Managing Analytics

My name: Ed Wu
My job title: Senior Analyst, Global Consumer Online
Company: Dell Inc.
Country: USA
Sector of activity: Practitioner
Complete profile: http://www.linkedin.com/in/edwu06

General background/bio

I am currently the senior analyst for Dell’s Global Consumer Online business. I am responsible for driving strategic analytics initiatives, recommending actionable ideas to fuel the optimization engine, evangelizing, championing web analytics and sharing best practice across our global business units. My prior experience includes marketing strategy, business intelligence, competitive pricing and sales management.

I attended eMetrics Summit and am well connected with many web analytics practitioners. I am passionate about web analytics and see that as the career of choice for the rest of my life. I am also the author of the Super Web Analyst blog.

I graduated from Michigan Business School in 2004, with focus on marketing and general management. Outside work, I am active in the faith community and enjoy reading, writing or just spending time with my family.

Major contributions I will bring to Web Analytics Association and its membership

I believe the most important role for a Director to play is to help set the vision for WAA and develop strategic priorities based on that vision. To accomplish that, the Director needs to understand not only where the web analytics industry is going in terms of technical innovation, but also what’re the unmet needs from business/marketing perspectives.

As a core member in Dell’s web analytics community, I am at a unique position to see how Dell, as the # 1 e-commerce company implement cutting edge technology and use state of the art web analytics applications to drive online innovation and better serve its customers. What’s more impressive is we started with US first but expanded the program to our global business units fairly quick. Like the cliché goes, this is a journey and we are still at the beginning of the journey. I am excited about being part of the journey as I have the opportunity to really bring technology, vendor, consultant, people and process all together, with the ultimate goal to build the competitive advantage for Dell. Of course I am also experiencing the pains of politics, bureaucracy, organization silos, HIPPOs…you name it.

I believe my experience at Dell will enable me to give the board a balanced view so that we, as a team, can set right vision and strategic priorities for the association.

You should vote for me because…

If you a practitioner like me, you should vote for me because the BOD is typically being dominated by consultants and vendor representatives. They are great leaders in their companies and industries and I look forward to working with them on the board. However I think I can best represent your needs because I have the same needs as yours. It’s just that simple. If you are a vendor or consultant, I think you should still vote for me because I am your customer and don’t you like talk to your customer more often?

I have a passion about web analytics. I dedicate myself and focus my energy for the things I really love and web analytics is one of them. As a college student, I led a team with 13 students on a mountain climbing mission and we conquered the mountain with 24,700ft. To prepare for the trip, my team had to practice a whole year, in their spare time and we had to raise $10,000 fund by selling instant noodles, one pack at a time. During my four years at college, I attended and led three such missions and almost lost my life in one of them.

Of course that’s more than 10 years ago and I am not climbing anymore because my wife won’t allow me. Yet I am still a mountaineer fundamentally. I am curious, courageous and I like challenges. I have been doing different jobs but none of them like my current job really satisfying my curiosity and challenging me intellectually. So here I am. Like you, I have learned so much from this community and now I am ready to give back, with passion and dedication. I am willing to spend 10-12 hours a month, or whatever it takes to help bring WAA to the next level.

Where will the Web Analytics Association should be in the next two years?

I would like to see WAA to become the ultimate resource for the members to learn and grow in the next two years. WAA forum is a great place, probably more for beginners to ask “how to” questions. eMetrics forum is great but it is expensive (though well worthy) and only few times a year. What it is lacking is a continuous learning experience for practitioners like us. We have mastered the basis and we want to reach to the next level. We want to see more case studies and learn how we can implement similar solutions for our company. Webinar/podcast is a great medium but there is too much sales pitch. We need a better learning and sharing platform and I think WAA, as the only unbiased and credible professional association, can take up this challenge and fulfill the hungry needs.

In my process to apply for the business school six years ago, I co-founded a Chinese Professional Association where members can share their learning and network with each other, in their journey to apply for the business schools. Today Chinese Professional Network has become the destination for MBA applicants as well as MBA schools in China.

I believe WAA should start to establish a process and a platform where members from different industries and companies can share their best practices in a confidential and non-competitive environment. I know we have this need and I believe many other companies have the similar needs as well. If elected, I will work with other Board of Directors and committee members to define strategy, allocate resource and make this happen as quickly as possible.

What is the biggest challenge facing the digital marketing industry?

I can just speak from my personal perspective–I am not “guru” enough to predict anything in the future. I also learn from my experience that we should just focus on things we can control and let God do his works.

The first challenge I see is the emergence of multi-channel marketing and how web analytics can grow itself to become a true all-in-one solution for companies to analyze its marketing efforts, regardless where they are. I have seen some interesting articles but don’t believe we have cracked the code yet.

The second challenge is the risk of abusing “optimization”. The stories I have seen is we tend to optimize a certain page or even just some elements of the page and rush to declare success when we see a 5% jump in conversion. What we forget is the website is an eco-system and all elements of the site are all parts of the same body. Optimizing one part doesn’t mean the whole body is necessarily better off. We should be extraordinarily cautious when we design, test and implement any big changes and very thoughtful in calculating the impact on the overall business, not just the individual parts.

I think WAA can do many things to help its members overcome both challenges. Only the sky is our limit as we have so many passionate people like you and me. I realized this when I was in the WAW in DC last October.

If you are a member of the WAA, I hope you’ll support my nomination. 2009 is surely a tough year for all of us, and I hope you are holding strong, with a little help from WAA.

Sincerely yours,
Ed Wu