Nokia Photo Tracker

In keeping step with the mighty Stavros - position art genius - I have added another photo based Flash app to the sidebar of webDowling entitled "Photo Tracker". I came across this at Nokia's Nseries site and since I just happen to work for the company, I have got the hardware to take advantage. Just another very cool addition to the growing Nokia Internet Services arsenal.

If you would like to embed the webDowling "Where in the World?" widget (or create your own) go to http://www.nseries.com/widget and in Step 2 enter "wgdowling" as your username (or create your own account if you have an Nseries GPS device) and embed to your FaceBook/Google/PageFlakes/NetVibes/Blog page, as appropriate.

And if you can't get enough Stavros - check out his YouTube page - Stavros The Great.

Vappu 2008

As part of my induction into Nokia, I had the pleasure of visiting our headquarters in Espoo, Finland. Coincidentally, this coincided with one of the biggest celebrations of the year - Vappu.

In Finland, Walpurgis Night (Vapunaatto, Valborgsmässoafton) is, along with New Year's Eve and Juhannus, the biggest carnival-style festivity that takes place in the streets of Finland's towns and cities. The celebration is typically centered on plentiful use of sparkling wine and other alcoholic beverages. The student traditions are also one of the main characteristics of "Vappu". From the end of the 19th century, "Fin de Siècle", and onwards, this traditional upper class feast has been co-opted by students attending university, already having received their student cap. Many people who have graduated from lukio wear the cap. One tradition is drinking sima, whose alcohol content varies. Fixtures include the capping of the Havis Amanda, a nude female statue in Helsinki, and the biannually alternating publications of ribald matter called Äpy and Julkku. Both are sophomoric; but while Julkku is a standard magazine, Äpy is always a gimmick. Classic forms have included an Äpy printed on toilet paper and a bedsheet. Often the magazine has been stuffed inside standard industrial packages such as sardine-cans and milk cartons. The festivities also include a picnic on May 1st, which is sometimes prepared in a lavish manner. - Source: Wikipedia

Jupiterized

Well I have officially been Jupiterized.

For the last three months I have been traveling pretty much nonstop - loving every minute of it. I have had the pleasure of attending several Web analytics customer conferences (Omniture, Coremetrics, and WebSideStory), spoken at conferences for Bankrate.com, the Seattle DMA, and Internet Retailer, and logged about 30,000 frequent flyer miles in the process. Whew - time flies when you're having fun. I have also been writing for JupiterResearch throughout this process and have published three Concept Reports on topics ranging from Web site spending and governance, RSS, and Corporate Blogging. All of this in the span of ninety days - and I've only just begun.

We are headed into the Summer months now and the family and I have several camping trips along with the customary trip to Florida to visit my parents. This year we are renting a house again in Orlando near the parks and I hope to relish in some much needed rest & relaxation. I will try to stay up with the Weblog posts moving forward as I have become rather lax in posting and find myself going through marathon posting sessions trying to catch up - in order to keep the three people reading this Weblog in the know - you know who you are ;-)

Moving On

January has been a whirlwind of activity around here. It all started at the beginning of the month with an email from Eric Peterson - "Can you call me?".

Eric and I had recently spoken about Scholastic and a web analytics integration project I was working on with IBM SurfAid, so I figured it was just a follow up. To my surprise, Eric let me know that he was leaving JupiterResearch and wondered if I would be interested in taking over for him after his departure. I was floored. Is this really happening? The guy who, for all intents and purposes, has created a global web analytics brand around himself, is offering me his job? Well, two weeks later I was accepting a job offer. My start date is Feb. 27th and I couldn't be more excited.

I gave three weeks notice at Scholastic, a bittersweet proposition at best, and set about preparing my transition plan. I loved working for Scholastic, it was fun telling Cole that I worked for Harry Potter, but the commute was getting to me (5 hours round trip). Commuting for JupiterResearch will be a cakewalk comparatively as they are a ten minute walk from Grand Central (no subway ride... yay!) and I will work from home two days a week. Can you say "perfect"?

Web Analytics Forum - New Orleans

I attended the Web Analytics Forum this week in New Orleans, LA rounding out my web analytics conference season. The event was held at the Hyatt and while the accommodations and venue location were excellent, the event paled in comparison to the eMetrics Summit in Santa Barbara. The conference was not very well attended (most of the attendees were speakers) and several of the key presentations were substituted with vendor pitch presentations. However, I did attend Jim Sterne's opening day workshop, which albeit was an extended version of presentations I have seen him give before, I was able to spend some time with him chatting about web analytics, Santa Barbara, and life in general. Well worth the additional fee. I think I will take a pass on this one next year though and focus my efforts and resources on the Santa Barbara eMetrics Summit that will again be held at the Four Seasons Biltmore.

The city of New Orleans was pretty much as I expected - hot, humid, raucous, and fun. I got some great restaurant tips from a friend who used to live there and took the free shuttle from my hotel down to the French Quarter each day. The highlights were definitely Emeril's NOLA, the Gumbo Shop, and Cafe du Monde. I also got a chance to hit the casino and managed not to lose any money at blackjack - a veritable miracle. The only regret that I have from the trip is not getting to visit with Lestat, Louis, or my friends in the Talamasca.

eMetrics Summit - Santa Barbara

I attended the eMetrics Summit in Santa Barbara this week and was lucky enough to bring my family along for a much needed boondoggle. The Summit itself was fantastic. The location and the amenities offered as well as the sessions themselves were all superb. I will definitely be attending in the future.

The eMetrics Summit was held at the Four Seasons Biltmore and was three days of non-stop analytics. Presentations by MSN, Intuit, and Yahoo! (just to name a few) were fantastic. It is great to be able to see the challenges and successes that others in the industry face when trying to implement Web Analytics strategies.

Laurie and Cole had a wonderful time exploring the area during the day and basking in the luxury of the Biltmore. They went to the Santa Barbara Zoo, the Mission, rode bikes along the waterfront, and we all took in the Botanic Garden and the Big Dog Parade.

Although the eMetrics Summit will not be at the Biltmore next year, I will probably still attend and/or send one of my team members.

My Next Stop

Today I accepted a position with Scholastic. I will be working in their Corporate headquarters in New York City and as such will need to transition into the life of a train commuter. I will be working for e-Scholastic managing their Reporting & Analysis group. A very challenging position for which I am very excited. I start on May 10 and will be seeing a lot of the Spring Street subway station from here on out.

And as always, I work for Scholastic, but nothing on this site is affiliated with, sponsored by, or endorsed by Scholastic.

Search Engine Strategies

I am attending the Search Engine Strategies conference this week and am so far very impressed. Jupiter always puts on a good show and although I was in the beginner track for the first day, it was a good recap of the current SEO/SEM world. I had a chance to catch Jill Whalen of High Rankings and Andy Beal of Keyword Ranking.com discuss Keyword Research and SEO Copywriting and it was very informative.

The conference is the brainchild of Danny Sullivan of Search Engine Watch. I attended his intro session and can see why he has been called the search engine "guru". I am attending his keynote this morning, and if it is anything like his session, I will be registering for full SearchEngineWatch membership very shortly.

Maybe I should start an SEO blog to document my journey through SEO/SEM for Trilegiant ...just a thought.