Almost #AdobeSummit Time!

My Adobe Summit Insider partner in crime, Tim Wilson, said it best:

Conferences are definitely like Christmas for nerdy digital analysts – a chance to step outside of your work cocoon, get a new perspective on your current challenges, meet and mingle and generally talk shop. (And for me, it normally includes an annoyingly giddy countdown of the number of “sleeps”, too!)

Next week, I am heading to beautiful Salt Lake City for the Adobe Digital Marketing Summit. Last year’s event was a great from both an educational and networking point of view, with Arianna Huffington‘s keynote probably standing out as a high point for me. (If you want to catch up on Adobe Summit 2012, feel free to check out my old blog post.)

This year I’m most looking forward to attending sessions on attribution, optimisation and personalisation, the importance of storytelling with data (a story that never gets old!), econometrics and marketing, and of course, the keynotes. (C’mon, a BASE jumper is speaking. Admittedly, one of my favourite thing about the Adobe Summit keynotes is the seemingly random keynote speakers, who always end up teaching me something important about digital marketing.)

I’m also really excited to head back to Summit as a “Summit Insider” again this year, together with Tim “Gilligan” Wilson.

So what exactly is a Summit Insider? Well, we’re there to fill you in on the goings-on at Summit! Tim and I will be live tweeting from the keynotes and sessions we attend, blogging about the event, and generally making sure that anyone who wants to follow Summit can do so, even if they’re not able to attend.

But there’s more – we want to hear from you! While Tim and I will be sharing our perspective, please come find us – we want to hear what you thought of the keynote, what session really got you thinking and what you’re looking forward to learning. We’ll be kickin’ it paparazzi style, so don’t hesitate to tap us on the shoulder – we would love to her from you! Shy? Having a bad hair day? You can still tweet your favourite things about Summit to #AdobeSummit, and we’ll share your thoughts with the world.

You can find Tim and I on Twitter at @tgwilson and @michelejkiss, and follow Summit via the hashtag #AdobeSummit or @AdobeSummit.

Look forward to seeing you all there!

Want to chat to people much cooler than me? The entire Demystified team will be at Summit, so don’t hesitate to reach out to us if you want to talk.

And if you’re a little early arriving in Salt Lake, come check out #UnSummit from 1:00-5:00PM on Tuesday 3/5. UnSummit is a digital analytics peer gathering (think “mini-conference”) with crowd-sourced content. (Aka, attendees are the speakers and we all share knowledge and insights.) I will be speaking about Digital Analytics When Your Website isn’t ‘Top Dog’: How do we, as analysts, truly embrace the larger digital analytics ecosystem to deliver insight in a new world, where brands are increasingly focusing on social, mobile and other channels as their primary efforts, rather than their website. How do we define the right KPIs, rather than resting on “typical” website metrics, and how can we holistically measure campaigns span multiple channels, and even results in offline conversion? (And if that weren’t enough fun, there will be a heavy dose of puppy and kitten photos for all.)