t hesitate to comment or write me directly and I will make sure your email address is passed along.

I must say I am tremendously encouraged by the work that Jim, Seth, Neil, Vicky, Rene, and many others have already contributed to the general idea of providing more member value in Europe, especially in such a short period of time. I only hope the momentum will continue towards a product that everyone involved can be as proud of as Rand, Greg, Jim, Bryan, Seth, and the rest of the WAA founders surely are of their work.

As Web Analytics Wednesday continues to gain momentum around the world leading into what is shaping up to be the largest event in WAW history in San Francisco on Tuesday, May 6th, I am pleased to announce that Coremetrics and SiteSpect have both signed on to be global sponsors of this event.

You can read the press release here but the essence of this announcement is that these great companies share my vision for what Web Analytics Wednesday is becoming — the largest and most widely recognized gathering of web analytics professionals in the world. In sharing the vision, their management teams have graciously decided to provide financial support to allow Analytics Demystified provide more reimbursement to a larger number of events around the world.

Starting today, we are pleased to be able to help emerging Web Analytics Wednesday chapters cover the cost of providing food and drink to participants. You can read about the WAW sponsorship policy here and if you have any questions please don’t hesitate to write me directly.

On behalf of myself, my wife Amity who provides event support, June, and every Web Analytics Wednesday host and participant around the world I want to thank Coremetrics and SiteSpect for their vision and contribution. So far in April nearly 700 people have signed up to participate in Web Analytics Wednesday and we’re well on the way to beat my goal of 5,000 participants worldwide in 2008!

In other Web Analytics Wednesday news …

• I will be in New York this coming Wednesday giving a short Web Analytics Wednesday presentation on “The Future of Web Analytics” at the headquarters of Avenue A/Razorfish. This event is being organized by Joel Collymore, one of the WAW hosting superstars, and promises to be a great event (over 115 people are signed up to attend already!) Sign up here to join us since we need to add you on the security list at the door!
• Don’t forget, if you live in the Bay Area in Northern California or are coming to Emetrics, we are having what is likely to be the largest WAW event in history at the Fluid Nightclub on Mission Avenue. This special WAW on Tuesday, May 6th is open to all web analytics practitioners regardless of whether you’re going to Emetrics or not so please sign up to join us!
• Just in case you live in French Polynesia, the first ever Web Analytics Wednesday event is being held on Bora Bora in Tahiti. Steve Jackson, blogger, consultant, and likely soon-to-be EUWAA leader is heading to Bora Bora for his honeymoon and has offered to help spread the good word. While his new bride will almost certainly not think it amusing, if you can get to Bora Bora I’m buying the drinks!

I am especially excited about the San Francisco event because Coremetrics, ForeSee Results, SiteSpect, and Tealeaf have all made significant sponsorship donations, giving us quite a lot of lattitude to entertain. It looks like our efforts are paying off as the sign-up list is a virtual who’s who of web analytics thought-leaders, practitioner talent, and consulting genius!

Long-time readers surely know that I hold June Dershewitz in high regard; not only do I consider her a friend, I respect June as one of the most talented web analytics practitioners and consultants I have ever met. More importantly, June is one of the most fair-minded and thoughtful people working in our industry today, which is why I’m so delighted that she has decided to run for Web Analytics Association board of directors.

To help spread the word about June’s candidacy she allowed me to interview her via email. My questions and her answers follow:

June, can you tell me what made you decide to run for the Web Analytics Association (WAA) Board of Directors?

The thought hadn’t even crossed my mind until last month, Eric, when you suggested that I put my name on the ballot. The more I considered it, and the more people I talked to about what I could possibly bring to the Board, the more I realized that it was a great idea. I’ve invested a lot of energy in developing the web analytics community in my own local area, and I know that I could bring the same energy up a level to help the web analytics community at large on behalf of the WAA.

In a nutshell, what are the top three reasons you believe yourself to be qualified for the board position?

1. I’ve been a hands-on web analyst my entire professional career, I love this work, and I am one of the strongest advocates you’ll find for our trade.
2. I take volunteer work seriously. The Board is made up of volunteers who’ve agreed to spend 15-20 hours per month on the cause. That’s a lot to ask, but I’m ready to make a serious commitment to the job.
3. I don’t play favorites. I want to make sure that we all benefit from the WAA’s efforts, and to that end I will strive to move the organization in a direction that’s in the best interest for all of us.

Have you given any thought to the kinds of things you would like to see the WAA accomplish in during your term if you are elected?

By all means we need to expand our member base at a rate that keeps up with the growth of our field, and at the same time we need to make sure that existing members continue to find value in their memberships. I’m all in favor of finding new ways to provide tangible, useful benefits to members. I also believe we need to form tighter bonds with related associations whose missions overlap with ours, especially as the scope of web analytics becomes broader. In terms of topics that are near and dear to me, I would like to see the formalization of local chapters and the development of a mentoring program.

I know you’re really involved in the web analytics community (being a founder of Web Analytics Wednesday!) Can you describe some of the other work you’ve done for our community in the past?

Web Analytics Wednesday has been a huge focus of my community involvement over the past couple of years. It’s evolved to the point where I’m not only heading up a monthly event series here in San Francisco, I’m also helping other organizers get started with their own events throughout the Bay Area and beyond. My work with WAW has really helped build an established local presence for the web analytics community, and I’m pleased to see similar developments in other cities where WAW has taken hold.

Within the WAA proper, I’ve been involved in the Education Committee, where I helped develop the document that will become the Web Analytics Body of Knowledge, and more recently I’ve become a member of Marshall Sponder’s Social Media Committee. I’m also contributing articles aimed at people who are new to the field of web analytics; my first one came out last month.

You’re running against some pretty heavy hitters in the field, folks like Avinash Kaushik and Jim Sterne to name a few. As you’ve looked at the slate of candidates, who would you like to see elected in this cycle: Who would you like to work with in 2008 and 2009 and why?

I would be honored to work with any previous Board member, especially those – like Avinash – who’ve voluntarily put themselves up for re-election a year early just so we’d have a balance of open positions this year and next.

As far as new people go, it would be great to get to work with Alex Langshur and Vicky Brock. After reading through all 17 candidate statements, I really like what those two have to say: Alex, because he’s committed to achievable goals aimed at bringing value to members, and Vicky, because she sees (as I do) web analytics evolving into business analytics.

Recently Lars Johansson of Satama proposed the idea of term limits for WAA board members, something that I don’t think is in place currently. What do you think? Should WAA board members be limited to one or two terms, or should people be free to serve for as long as they’re able to be re-elected?

The WAA has finally been around long enough for us to consider that issue. I’m definitely in favor of having a 2-term cap on Board membership. Our field is growing so quickly – there are great new people getting started all the time. If they have the energy and the inclination to run for the Board, I want to make sure they have every opportunity to get a spot – even without the name recognition that long-time Board members necessarily have.

Four years from now I’d love to see the Board made up of an entirely new set of people, full of enthusiasm and fresh ideas. By then we’ll be established enough as an association that our mission will be clear to whoever happens to be sitting in the driver’s seat.

You’re a web analytics blogger (one of my favorites!) so here’s an easy one: who’s blogs do you like to read and why do you like them?

Blogs are such a great way to keep up with our field and our community; I make a point to subscribe to everything I come across. Lately I’ve enjoyed Florian Pihs’s blog (I’m outing myself, he doesn’t know I’m a fan) because he’s covering web analytics in China and it’s a unique perspective that I could never hope to get on my own. Oh, and I like to follow bloggers whose sense of humor shines through in their writing, like Alex Cohen and Ian Thomas and (the occasional) Bob Page.

Some have accused the WAA of being somewhat close-minded and having a “not invented here” attitude, something that has the potential to negatively impact the community as a whole. Can you tell me if you encounter this how you might approach the problem?

I believe this attitude tends to propagate when the WAA’s activities are perceived as being shrouded in mystery. As members it’s really tough to figure out why certain policy decisions have been made when you don’t know what’s swirling around behind the scenes. I think it would be a lot better for everybody if more of what the WAA did, decision-wise, happened out in the public. I think we can do a better job being open with all members about what’s going on. Better communication – more honest, thorough communication – would keep negative sentiment in check.

What is your favorite thing about web analytics?

It’s a good intellectual challenge. There’s something about the natural shape of the data that lends itself really well to interesting, solvable story problems.

What is your least favorite thing about web analytics?

The occasional mistaken belief that what we’re doing is spying.

Ours is an increasingly international community and I firmly believe that some of the most exciting opportunities for growth in the industry are in Europe and Asia. Can you describe your experience working with international members of our community?

Over the course of my career I’ve been fortunate enough to work with a pretty global group. For 2 years I was employed by a first-generation web analytics vendor whose main office was in Britain; I spent some time working there, which was a great learning experience. Later, as a member of the central web analytics group at Oracle, I collaborated with an international team of marketers, analysts and developers. Now, as a consultant, I often find myself on the phone with clients many time zones away. Outside of work I’ve also enjoyed meeting international members of our community at conferences and through my blog.

Like you, I believe that our industry has a lot of growth potential beyond North America, and I want to make sure that the WAA does all it can to support international members by encouraging regional/local community, providing non-English language resources, and acknowledging the differences in the way we do business.

Fill in the blanks (here June’s responses are in bold print)

1. At Emetrics, after 10 PM, you’re going to find me in the middle of a great conversation.
2. On a long flight, I spend most of my time photographing my snack to post on Flickr as airplanefood.
3. The one thing most people don’t know about me is I have a herd of dairy goats named in my honor.
4. Everything I know about web analytics I learned from all the smart people I’ve gotten to work with and for over the past decade.

Anything else you think my readers should know about you as they prepare to vote this week?

If, after reading this, you’ve got any questions about where I stand or what my values are, you can write to me directly at june.dershewitz@gmail.com. I aim to represent every one of you, and I welcome your feedback, now and at any point in the future.

[UPDATED: I mis-read the WAW announcement from Rene and Aurelie (see Rene’s comment on this post. I wish them all the best in Brussels!]

Here are a few small updates that I noticed that I thought worthy of passing along:

• Bryan and Jeffery Eisenberg at FutureNow have completely redone their web site and have added a very cool RSS feed feature at GrokDotCom.
• Jim Novo, one of the “OGs” of web analytics (man, I hope he takes that the right way!) is blogging! I didn’t see any email go out, or any announcement in the Yahoo! group, but sure as sunshine Jim is blogging at blog.jimnovo.com. Welcome to the navel-gazing contest, Jim!
• Aurelie and Rene, the fine folks running the show at WebAnalytics.BE in Brussels, have announced that they’re going to bring Web Analytics Wednesday to the capital of Europe (Brussels!)
• Speaking of Web Analytics Wednesday, remember that this month’s event is on FEBRUARY 21st to accommodate all you lovebirds out there who will rightly be spending February 14th with your sweetie. So far there are events planned in Quebec, Irving, Texas, and Sommerville, Massachusetts. Sign up and PARTICIPATE!
• The fine folks at Digitas have two jobs posted on my premium job board, including a Vice President-level position.

I’m sure there is more but that’s all I have time for right now.

I had the great fortune this week to have dinner with Bob Page (founder of Accrue, currently at Yahoo!), Xavier Casanova (founder of Fireclick, currently running Perenety) and Bryan and Jeffery Eisenberg (who need no introduction.) At one point Bob turned to me and commented that he had a new book he wanted me to write; Bob wanted to see my take on how to measure Web 2.0.

This is a great idea and something I’ve been thinking about a lot lately. Think about the inherent complexity involved with measuring activity on your web site, the one where you ultimately own everything. Now think about how you’d get this same type of robust measurement from a mash-up. When you have a Google map, a widget like Bitty Browser, a ZoomCloud tag cloud and more in your web page—all applications unto themselves that don’t provide ANY TYPE of reporting about visitor interaction to the best of my knowledge.

So AJAX and Web 2.0 present a whole new suite of challenges to anyone considering their use who is concerned about measurement. And I think this is a freaking fascinating subject personally–something that has the potential to change our industry–so I’ve decided to propose a measurement strategy for all Web 2.0/AJAX/RIA applications designed to be mashed into other web sites.

I mean, why not just suggest that Web 2.0 is incomplete without providing the ability to measure it’s adoption in a meaningful way? You know you we’re thinking it already, right?

So here goes …

I want to be able to, with any request for an external application, pass in a visitor identifier and have the application record event level data for me. Then, later, I want to make a different request to the application and get back event-level information for all of my visitors who interacted with the application, keyed to the visitor identifier I originially passed in.

The event-level data would differ by application type. A tag cloud would report back something like:

VISITORID001 DATE/TIME Clicked on “analytics”
VISITORID002 DATE/TIME Clicked on “peterson”
VISITORID001 DATE/TIME Clicked on “kpi book”
VISITORID003 DATE/TIME Clicked on “event api”

Whereas a more complex application like Google Maps might report back something like:

VISITORID001 DATE/TIME Zoomed map to level 4
VISITORID002 DATE/TIME Added directions to [ADDRESS]
VISITORID001 DATE/TIME Dragged map to center of [LAT/LONG]
VISITORID003 DATE/TIME Printed map

There would have to be a way to sync the dates and times such that these events could then be integrated into other clickstream data, essentially allowing these externally tracked events to be treated as “page views” in a clickstream path (“page view” being the canonical event type.) Still, those of you from the old guard–back when all we had was log files–will immediately recognize a simple log file and think to yourself either “Ahhhhh …” or “Dude, logs are so 1994!”

Regardless, those of us who use analytics packages that support hybrid data collection would simply take these logs and integrate them with our normally collected site data. This log-based approach is nice IMHO because the site owner could decide for his or herself which events they wanted included in the final analysis at integration time. Or, you could write a process that translated the text strings the application provider gave you into something more meaningful, you could categorize the events, etc.

Alternatively, assuming that few if any of the Web 2.0 application providers will actually build the necessary infrastructure to support this type of data capture and reporting, one could pass a reporting URL into the API and the application could use the reporting URL to log events using your existing meausurement application. For example, if I were to instantiate a Google Map like this:

var map = new GMap2(document.getElementById(“map”));
map.setCenter(new GLatLng(37.4419, -122.1419), 13);

Then the alternative method could be something like “setReportingURL” e.g.:

map.setReportingURL(“http://www.site.com/image.gif?ID=VISITORID001&EVENT=%5BE%5D”);

where the method would know to replace “[E]” with the encoded text string describing the actual event. This way, every time their was a meaningful event occurring, Google Maps would know to fire off a request to the tracking URL such that I could incorporate the event into my data set.

You’d almost surely have to also include the “ID=VISITORID001” string to properly sessionize the events and associate them with a visitor. The actual value of “ID=” would be set from the client based on the value of the tracking cookie.

I’m honestly not sure which approach I like better. The former is almost surely more robust from the viewpoint of creating a standard reporting API for “Web 2.0” applications, something Mark Baartse doubts will happen (Mark’s post being the only relevant Google result when I searched for “measuring Web 2.0”.) The latter is probably easier for the application providers to implement and more likely to work broadly given that only a handful of web analyics applications support integrating multiple data sources tied together by a common unique user identifier.

And yes, I realize that given a sufficiently robust API that you can already build this type of reporting. But man, wouldn’t it be easier if there was a standard tracking and reporting method that came with every such application that behaved the same way every time? Given that our industry has grown up almost entirely without standards, doesn’t this sound like a step in the right direction?

Keep in mind that this is only a technology proposal and only serves to highlight that every application provider would need to define and defend which events they reported and which they ignored. This is pretty much the same question we all asked ourselves seven years ago when Flash hit the scene and people started embedding script-based tracking inside Flash ActionScript.

It’s also the same question you have to ask and answer when you’re building any RIA: Which behaviors and actions are worth tracking and which should be ignored?

Maybe the practical solution is to set a level or threshold for event reporting–sort of a “few”, “many”, “firehose” hierarchy that would allow application designers to support a “log everything” mindset but allow their end users to be more conservative in what they actually collect and use. Few of the good Web 2.0 applications I’ve seen out there have enough events to really warrant this type of hierarchy; most are simple enough and likely to report click events which still provide great insight into visitor behavior.

Either way, there you have it, a line drawn in the sand. If Web 2.0 is going to change the Internet then I think the folks building these applications should play ball and report back on how our visitors are using their technologies. From the basic reporting I propose, sufficiently robust analytics packages will be able to calculate whether these applications have any effect on visitor retention, conversion, revenue, etc. Which, if you think about it, is exactly why the application providers should push reporting out ASAP.

Think I’m crazy? Have a great Web 2.0 application and want to implement my suggestion? Want to form an ad hoc Web 2.0 Measurement Standards Committee that meets on the second Wednesday of every month in a bar near you? Your comments are greatly appreciated and email is always answered.

Over at Coffee, Sun & Technology, Xavier Casanova has a nice shout-out for Web Analytics Wednesday as a Web 2.0 event. When I first established the event nearly a year ago I wasn’t really thinking of it as “Web 2.0” I suppose I see what Xavier is saying, sort of “for the people, by the people” with a basic database to support it.

Honestly I like the idea of user groups, mostly because someone else picks up the tab. That said, I’ve never said that vendors can’t sponsor Web Analytics Wednesday events and would welcome the idea. Do any of you who have attended these events have any suggestions about how to improve on this Web 2.0 idea? If so, I welcome your comments!

I got an email last week from Marianne Llewellyn at 2xL Consulting (who, if memory serves me correctly runs consulting services at Coremetrics) asking for volunteers to write content for the upcoming University of British Columbia/Web Analytics Association course on “Creating and Managing an Analytical Business Culture” and I have to say I’m very excited.

All of the coursework that I’ve seen from the UBC/WAA so far has been great (did you know you get all of the lectures from courses one and two on a companion CD when you buy Bryan and Jeff Eisenberg’s Waiting for your Cat to Bark?) but this course looks to me like the rubber hitting the road, everything you need to know about being successful with Web Analytics from vendor selection to organizational implementation. In my opinion, too many people are still focusing only on subtle variations in the numbers and not really working on how to use analytics technology to drive business success.

I wish I could encourage you to sign up for the course but it’s already completely sold out. Hopefully UBC will add a second session sometime in early 2007. Anyway, lucky you if you’re already signed up for the course.

If you’ve taken some of the previous courses, I’d love to hear your comments about how the courses have gone.

I just saw this post from Jim Novo of, among other things, the Web Analytics Association’s Education Committee. Apparently, if you’re a good writer and have any insight into the analysis and testing of …

• Banner ads
• Rich Media (Flash, EyeBlaster, etc.)
• Branding
• Buzz/Consumer Generated Media
• Public Relations efforts

… then the WAA would like to pay you $500 for your work. Between 1,200 and 1,500 words which any good writer can kick out the time it takes to finish a double-tall nonfat latte.

Nice offer!

For those of you who are active members in the Web Analytics Association, you only have until March 30th to vote for new Board of Directors members. I was just looking at the nominees (requires member login) and noticed that two guys I know pretty well are running, Chris D’Allesandro and Clint Ivy. Chris and Clint are both web analytics bloggers and both extremely knowledgable about the web analytics arena in general having worked both as analytics end-users as well as analytics “process people” in very large organizations for years (Chris at JWT/Ford, Clint at Disney). These are guys that know the tools they use inside-and-out and have consistently pushed their respective vendors towards excellence.

While I am very sure that all of the canidates are well qualified to serve on the WAA Board of Directors, if I can figure out how the heck to vote, I’m voting for Chris and Clint. I think that it’s absolutely essential that experienced analytics practitioners like Clint and Chris help guide the Association, folks who have to do the real work day-in and day-out. Plus, their activity in the Yahoo! group and in their blogs will keep them doubly-connected to the largest part of the WAA’s constituency.

It’s too late to make “Vote for Chris and Clint” buttons but, well, hopefully you get the drift.

Fred Kuu, HBX blogger, is pointing people towards the Web Analytics Wednesday event in Mountain View, CA next week. I’m pleased to see that the folks at Fireclick are sponsoring drinks, so nice of them!

It raises a good question about sponsoring these events. In general, I don’t have any problem with vendors or private parties ponying up money to buy the drinks at Web Analytics Wednesday events. As long as sponsors aren’t making people provide any information, something like “if you give me your phone number you can drink free …” which seems cheesy to me, I’m not going to stop anyone from buying drinks. This would also take some of the pressure off of Jacques Warren and the Web Analytics Association to feel like they have to buy the first round every month.

Who knows, maybe WebTrends will sponsor a Portland event?