"Data Driven Discussions" series premiere!

We're lucky to have Avinash Kaushik, web analytics practitioner extraordinaire, on our team here at Google. We're also lucky to have Nick Mihailovski, our developer programs manager who was a member of the Urchin team before the acquisition by Google. And they're lucky to have each other - they are two peas in a pod. If you know one of them, you know what I'm talking about.

It's said that you can sum up a friend in three words. Me = tall, nice, good dancer :-) Sounds a little boring I know. I think Avinash and Nick could be summed up by the following: energy, intelligence and bluntness. I also find both of them inspiring and hilarious. I sit right near these guys and listen to them bicker about, I mean, discuss everything related to using data in online marketing; from best traffic metrics to monitor for certain industries, to new analysis tools or features that Google should roll out, to how to track rich internet applications, to what's going on in the online marketing industry. It may sound like standard geeky analytics stuff, but the intensity and level of expertise of their discussions is great to be exposed to. And in addition, they're easily understandable regular guys who are just passionate about changing the way marketing is done - and their belief in the power of using data is infectious.

So, we decided to bottle these discussions and share them in short YouTube videos. We recorded a series of unrehearsed, unscripted sessions where I posit a question to Nick and Avinash and then get out of the way as they answer and sometimes bicker, I mean, discuss. We didn't have a name for the series when we recorded (the marketing irony is hopefully not lost on you) and later decided to call the videos "Data Driven Discussions". They're hopefully fun, high energy, and informative. And we're going to record more, so we'd love to talk about topics you'd like to hear about. You can submit a question or vote on an already existing one for a future episode of Data Driven Discussions at google.com/analytics/ddd.

As you know, a few months ago Google Analytics released a feature called Advanced Segmentation, a staple of web analytics which was championed internally by Avinash. In this first episode above, Avinash and Nick offer their favorite ways to segment data.

All future episodes will be posted on this blog, as well as on the Google Analytics Youtube Channel.


Posted by Jeff Gillis, Google Analytics Team