Dog Walking - Understanding why – e-Metrics 2007
Alex was a great guy (is still a great guy - although we aren’t really in touch anymore), but was always a few sandwiches short of a picnic. Growing up, he lived with his family next to a beautiful park. The family had two dogs; a Doberman, and an Airedale Terrier. Being the only boy in a family of five children, it was his responsibility to walk the dogs every morning, and every day after school. I always found his patterns when walking the dogs very interesting. He would always take one dog at a time. Typically, he would start with the Doberman. He would walk the Doberman down the street, cross over, and walk back up the other side. He would then put the Doberman back in the house. Pick up the Airedale, and take the Airedale into the park. On occasion, he would reverse the order, and take the Airedale first into the park, and then come back and walk the Doberman down the street. The bottom line was that he never took the Doberman into the park, and never walked the Airedale down the street.
I’ve just come back from attending the e-Metrics summit in San Francisco. iPerceptions had a booth at the show, and I had the pleasure of speaking at one of the success tracks. Overall, it was a very successful trip.
The common theme, which kept coming up, whether it was over lunch with Bryan Eisenberg on Sunday, or during the keynote delivered by Jim Sterne, was that web analytics is evolving fast. The most important thing to understand of online behavior….is ‘why’. Without understanding ‘why’ a visitor or customer does or does not accomplish the purpose of their visit, we are only able to make assumptions.
That is why we believe (at iPerceptions) that the Holy Grail of web analytics is customer feedback. By leveraging voice of the customer research and open ended feedback, we are able to understand the context of people’s actions. Without it, we are simply ‘watching’ and cannot deduce with any level of certainty…’why’. If we truly want to get at the answers, we have to be willing to ask the questions.
At my ten year high school reunion – I finally asked Alex the question that had been on my mind forever. As much as I had drummed up possible reasons for the dog walking pattern , and as much as I knew Alex wasn’t the sharpest tool in the shed, I never would have known the real reason ‘why’ he behaved the way he did without coming straight out and asking him.
Turns out, the sign in the park that said “No Dogs Allowed”…was a picture of a Doberman Pincher.
