San Francisco

eMetrics Marketing Summit 2011 – Data Storytelling

This was my first eMetrics Summit, and I must say I was quite impressed all around. I was asked to present and sit on a panel about social media metrics and so I arranged my schedule to specifically attend that Monday session. Fly in late Sunday and back out early Tuesday. I soon discovered that was a mistake as I would miss two more days of great content, speakers and networking opportunities. Lesson learned.

If you are a metrics enthusiast, and who isn’t, this is the place to be. They cover technology, strategy, practice and case studies. Everyone there is focused on one thing; doing metrics better. It’s a never ending topic of debate. How much data is too much? How do you divine insights from the data? What is important vs. noise? How can it be made more actionable? I picked up some nuggets of knowledge and met some very interesting professionals who are solving real world business problems with the data they uncover.

The opening keynote was given by Jim Sterne, Founder of the eMetrics Summit 10 years ago. He reminded us to not be so seduced by the puzzle of the data that we forget to tell the story we find inside that puzzle. He said, “Data=Calculation while Story=Empathy.” Most C level execs and everyday business partners want to hear a story. Granted they prefer non-fiction to fiction, but everyone loves a good story. Tell one. Mr. Sterne kept bringing his message back to how one would use it on the job. Extremely practical. Another presentation I caught in it’s entirety was given by Larry Freed, President and CEO of Foresee Results. He spoke nonstop for 30 minutes about consumers, channels and information. His key takeaways:

Consumers are multi-channel and your metrics need to be multi-channel
Success should be looked at through the eyes of the Consumer
Often metrics are misunderstood, misinterpreted and misleading
Satisfaction drives loyalty, retention and word of mouth, which drive financial success
You cannot manage what you do not measure

I sent emails out to my analytics partners back at the home office during the summit to encourage them to put the next summit on their calendars.

My session was entitled Social Media Metrics Management. Myself, John Lovett of Web Analytics Demystified and Scott Calise of MTV Networks each presented about 10 minutes on varying perspectives of how we approach social media metrics. The moderator Michele Honojosa got the audience engaged with questions. The questions were great and some very tough to answer, making us think hard. As I went back through the Tweets of the session afterwards I found that it was a grateful but tough crowd. Some comments and questions were still rolling in and I was responding to them via Twitter the next day. Whenever I do these things I am always amazed at how we all struggle with the same things, but each one of has solved a different problem better than the rest of us. Some problems never go away while new ones pop-up all the time. The panel compared notes closely, picked-up tips and learned more best practices. My brief talk focused on building stakeholder alignment around social media in the organization.

Despite all those approving words, I still came away empty handed on my quest to find the perfect web analytics tool. That would be a tool that could capture granular data for the geeks, but also had a web site form factor display with the data masquerading as the user. It would be a tool for the analysts, web designers, information architects and business partners looking to solve a problem. It would be fast, near time, have a user-friendly interface and didn’t require world of site tags to enable it. If you come across that, let me know.

In a Taxi? You Just Might Be On Camera

San Francisco is on of my favorite cities. What’s not to like? It’s scenic, progressive, and has so many landmarks; Golden Gate Bridge, Coit Tower, the Embarcadero, Alcatraz. While traveling to the airport from the downtown district by taxi the other day, I noticed something I haven’t seen before. The cab had a small camera positioned above the driver’s inside rear view mirror pointed at the back seat (circled in red below). A passenger notice was posted on the driver’s side rear window that read, “You are on camera.” The service was labeled FairView™. Also on the sign was a reference to Silent Witness®, a maker of video surveillance equipment (acquired by Honeywell in 2003).

My search on the City of San Francisco official web site did not yield any information about FairView™. I’m assuming the system was installed to monitor activities taking place in cabs in an attempt to reduce crime. The driver did mention anything about it, so if I hadn’t seen the sign and camera I wouldn’t have known.

While I personally don’t have an issue with this practice, some will feel this is yet another invasion of personal privacy. Leads to some questions. Are the images being stored? How long are they kept? How secure is the feed and storage? Who has access to the content? Is audio being recorded as well? Who pays for it?

If the system is effective in reducing crime or improving the safety record of cabs, we will probably be seeing a lot more of this?

Photos by Steve A. Furman

Video Self-Portrait From SFMOMA

I had an extra hour this week between sessions while attending a board of advisors meeting in San Francisco, so I walked two blocks to the Museum of Modern Art (SFMOMA). I really love this structure and was here while it was under construction, then came back a couple of times after it opened. The finished product is an appropriate space for a modern art collection. It’s constructed in perfectly even layers of black, gray, white, brown and blue. The modern interpretation of geologic strata found naturally in rocks of the west. Mostly straight lines and crisp angles, with curves sprinkled in to soften the experience and direct your eyes back into the main space of the building. None of the art can be seen without taking sharp turns. It’s the opposite of the Guggenheim in NY, where the art can be viewed from almost anywhere, as if one was surveying the landscape. An oval eye is proped up on top of the structure, evoking a communications dish poised to collect radio waves from the cosmos.

There was a fascinating media art installation on the third floor entitled, Opposing Mirrors and Video Monitors on Time Delay. The artist is Dan Graham, and it was composed of two black and white television monitors, two video cameras and two large mirrors positioned on opposite sides of a wide gallery. As you approach, the camera records you, but holds it for a few seconds before feeding the video to a small TV screen. The result is a bit jarring. You move inquisitively toward the television screen expecting to see yourself but you don’t. Suddenly you appear as you were a few seconds earlier, giving you an opportunity to study yourself in motion. It takes a while to notice what’s going on, but once you get it, the brain lights up.

It’s like that old trick where you are looking into what you believe to be a mirror, but in fact it’s an opening, and someone else is facing you (your identical twin), pretending to be your reflection. That person mimics your body movements and facial expressions exactly, hoping to keep up the illusion. You then try to outsmart the reflection by making sudden, unexpected movements. In the trick it works, but in this installation, it’s always you. I snapped this photo of me inside the monitor with my iPhone.

Eventually you start performing, to see what you look like. You move in for a close up and make faces. Travel from one side of the gallery to the other and do it all over again. The mirrors keep the image moving and changes the point of view, so you can see both your front and back. Kind of a reality show on yourself, but without the personal humiliation or prize money. Everyone that passed by was instantly engaged. This is the power of modern art; the viewer participates and the common perspectives are challenged.

Unfortunately I didn’t have time to see much of anything else, but captured a few more images on the way back to the summit.

Photos by Steve A. Furman