May WAW Review

And so another Web Analytics Wednesday passes. This is the second such even that I have assisted with and I think that it was even more successful than the first.

The most obvious change was the new venue - from some deep-underground basement bar, that anybody could wander through we have moved to the rather more up-market Royale room in the RubyBlue bar located off Leicester Square. Plenty of light and even some fresh air from the balcony overlooking the square itself.

The dedicated room made it much easier to mingle, as there was much less of a chance of wandering up to somebody at random and launch into some conversation about long tails before realising that they'd just come in for a drink.

The 'Networking' aspect was also helped by the lovely name badges that we managed to hand-out to just about everyone ... no more guessing that you already know someone and really ought to recognise them by now.

The main session (1800h onwards) was prefaced by an open discussion about the use of Web Analytics tools for SEO tasks (part led by myself and part by m'colleague Matt). This was the first time that either of us had done anything like this and I think we have learned the following lessons :

• Make sure that people are expecting to contribute with an opinion or questions.
• With the above point in mind, pre-announce the full agenda.
• Less, but better (perhaps more inflammatory) points. :-)
• Make sure that everyone can hear (duh!) and that there is a real 'circle' effect in the seating.
• Try and avoid a focus in the circle (although with a projector this can be difficult)
• ... any other ideas?

This time we (the remaining SCL mob decanted ourselves into a nearby restaurant where we mostly had really manky salmon fishcakes. I wish I knew the name of the place so I could suggest that you avoid it.

This time we all made it home without drunkenly disgracing ourselves.

Next event : http://www.sclanalytics.com/resources/events/waw_july2007