In my presentation, I shared my journey to the Board of Director of Web Analytics Association, what WAA is all about, why all web analysts should join WAA membership, as well as my learnings from the eMetrics Summit 2009 in San Jose. I ended up my speech with five tips and they are:

5. Join WAA, grow the community and grow yourself
4. Attend eMetrics Summit if you can; if not, take advantage of any events like WAW, Webinars etc.
3. Don’t become reporting squirrel; connecting dots and driving actionable insights
2. Focus on three things: revenue, cost or customer experience
1. Think big but start small: little changes can have large impact

The full presentation can be viewed here

Thanks everyone for attending the event and look forward to seeing you again. Be sure to join WAA!

By no means, this is going to be a very special trip. Not only I am going to attend the first WAA Board of Directors meeting followed by eMetrics Summit from Tuesday to Thursday, but also because everything else going on, specifically the whole swine flu thing.

In my backpack, I’ve got my iPod loaded with songs, podcasts and sermons I like, Nikon Coolpix, to take pictures and videos whenever I want, Logtitech Webcam, to talk to my wife and kids with ooVoo, and of course, my Dell laptop, to work at night when all the eMetrics craziness is gone.

But this time, I’ve got something else. My dear wife, fearing of the pandemic spreading of swine flu, bought me two 3M N95 masks, and a gelFast personal hand hygiene unit. Imaging on my belt, there is hand sanitizer on the left, and Nikon Coopix and my Blackberry Pearl Flip on the right. No matter what, I’ve got myself prepared.

I definitely don’t think I am a risk averse type of person. If I was, I wouldn’t choose to risk my life and climb big mountains with a bunch of amateur student mountaineers from college. Quite contrarily, I think I am a type of person enjoy risk taking. But to risk my own life is one thing, to put my family at risk is another. Bible says, “A wise man is cautious…” (Proverb 14:16) Why a wise man needs to be cautious? Because he needs to take care of his family!

I booked my travel and registered eMetrics summit two weeks ago but only made up my mind until Friday when I told my wife, “Honey, I think I will go, but with extra caution”. She gracefully agreed. What complicated the situation was she suddenly got a fever on Friday night and had 101 temperatures. We were about to attend spring outing with the church group on Saturday morning and a house party with my wife’s colleagues in the evening. We canceled both. Although we know the chance is slim, we didn’t want to take it, and we didn’t want others feel uncomfortable either. I almost gave up. No matter how much I love this “web analytics” thing, I can’t leave my wife behind especially when she is sick.

But thank God. My wife feels much better today and she encourages me to go, at least for the Board of Director meeting because she understands that’s very important to me.

Maybe you are laughing at me…maybe you think we are over concerned. The reason I am telling you all these is that I want to say “thank you”, as the newly elected Director of the Board of WAA. I understand how difficult for you to come out and make time for this three days summit. It is challenging to get companies to pay for the registration fee, travel and lodging these days, as each one of them is cutting back on OPEX. It is uneasy to leave families, friends and communities behind. The three days’ summit is not like a vacation, but a brain washing, quite painful if you are not used to it. And when you are back, your managers expect you to deliver immediate 1000% ROI…do the math and calculate how much conversion rate you need improve.

I understand all these, but I am confident as you are and believe that these three days will be different. You and I will learn everything as we can. We will immerse ourselves in the ever-changing technologies, thought provoking presentations and workshops, not mentioning life changing networkings and meetups…

So that’s my little story of eMetrics. How about you? Do you have your story too? Tell us how you overcame challenges and finally made your way to San Jose!

Needless to say, I am very grateful and still couldn’t really believe this is all true. I started the campaign with fairly low expectation as I understand how competitive the election is. But history is made. By You, my fellow web analysts.

I want to thank a lot of folks who stand behind me for this election. The first person is Bryan Eisenberg. He is the one asked me to consider running for the Board of Directors and gave me his full support. Joel Wright, my buddy and colleague at Dell, introduced me to web analytics and told me that I’ll win even before the election is closed (good prophecy, Joel!). Gautam Madiman, my manager at Dell, for encouraging me and endorsing me. Anil Batra from Zerodash1, Jonghee from Victoria Secret…and many others I don’t even know their names. Last but not least, for my wife, willing to share more family loads to support my duty as a Director.

So what’s the next? What I am going to do for the web analytics community as a Board of Director in the next two years? These are questions wondering in my mind. I am fully aware that as the only Director on the Board without a CXO title (sah!), I am bringing some unique perspectives to the Board. But to better serve you, I need your help.

May 3-4, I will be in San Jose, attending the Board of Director meeting. I will also be in the eMetrics Summit for the next three days. I encourage you to get in touch me if you are there. Let’s chat about work, life and the community while we are in the WAA Community Meeting and Speed Networking, or WAA Reception, or Birds of a Feather Lunch, or eMetrics Marketing Optimization Summit Reception, or Web Analytics Wednesday. Talk to me about your ideas, passions or frustrations. If you are not there, feel free to drop me a note via ed at superwebanalyst dot net or follow me on Twitter @ed_wu.

Look forward to seeing you and hearing from you. Remember, we are super web analysts. No tool (no matter how good they are) can do us any good, until we are using it in the right way, with much passion and intelligence. And to do it right, you’re going to need help and guidance from WAA. Hope you have a great week.