EmptyMind » Tao of J

Start Falling On Your Ass

Jason Thompson — Thu, 26 Jan 2012 03:40:29 +0000

When I was 6. My mom dropped me off at the base of Powder Mountain and said “have fun, I’ll see you tonight.” My ski instructor taught me some of the basics and soon enough I was snow plowing down the bunny hill like an old pro. After one exceptionally fantastic run, I made it to the bottom of the hill with a huge smile on my face, expecting to see the same matching smile on my instructor’s face. Instead of a smile, there was a worried look and a lesson. “Jason, if you want to become an amazing skier, you are going to have to start falling down.”

No one. Let me repeat. NO ONE, plays at the top of their game without first making a lot of mistakes and falling on their ass many, many times. If you aren’t falling down, you aren’t pushing yourself hard enough. If you aren’t falling down, you are not stepping outside your comfort zone. If you aren’t falling down, you aren’t progressing.

Start falling on your ass. Don’t beat yourself up for it, celebrate it. If you are surrounded by friends or colleagues who like to belittle you, beat you up, or treat you as a child for your mistakes, then do what you can to remove them from your life. They are the kids who sit at the base of the mountain mocking you for falling down, yet are no where to be seen when you successfully navigate your first double black diamond.

Jason Thompson

Jason is the Sr. Director of Community Solutions at Keystone Solutions. If you are interested in partnering with Jason at Keystone, in need of analytics & optimization consulting, or looking for employment/internship possibilities, please feel free to email ‘jason [at] keystonesolutions [dot] com’

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You Are Making A Difference

Jason Thompson — Sun, 22 Jan 2012 16:58:35 +0000

There seems to be a popular sermon going around that if you aren’t constantly climbing your way up the corporate ladder, then you don’t have any real influence and you aren’t able to effect change. Bullshit! It is often those leaders who don’t hold the official title that are impacting the most change in organizations. If you are hyper focused on making the next leap up in leadership so you can have more money, a fancier title, and more influence, then you are bound to live a life filled with frustration and despair.

Jason Thompson

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Standards Belong to the Community

Jason Thompson — Thu, 13 Oct 2011 17:16:12 +0000

This week Eric Peterson published a blog post titled ‘Finally! Standards Come to Web Analytics.’ I am very appreciative of Eric generating much needed debate about this extremely important topic because if we don’t do something ourselves, the standards will be dictated to us, and I don’t think any of us want.

Eric says that Google Analytics has become the de facto standard for our industry simply because GA is “the world’s most popular and widely deployed web analytics solution.” If we subscribe to this argument, then the title of the post should have been ‘Finally! Standards Come to Web Analytics…..AGAIN!!!!’ as we have been here before, there is nothing new here.

What Google Analytics has done, publishing a Web Analytics Glossary, is no different than what every other vendor has already done in the past. So why isn’t the glossary that Omniture published 5 years ago, when nearly every Fortune 500 company had Omniture deployed, the de facto standard? Why isn’t the glossary that Webtrends published, before Omniture was even born, the de facto standard?

If the answer to that question is that WT or Omniture or Unica or any other vendor never had the market penetration that GA has, then I would argue that market share shouldn’t dictate who defines standards. Under this argument, all web standards should be defined by the Internet Explorer team (as it has historically been the worlds most popular and widely deployed web browser) — I don’t want that, do you?

What makes standards so valuable and meaningful, is that they are universally accepted amongst all users and vendors. If a vendor, such as Google (and to be fair to Google, they are not taking this stance as far as I am aware), attempts to unilaterally create industry standards, the question that Eric asks at the end of his post is the correct question, does the community at large, both end users and vendors, agree with the GA’s standards?

For Google, or any other vendor attempting to go this alone, this becomes a very dangerous proposition in that if the community feels that the vendor is presenting standards that will immediately benefit them, and not necessarily anyone else, they will quickly lose credibility. That is why historically standards have been created through community collaboration, and yes, it’s damn hard to do but just because it’s hard doesn’t mean it’s the wrong approach.

I love Eric’s post and take it as a challenge to stop being so damn lazy and make the change we so wish to see happen and continue to work collaboratively as a community and not get distracted by every Zach Sawyer that transfers here from rich, expensive, car driving, high school.

Jason Thompson

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Free is NEVER Free, Cheap is NEVER Cheap

Jason Thompson — Sun, 02 Oct 2011 18:52:53 +0000

A discussion on the importance of understanding total cost of ownership.

Jason Thompson

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When you make a promise, keep it!

Jason Thompson — Fri, 09 Sep 2011 22:23:14 +0000

Read The Cowboy Code here.

Jason Thompson

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Life Lessons from my Best Friend

Jason Thompson — Fri, 01 Jul 2011 17:26:29 +0000

I’m a pretty private person. One of my mom’s greatest fears is that I will move to the mountains and become a hermit. But today, I feel like I just need to share this story.

For 6 years, our family struggled with infertility issues, which resulted in at least 4 miscarriages. When I couldn’t have a biological child of my own, I got Keykers. He was my baby. He was my best friend.

He taught me about unconditional love. He taught me to be accepting of everyone, no matter the situation, you never know the personal trials that someone is going through. I haven’t learned this lesson so well yet but Keykers was perfect at it. No matter how bad I felt, no matter how scared I was, he was always by my side and loved me and made me feel safe in some of the darkest years of my life.

On the grand scale of things, the stuff we stress out about and fight about everyday, really doesn’t matter. Living life and making memories with your family is what really matters.

So remember, if only for this day, if someone cuts you off in traffic, is rude to you at the store, or whatever it is, please just give them the benefit of the doubt. They may be dealing with a very heavy heart. They may have just had to let their best friend go.

I love you Keykers. Everything is ok now.

Jason Thompson

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#Measure Plaque for charity: water Project

Jason Thompson — Wed, 01 Jun 2011 20:16:21 +0000

As many of you remember, back in December the #Measure community rallied together to raise an astonishing $5,260 to provide clean drinking water for a very needy community.

Because we raised over $5,000 we are allowed to provide a short message to be written on a plaque that will designate who sponsored the project. The message on the plaque can only be 50 characters, including spaces. Messages are due by June 15, so I’m coming to you, the community who helped fund this wonderful project, for ideas on what our plaque should read.

In about 18 months, photos of the project will be posted along with the village name and information, and GPS coordinates to the well.

This is very exciting and I’m so grateful to be part of such an amazing community.

If you have ideas for our plaque, please leave them in the comments.

Jason Thompson

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Failure is an opportunity

Jason Thompson — Thu, 12 May 2011 15:38:43 +0000

Failure is an opportunity.
If you blame someone else,
there is no end to the blame.

Therefore the Master
fulfills her own obligations
and corrects her own mistakes.
She does what she needs to do
and demands nothing of others.

~Tao Te Ching

Jason Thompson

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Don’t Track Me, Dude!

Jason Thompson — Sun, 24 Apr 2011 16:38:09 +0000

All of us have opted-in to being tracked for an eternity. This opt-in decision was made for us the moment our parent’s decided to have sex or perhaps even earlier at the time of the Big Bang. Before you completely write this idea off as far fetched, give me a moment to try to explain.

First, I think it is important to understand what we mean we we use the word ‘track.’ I believe when most people say “do not track me,” they are really saying “don’t analyze me.”

Merriam-Webster defines ‘track’ as: detectable evidence (as the wake of a ship, a line of footprints, or a wheel rut) that something has passed.

Regardless of how hard we try, every action we take leaves a track.

When we talk about ‘tracking,’ we are really talking about putting tools in place to amplify this detectable evidence to make the job of the analyst easier. However, a skilled analyst, detective, archeologist, etc. will be able to analyze this evidence regardless of the technology that is in place.

Governments are wasting billions of tax payer dollars to legislate against the laws of physics. Corporations are wasting billions of man hours attempting to do the same. They are giving consumers a false sense of security that if legislation is in place or if browsers have a “do not track” option then no detectable evidence will be left behind. That is not only a silly conclusion but it also violates the basic laws of physics. To every action there is always an equal and opposite reaction. Every action we take, we leave behind detectable evidence, we can’t fight that fact.

Legislation and new technology can serve to counter act the forces of nature for a given period of time but on a long enough time line, nature will always win. If you disagree with the law of gravity, you can build planes that can fly through the air for longer and longer periods of time but eventually every thing that goes up, must come down.

The technology that analysts use, simply will adapt to the current landscape. Today it is cookies and page tags, yesterday it was web logs, tomorrow it will be something else but let me reiterate, even if these tools of the trade are not in place, the evidence that something has passed is there just waiting to be discovered and analyzed.

So what does this all mean? To me, it means that as someone trusted with this evidence, I must be held to a higher standard. The same is said for anyone in a position to view information that the rest of the world is not privy to. We expect our doctors to hold our patient records in strict confidentiality. When we make a phone call, we expect our cell phone carrier to not abuse the information contained within our conversations. As web analysts, we have been placed in a similar position of trust.

Passing legislation and inventing new technologies to ensure no traceable evidence is left behind is as pointless as spending billions of dollars trying to stop the sun from rising in the East. Rather than fight the unchangeable laws of physics, why not put that time and energy into making sure that those who have been trusted with sensitive evidence treat it with the respect it deserves?

Legislation is pointless. Technology will only produce a false sense of security. Aligning with a Code of Ethics is the only path.

Jason Thompson

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Social Media Isn’t a Marketing Channel, Don’t Measure It Like One

Jason Thompson — Tue, 19 Apr 2011 19:10:21 +0000

Just because you “can’t allocate revenue” to each Social Media interaction, doesn’t mean you shouldn’t be there. Social Media is just another location where your customers may or may not be. If they are there, then you should be there.

Jason Thompson

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