Every once in a while I'm chatting with my friend Joseph Carrabis. In just about a year since we've met at eMetrics San-Francisco we've shared thoughts and ideas, learned a lot from each others, even had fun flying kites in the nice S-F weather and had dinner in Quebec city just after a snow storm.
What began as one of our usual chit chat turned out into a great article Joseph wrote on AllBusiness.com: "Troublesome targets: Where Analytics and Audiences Meet".
The storytelling skills of Joseph provide a great example of understanding the role of web analytics as a tool to measure business objectives. But one has to first know and understand who's the audience and what those business objectives are! Than we can put the mechanisms in place to measure, understand those metrics and take action accordingly. What's of interest here is M.Carrabis company, NextStage Evolution, come from the sociological, psychological and behavioral angles while I come from an IT background, applying my expertise to the field of web analytics and online business process optimization.
The result is interesting: two spot lights on the same object of study, making the whole picture a lot clearer.