Hi Joseph,
Howdy

The fact that you have brought your analytics in-house leads me to believe that you could actually empathize with the desire to understand the inner workings of NextStage Analytics to some degree.
Well…your suggestion isn’t why we brought our web analytics in house. One of our earliest clients (2001 or so) said that having to use our tools and her existing WA tools was confusing. Having everything on one dashboard was much better for her. I asked her what information her other tools were providing, she told me, and about half a day later we had our own WA tools based on what she said she needed. Back in 2001 the WA analytics world was quite different and I decided that we could develop the necessary tools far faster than wade through all the products out there.
Today when I write or say “I don’t understand WA” I’m stating that I don’t understand how it is used by companies and individuals. How the actual numbers are generated is something I’m comfortably aware of.

On the other hand, your demonstrated understanding of human behavior and Rene’s very articulate blog comments, posts, and tweets lead me to believe you guys know all this already.
I rarely claim to know anything. Keeps me honest. Plus with all the research I do it’s fairly easy for me to be confident that I truly know nothing.

Yet I can’t resist speculating on some of the main barriers that I think analytics people face with NextStage Analytics. Maybe it will help with discussion? If nothing else it gets it out of my brain ;)

1.) From my standpoint, there is a significant leap of faith required *not* in the sciences behind analyzing the data (like Christopher appeared focused on by mentioning SPSS) but in accepting that adequate indicator data can be gathered from a web interaction in the first place. I strongly feel that the analogies I have heard so far on this are completely in-apt. When it comes down to it, the mystery of the cell phone has more to do with transmitting your voice across the globe, without wires. You’re right, it doesn’t matter “how”. But the voice transmission concept had predecessors. Telephone, radio. Before that, telegraph. These were doubted too, and proof was demanded. Telegraphs were verified by post for way longer than seemed practical (in my opinion, 20/20 hindsight and all). Even tag-based analytics has a forefather in logs-based analytics, and there used to be auditing firms tasked with proving the numbers. NextStage has no such data acquisition predecessors I am aware of, although I can recognize the case studies as proofs.
Ah…well…My apologies. Your thoughts about predecessors is something I cover in <PLUG>Reading Virtual Minds Volume I: Science and History</PLUG>. The concept of recognizing and individual based on nothing more than their interaction with a machine goes back to the days of the telegraph (glad you mentioned it). It actually has a relatively long and somewhat rich history, and was so well recognized that details of this “recognizing someone based on their interaction with a machine interface” showed up in pulp fiction of the day. I’ve also demonstrated that how ET gathers information can be likened to specialized polygraph systems (something else that has a history).
And I appreciate the question, it’s a good and reasonable one.

2.) I love the horse analogy, and I totally get it, and it jives with my prevailing attitude about the user data available on the web. I can get how I am so disconnected from a web visitor that we two-way communication can only happen a very specific (limited) shared language or aides. It seems to me that (despite all our best attempts) our websites are generally still just broadcasting. (Like adding in female bias – still broadcasting, just tweaking the message) Right now, we are broadcasting and receiving only clues back. The NextStage Analytics promise feels like you are going to be able to fill in all the blanks. Which feels “too good to be true.”
Sometime we can discuss how and when the division of the sciences (”hard” and “soft”) occurred. The sciences involved in ET have been around for a longish time, they simply haven’t been mainstream and in the forefront since about 1875 or so. One advantage NextStage is currently having is that we’re now in the “Decade of the Brain” (according to several scientific journals) so these sciences are coming to the fore.

I bet that barrier really makes you want to pull your hair out the most! But most adults I know have been trained extensively to be distrustful of things that give that feeling.
A relatively modern paradigm, that (about 400 years old or so, although the roots go back about 2,000).

No one is going to give you a free laptop if you click on that ad; the cousin of some king of Nigeria is not going to make you rich.

3.) People want to believe they are a closed book. When you say, “in a sense NextStage tools eavesdrop on that conversation people don’t realize they’re having with themselves.” Whoa! Creepy! Exciting!
My deepest apologies that <PLUG>Reading Virtual Minds Volume I: Science and History</PLUG> is backordered because it does respond to much of what you write. Until I manage to get a copy into your hands, take a read of Chris Berry’s NeuroCognitivePsychoLingualAnthropology blog post as it does a better job than I at explaining what I’m explaining…

Of course, my personal hangup is simply a matter of context. I don’t think most of your fans have this problem because they have sites, or brands, or whatevers. For me it’s all theoretical instead of applied. I can dream up all sorts of pictures I want to hang, or decks I want to make, or improvements to my imaginary website. So, in the end I am excited to believe. I am totally Fox Mulder on this one! I am fine with “NextStage technology just works” and waiting to see!

That’s that. A few little things:

1.) I think it’s mighty peculiar that those people could not articulate in detail why they prefer Flash #1 over #2 (again, I *believe* you, but I can easily list a bunch of things I don’t like about Flash #2. If not for scientific curiosity/dedication I wouldn’t have even watched the whole thing.)
Thank you. Your response is most gratifying.

2.) Gushing compliment: the math teaching story gave me goosebumps. Seriously. For far too many reasons that I don’t want to bore anyone with. Inspirational whether you intended it or not.
Thank you. I didn’t intend it as such, only as an example of how changing how people think can change what they can do.

3.) “I’m told that analytic types find my writing frustrating because I don’t quickly get to the point, the ‘A=B’ness of it isn’t obvious to them.” As a convert, I can say for me this goes back to context. Prior to not-sure-exactly-when I didn’t have adequate context to really absorb/own/digest/parse much of what you posted about. And without context, I had no patience for the scenic route (even though I am generally a scenic route person myself – Twitter has taught me a lot about the direct route). I’ve followed BizMediaScience for forever, but I’ve only been an avid reader for a short while. Something just clicked. I will have to ponder what it was.
Wait a second! You were the one reading BizMediaScience??? (seriously, thanks)