From Web Analytics to Scheduling Meetings?

Digital Analytics Association NYC Symposium 2015

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Last week I attended my first Digital Analytics Association (DAA) Symposium in New York City. The theme of the Symposium was “Beyond Measure” how we’re using our own and others’ data in ever-more imaginative ways to create new products, experiences and possibilities for consumers and businesses. This theme really resonated with me. In our day to day work as digital analysts we are often very heads down. We focus on implementing, reporting and analyzing digital data, but less time thinking about bigger picture uses of data. The keynote by Dennis Mortensen of x.ai a personal assistant that let’s you schedule meetings via email using artificial intelligence was inspiring. This post will tell Dennis’ story about going from founding two digital analytics companies to founding a company that schedules meetings.

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Top 3 Takeaways From The X Change 2014 Conference

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X Change 2014 Phoenician Resort Scottsdale, AZ

 

The X Change digital analytics conference is always a highlight of the year. In its 8th edition, the conference gathered a group of the top enterprise analytics practitioners from companies like Nike, Vanguard, Facebook and Adobe at the Phoenician Resort in Scottsdale, Arizona. What continues to set X Change apart from other conferences is the intimate interactive huddle format. Between 10 and 20 attendees huddle up (football pads optional) on topics like: “Taking all the Credit: The Promise of Marketing Attribution Technology” and “Data Integration: The Good The Bad and The Ugly”. You can see a full list of the huddles here. A huddle leader is assigned to each group discussion, but that person’s role is to facilitate and guide the discussion, rather than speak at the participants. What follows is an honest discussion about what has worked as well as challenges and questions different organizations are facing. I’ve been lucky enough to attend X Change the last 6 years as a member of Semphonic and now the EY team and I want to share my top 3 takeaways from the X Change 2014 conference with a bonus takeaway at the end of the post.

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