Events

Wrap up: Digital Strategy Conference Vancouver 2014

by Kelly Kubrick on May 2, 2014

From April 29 – May 1, 2014, I had the pleasure of watching our second Digital Strategy Conference Vancouver unfold. We returned to UBC Robson Square and expanded the content to offer two tracks per day for all three days; nearly twice as many sessions as 2013. As co-founder of the event, I was pleased to moderate two tracks as well as present the latest on digital maturity.

On the presentation side, Andrea Hadley and I presented the Six Dimensions of Digital Maturity and provided initial findings from our dStrategy Digital Maturity Benchmark Survey 2014. I also facilitated three “Mapping Your Digital Maturity” sessions, each one intended to help our attendees better understand the benefits and mechanics of mapping their organization’s digital maturity.

Digital Strategy Conference Vancouver 2014 Key Stats:

Expanded agenda with two tracks per day
50+ speakers across industry and sector
24 blog posts that captured our collective learning
1400 Tweets contributed from nearly 230 contributors

In anticipation of testing an experimental session format – a Google Hangout with a virtual panel of speakers scattered across North America, we published a series of “Future of Work” blog posts in advance of the panel, to introduce everyone to those speakers.

As a digital analyst, I thoroughly enjoyed the task of moderating our Data Strategy and Analytics track, especially as it brought together analytics friends and colleagues old and new:

David Jenkins, VP Data Intelligence, Traction
Bryan Robertson, Senior Analyst, OpenRoad Communications
Brent Dykes, Evangelist for Customer Analytics, Adobe and Author, Web Analytics Action Hero
A panel that tackle how to Drive Competitive Advantage with Analytics and Data

On a personal note, my favourite sessions included Tim Goudie for the intriguing way he deconstructed Coca-Cola’s sustainability efforts via our digital maturity model; Ann Handley of MarketingProfs, simply because I’ve been a fan for years (I have her and C.C. Chapman’s book Content Rules on the bookshelf behind me) and Eric Hellweg for his thoughtful presentation on the impact of digital on the Harvard Business Review‘s processes and organizations.

Mark your calendars for Digital Strategy Conference Ottawa 2014

It was another great gathering and I’m already excited for next year. However, before then, we’ll gather Canada’s digital strategy community here in Ottawa, from September 30 – October 1, 2014 at Carleton University. Be sure to mark your calendars and join us for Digital Strategy Conference Ottawa 2014!

Dear Diary, I had a Content Marketing Makeover Today

by Kelly Kubrick on April 30, 2014

First published Digital Strategy Conference blog, authored by Tara Dong: Lover of learning, coffee and all things digital. Social media junkie, digital strategy consultant, SFU instructor and raiser of super heroes with puppy breath. Want to know more about me? Visit spryberry.co

When I read through a conference line-up and see a name such as Ann Handley, that same little part of my brain lights up like it does when I find out my favourite shoe store is having a sale. The cynic in me then says: the deals won’t be THAT good, they won’t have my size left, I’m sure she just has a great content strategy and PR team. Well folks, the woman ahead of me in line just handed me the last pair of boots I was lusting after. In my size. At 95% off.

Ann dove into Dear Diary: A Content Marketing Makeover with an terrifyingly accurate representation of my day. She claims that this is a fictional marketer character, and I appreciated her use of a highly attractive model standing looking wistful and lost in a field…rather than one of me (covered in mud and pulling out my hair).

Dear Diary: Today I created a blog post and I tweeted four times. No one commented or retweeted me. I felt alone, especially when I went to my company Facebook page, and saw that my PTAT score is -42. How is that even possible? Only our Google+ is hopping. (Ha! Just kidding)

We emulate publishers, but the question is:

Are publishers the ones to emulate?

We can borrow much from what we know about publishing and modify it, but it’s not enough to be a publisher anymore. We need to give it a makeover:

Focus on empathy and experiences instead of articles and blog posts
Focus on relevance and inspiration
Focus on useful

Useful x Empathy x Inspired = Great Content

The multiplication sign here is key, because if any of the three elements is zero, the result is ZERO.

I know, it’s easy for Ann to say this, but how do I know if I’m inspired (My mother thinks I’m brilliant – does that count?)? Fortunately she provided us with an easy to follow list of questions to ask to ensure that you’re useful, empathetic and inspired.

Ask yourself:

Who do you want to reach?
What value do you want to give?
What do you want them to do next?
“Will my customers thank me for this content?”

If so, then you know you are doing it right.

And so began a wonderful wander through examples from what best-in-class marketers are doing to create content.

Pillar Properties, an apartment rental firm in Seattle, is getting it right. Check out their development, The Lyric. They are providing real content that is useful, empathetic and inspired. They are using a lot of “you and yours” and not “us and them”. They are sharing about the community, and in it they are building community.

Don Murray, Author of Lessons from America’s Greatest Writing Teacher puts it this way, “Does what you’re delivering to your reader make them say: ‘Now listen to this, Ira!’?”

Wistia, a video marketing platform demonstrates both through their initial series, “Top Hat Tuesdays” and its deconstruction demonstrate a profound level of mastering Ann’s formula.

Levenfeld Pearlstein, a law firm, asked their employees revealing questions like “what did you want to be when you were a little girl” “If you could time travel where would you go?” telling the inner story of their people.

How do you do this?

Tell stories about people
Use fun language (“Don’t want to sign up for our email list? It’s ok, but you’re breaking our hearts”)
make a commitment to think about things differently

What about SEO, does it matter?

Relieved to hear that the best SEO strategy is to "write content for humans". @annhandley #dstrategy

— Annie Mullins (@anncouver) April 30, 2014

Bottom Line:

The best marketing doesn’t feel like marketing,

it feels like content.

Be sure to ask for an Indigo or Chapters card for your birthday because Ann is releasing a new book in August: Everybody Writes: Your essential guide to publishing content you’ll be ridiculous proud of.

About the author: Tara Dong
Lover of learning, coffee and all things digital. Social media junkie, digital strategy consultant, SFU instructor and raiser of super heroes with puppy breath. Want to know more about me? Visit spryberry.co
~ Tara Dong ~

Credit: Penguins sculpture, by Nao Matsumoto

Proving Value in Communications Efforts

by Kelly Kubrick on November 8, 2013

As your website visitor numbers increase, how do you know you’ve found the right ones?

One of the biggest challenges in communications relates to understanding which of your efforts brought the right visitors to your website. Was it the news release? The emails you sent? Your social media activities?

In the pressure to launch a new program, the best intentions to measure impact often get lost in the hundreds of details driving the project forward. However, with a bit of advance planning, digital analytics can be a powerful tool can let you define, segment and report on your individual communications efforts after the fact.

Many thanks to Systemscope for hosting me on November 28, 2013 to talk to Ottawa’s public sector communications community about how to prove the value of their efforts. And yes – there will be penguins and cows…

Campaign tagging helps isolate pre-determined sources of visitors

It’s done through “campaign tagging“. Campaign tagging is a process that allows us to isolate sources of digital visitors that we’ve defined in advance, so that our web analytics tools – like Webtrends or Google Analytics – recognize them, and attribute them to the ‘correct’ (as we’ve defined it) source.

When you create content that drives visitors to your website, you typically provide a link such as http://www.yourorg.ca. In the digital analytics world, we consider that an “untagged” link. If you were to extend that link with a bit more information – called a campaign parameter – you would have yourself a tagged link.

Once you begin tagging your communications collateral, you’ll be able to show exactly how much traffic you drove, what kind of traffic you drove, and how those visitors engaged with your content. To learn more, see my blog post How to track digital campaigns using Google Analytics utm codes.

Looking forward to catching up with old friends and new – see you on November 28, 2013!

Web Analytics Fundamentals Online Training

by Kelly Kubrick on September 20, 2013

I’m looking forward to delivering next month’s session on the Fundamentals of Web Analytics for attendees of Instant eTraining‘s online certificate in Web Analytics.

The session will cover a user friendly definition of Web Analytics vs. the “official” definition Web Analytics:

“The measurement, collection, analysis and reporting of Internet data for the purposes of understanding and optimizing Web usage.” As always, thanks to the crew at the Digital Analytics Association for helping our industry articulate the concept.

I’ll go through the benefits of Web Analytics and make sure that everyone grasps the key takeaway of “Objectives Before Data”.

I’ll talk about how web analytics allows us to measure awareness and usage of digital properties, and how you can use web analytics to keep your digital efforts accountable.

We’ll cover what you need to get started: an understanding of data collection methods, some details about the how / why of website tagging and just enough about filters to help you understand some basic mechanics.

Given how critical it is to web analytics, I promise a simple and clear definition around website visitors versus visits. Using burritos. Seriously. We’ll also talk about website traffic sources.

Finally, I’ll talk about some of the unavoidable challenges of digital analytics – why even though it offers so much great data…it can still be difficult to find value in that volume.

Looking forward to meeting you there!

Digital Strategy Conference Ottawa 2013 Wrap Up

by Kelly Kubrick on June 6, 2013

We did it! Ottawa came together to get strategic with digital – and what an adventure: Digital Strategy Conference Ottawa 2013 has finished. Thank you, thank you, thank you – to our attendees, to our speakers, to our sponsors and to our team – you ALL rock.

Following the success of Digital Strategy Conference Vancouver 2013, Ottawa dove deep into the fundamentals of digital strategy. Over 20 speakers delivered a packed agenda of content, tackling key areas of learning including digital maturity, content strategy, mobile strategy social business strategy. We heard some amazing keynotes and case studies – from arts to tourism to pizza – from a wide range industries, and across sector.

The room buzzed with great conversations and the #dstrategy Twitter hashtag was on fire!

As in Vancouver, I was particularly pleased about the audience’s response to both our definition of digital strategy and to the dStrategy Media Digital Maturity Model. The model is a business planning tool that my business partner, Andrea Hadley and I developed to help organizations identify necessary resources / investments to implement digital strategy.

To learn more about the model, please feel free to listen to “Understand Your Organization’s Digital Maturity” podcast from IABC Ottawa’s The Voice – many thanks to Danny Starr for a great conversation about digital strategy!

I’d also like to thank Chamika Ailapperuma and Arianne Mulaire, who put in yeoman’s effort to capture the sessions via the Ottawa 2013 blog posts and Twitter.

What a great experience – I can’t wait for next year!

Updated – thanks to Les Faber of WebFuel and David Bird of Bird’s Eye Marketing for their blog posts on the conference – enjoy!

WebFuel: Digital Strategy Conference Ottawa 2013 Recap
Bird’s Eye Marketing: Ottawa Digital Strategy Conference Review of Day 1 and 2

See you next year!

It’s a wrap: Digital Strategy Conference Vancouver 2013

by Kelly Kubrick on April 30, 2013

What an excellent three days!

I’m back from Digital Strategy Conference Vancouver 2013, where we dove deep into the fundamentals of digital strategy. Over 20 speakers / 20 sessions, great conversations in-person and via Twitter (search for the hashtag #dstrategy).

My brain is full.

In particular, I’m very pleased about the audience’s response to the dStrategy Media Digital Maturity Model, a framework that my business partner, Andrea Hadley, and I developed. It’s intended as a business planning tool, to help organizations better understand all the moving parts needed to develop their digital strategy.

Thanks to the furiously-fast writing of Joanne Probyn, we were able to capture an overview of the sessions via the Vancouver 2013 blog posts.

Finally, huge thanks Big thanks to Juliana Loh and Trevor Jansen for their expert photography and visual media services. Take a moment to enjoy the show for yourself via the Vancouver photo gallery.

And the countdown is now on… we’re only a few shorts weeks out from Digital Strategy Conference Ottawa 2013 – hope to see you at the University of Ottawa from June 3 – 5, 2013!

Announcing Digital Strategy Conference Ottawa 2013

by Kelly Kubrick on January 29, 2013

And it’s official – Digital Strategy Conference Ottawa 2013 dates and location have been confirmed!

Join us on June 3-5, 2013 at the University of Ottawa to get an in-depth education into the key elements of building your organization’s digital strategy.

As with the Vancouver conference, prepare to be immersed into the world of digital strategy development. In addition to sessions in Defining Digital Strategy and Establishing Digital Maturity, you will be taught by industry experts in five different educational modules – think of them as your five key areas of learning:

Organizational and Operational Readiness;
Digging into Content Strategy;
Mobile to Multiscreen;
Social Strategy: Earned Media for Community Development; and
Making Sense of Advertising / Paid Media.

For answers to any questions you might have about the conference format and logistics please read the Ottawa conference Frequently Asked Questions.

For those of you with a great digital strategy story to tell, you might consider submitting a case study proposal – but hurry – the Digital Strategy Conference Ottawa Call for Speakers ends March 15th, 2013.

Most importantly – you should register soon as double early bird pricing ends Friday March 8th, 2013. See you in Ottawa in June!

Updated: Still hesitating? Have a quick look at this video from our inaugural Vancouver event!

An afternoon immersion in digital analytics

by Kelly Kubrick on January 28, 2013

Key Takeaways from eMetrics Tour Ottawa 2013

Our thanks to the 100+ hardy souls who turned up for an afternoon of digital measurement resolutions on the first day of Ottawa’s killer cold snap this month. It was a great turnout; we had folks from all sectors and across all industries having lots of great conversations. My thanks to Jim Sterne and my fellow sponsors for sharing their insight and information. In the hope that it might keep your own digital analytics discussions flowing back at your offices, here are my top takeaways:

Analytics definitions from Stephane Hamel of Cardinal Path

“How an organization arrives at an optimal and realistic decision informed by data”
“Analytics is context plus data plus creativity”
“Analysis is the process of breaking a complex topic into small parts to gain an understanding of it

I agree with Stephane’s statements – that the digital analytics industry’s number one problem today is the lack of rigorous process. In my own experience, the only way to keep ahead of all tool and technology changes is to have a framework that articulates what to measure, based on your ‘why’ measure objectives, regardless of vendor. Stephane uploaded his presentation “10 years of hard learned analytics wisdom in 20 minutes” on SlideShare.

(Yours Truly) Kelly Kubrick from Online Authority

Hobbit-Bilbo-Baggins-in-Doorway I was pleased that folks seem to hear, based on tweets, some of my key messages:

To an analyst, reporting is practising scales is to a musician; it gets / keeps you limber so that you are more able to achieve more creativity in your analysis
For non-techies, know that deconstructing prose and poetry in literature gives you an edge when deconstructing blocks of data. You already know how to assess the “whole” based on your ability to isolate the parts
Annotate, annotate, annotate: they give you a contextual lens to better understand your data as it changes
Ideally, digital analysts have a belief in Second Breakfast in common with Hobbits (vs hairy feet).

Feel free to peruse my my list of recommended resources for digital analysts, or to download my full presentation Changing Habits: An Unexpected Analytics Journey” (PDF). Let me know if you have any questions about either.

Jim Cain of Napkyn

Jim tackled the question of data and design best practices for Executive Dashboards. His words of advice:

“Use dashboards to replace intuition with information”
“Create alignment ~ draw the line between the numbers to sales/leads etc for executives by anticipating the question: “I showed you this because…”
“Good data + great analysis = appreciative execs (+ better decisions)”
“Your dashboard should inform ‘data focus’ choices – don’t include ALL the numbers; pick the ones that tell the story
“The best way to look at the numbers is to compare current to historical and predictive (the plan)”

And my personal favourite: “Think of Excel as a design tool, not just a data tool. Start thinking of your reports as non-fiction stories”. As someone known for singing the praises of pivot tables, the analogy brought a smile to my face.

If you didn’t get the chance to see it prior to our gathering, here’s Napkyn’s earlier post on the event: eMetrics Ottawa – Awesome, Important, Free! (and Napkyn is in the house).

Jim Sterne of eMetrics and the Digital Analytics Association

“Big data” is that which no longer fits in an Excel spreadsheet – love that! Update: per Jim’s comment below, this should actually be credited to Stephane Hamel – and with that, thanks Stephane for coining it and Jim for introducing me to it!
Snippet answers from Jim’s question: What Makes a Great Analyst? One who “understands the raw material and the mechanics of extraction”, “the problem to be solved” and who is “mindful of built-in biases that prevent one from looking at one’s data honestly”
The low hanging fruit of analysis includes “errors, omissions, complaints, spikes and troughs, ‘that’s funny” moments and anomalies”
“Above all, have an opinion”

Although Jim had much more to say, for a great summary of Jim’s presentation, you can’t beat Practicing the Art of Analytics published by June Li and the crew clickinsight in Toronto.

For those of you who might be interested in attending an upcoming eMetrics Summit, but you’d like to know more about it, take a look at distilled learning from eMetrics Toronto 2012.

And, congratulations to the Canadian eMetrics Summit Tour winners!

Allan Wille of Klipfolio

Allan gave us his forecast on trends that are changing the weather for marketers:

“1) real-time feeds, 2) data democracy, and 3) using the Cloud”
“Real time” of automated self-serve dashboards can make a difference”; break loose from the chains of manually updating Excel spreadsheets!
Data democracy is about: “aligning the entire organization behind the data, getting everyone in the organization looking at the data and realizing that data needs to be shared no matter what”
Communicate goals, measure then communicate again to get everyone on the bus (idea from book From Good to Great by Jim Collins)
“The Cloud has helped to develop the maturity if analytics tools” – amen to that!

Learn more from Klipfolio by taking a look at their pre-event post: Let’s talk metrics! Klipfolio an official sponsor of the eMetrics Tour.

Also, to see how our colleagues at the Montreal stop fared, take a look at eMetrics Tour Montréal – Un résumé des conférences (in French).

And finally – thanks to all of you who tweeted up a storm; it was great to be able to ‘replay’ the event with your documentary effort! In particular, my thanks to @w_grimes, @jorrdanlouis, @nellleo and @LindsayMMcPhee. You captured a great deal of information, and I really appreciated it.

Your Digital Measurement Resolution for 2013

by Kelly Kubrick on January 9, 2013

May I offer you a New Year’s resolution that doesn’t involve depriving yourself? A resolution that actually gives you good things – and at no cost?

Thanks to everyone who came out! Check out Online Authority’s takeaways from an afternoon immersion in analytics.

No need to deprive yourself

Register now to catch Jim Sterne of eMetrics, Digital Analytics Association and authorial fame roll up his sleeves and answer the question “What Makes a Great Analyst?”

If you’ve got digital measurement on the horizon for 2013 – or are deep in it now – you need to be there. Contemplating measurement frameworks? Or how to structure an analytics team? Need ideas for job titles? Or digital analyst job descriptions? Then block off the afternoon…

Jim Sterne

Jim will be in Ottawa for a pre-eMetrics Tour on January 17th, 2013 at Empire Grill in the Byward Market from 1:15pm to 5:00pm. This is your chance to hear Jim help Ottawa’s #measure community contemplate what it takes to be a true artist in the field of digital analytics.

As someone who has had the pleasure of hearing Jim speak multiple times over several years, I can tell you he delivers. Not only does he deliver engaging, intriguing and thought-provoking material, he also believes firmly in the potential of the digital measurement community.

The only requirement? Limited seating: Register ASAP

Speaking of building our community, this event is a great way to do just that in a painless way. Not only do you get to hear Jim’s take on the state of our industry, but you also get to catch:

Stephane Hamel of Cardinal Path and creator of WASP (THANK YOU!!!) and of the Online Analytics Maturity Model (when’s the last time you assessed your organization’s analytics maturity? Never? Get on that, would you?)
Jim Cain of Napkyn Inc. forger of new analytics business models (with one of my favourite lines ever: “Where your web analyst works.”) And who will help you use analytics to pick winners and losers. And we’re not talking Charlie Sheen…
Allan Wille of Klipfolio Inc. who’s going to give us the scoop on trends-analytical and how things are looking up for marketers (and who you should ask about things dashboard-y); and
Myself, Kelly Kubrick: I’ll be talking about applied analytics while making references to Hobbits. Habits! I mean habits!

And in between all this great content, you will meet your fellow Ottawa #measure community. Folks like you from private and public sectors, from across industries and all from Ottawa. Digital analysts, web analysts, search analysts, recovering analysts, future analysts…Come out and meet the crew!

In fact, if you really feel like broadening your Canadian analytical horizons, you can also catch our sister eMetrics Tour in Montreal on January 16th, 2013.

For additional scoop on the tour, check out Let’s talk metrics! Klipfolio an official sponsor of the eMetrics Tour and eMetrics Ottawa – Awesome, Important, Free! (and Napkyn is in the house).

Finally – assuming you are negotiating budget to attend eMetrics Toronto 2013 at this very moment, this is your chance to marshal arguments and perfect your pitch. And, if you are not familiar with the eMetrics Summits, here’s my learning from eMetrics Toronto 2012.

The moment is here…go ahead – you know you want to…register now…Hope you can make it!

Digital Strategy Conference Vancouver 2013 Agenda Live

by Kelly Kubrick on December 21, 2012

A few weeks ago, we announced the launch of the Digital Strategy Conference, which will deliver in-depth content on the essentials of planning, organizing, integrating and implementing digital initiatives.

To help you understand exactly what that will entail, I’m very happy to report that the agenda for Digital Strategy Conference Vancouver 2013 is now live, and its chock-full of fantastic speakers. Take a look at what we’ve got in store:

Agenda Overview: All 3 Days
Day 1 Detail: Tuesday, April 23rd, 2013
Day 2 Detail: Wednesday, April 24th, 2013
Day 3 Detail: Thursday, April, 24th, 2013

Over the course of three days, you’ll be taken on a guided tour through Defining Digital Strategy and Establishing Digital Maturity with a from Grace Carter, Online Experience, eCommerce, Aritzia. After that, we leap into five key areas of learning:

1. Organizational and Operational Readiness – learn from Dan Pontefract, Author – The Flat Army and Sr. Director Learning & Collaboration, TELUS, Michael Tippet, CEO, Co-Founder at Ayoudo and Christopher Berry, Co-Founder, Chief Science Officer, Authintic.

2. Content Strategy will be taught by industry expert Rahel Anne Bailie, Content Strategist and Author of Content Strategy with a case study about the City of Vancouver presented by Gordon Ross, VP and Partner, OpenRoad.

3. Mobile to Multiscreen Strategy – learn from Scott Michaels, Vice President, Atimi Software and guest speakers Pete Smyth, President & CEO at iamota and Shawn Neumann, President & Founder at Domain 7. After that, get the scoop on M-Commerce from Brian Flanagan, Sr. Director, Product and Retail Canada & LATAM, Expedia.

4. Social Strategy: Earned Media and Community Development, taught by Sandy Gerber, Founder, NEXT Marketing with a case study from Nancy Richardson, Vice-President, Digital & Brand Strategy at lululemon athletica.

5. Making Sense of Advertising / Paid Media: The Eco-system and Mixed Media Measurement – learn from Kevin Curtis, Sales Manager, Western Canada, Exponential and more from Christopher Berry.