Forrester’s IT Forum 2011 was an insightful three day conference of direction setting for the IT professional. With over 90 different sessions across 9 tracks focused on the various roles within IT from the CIO on down, there was something for everyone. Although the sessions had great information to impart, the biggest draw for all the attendees was the ability of everyone to actually schedule one-on-one discussions with the analysts themselves in their fields of expertise. I’ll briefly go over the primary themes of the forum and also the additional wisdom we gleaned from our one-on-one sessions. The three main themes at Forrester this year were: Business Technology (BT), mobile, and the App Internet. All the themes were relevant to emphasizing the continued value of developing a cohesive digital strategy for every enterprise no matter the size.

The first theme of the conference was Business Technology – “Speeding up at the intersection of business and technology”. While the term itself isn’t apparent at first glance, the subheading provided a clue. Forrester defines Business Technology as the future state of IT. This is where the business side of the enterprise increases their role in procuring their own technology solutions instead of using the traditional IT provided ones. Forrester says that as the general business workforce gets more and more tech savvy, they are more likely to bring in solutions they have from the consumer realm into the business realm. So in order for an enterprise to be agile in being able to rollout solutions quickly, this change in roles had to be embraced by IT. IT would continue to provide its expertise around scalability and security in the form of consulting to the business. We can actually see this in our offices with the proliferation of smart phones and tablets that people bring in to do work. This phenomenon is something that we have been encountering with our clients at Roundarch as well where the ease of procuring SaaS (Software as a Service) based services has allowed the business side to roll out technology without IT being the one to bring it in-house.

The next theme was the continuing rise of mobile and the need for having a plan for its growth. Mobile devices (tablets, smart phones) are becoming more ubiquitous and robust in processing power as well as storage. Companies need to have a plan on how to tackle the increase in consumption of their digital content, which traditionally has been made available on their web sites, on these devices. Forrester presented several levels where companies today needed to decide how to distribute their content to these new mobile mediums. Should companies support feature phones? Should companies support mobile web (web browsers on smart phones and tablets)? Should companies put all their resources into native mobile apps to gain access to richer functionality provided by the devices such as geolocation, local storage, or other features such as the built-in camera. The answer to this is never simple of course, and Forrester presented some good concrete recommendations on how companies should approach answering these questions. For our clients, we have enjoyed great success in providing clients with a hybrid approach of implementing liquid framework designs in order to allow all web sites to scale to the various form factors. As with everything, the fit will vary depending on the unique requirements of each client, so a thorough understanding is needed to provide the right solution rather than a one size fits all approach.

The final theme, presented by the Forrester CEO and founder George Colony, was the term of the “App Internet”. This was a forecast of the future where the increase in capability of computing power in devices will lead to a proliferation of different “app stores” for various devices not just phones. Increasingly tech savvy users will prefer the richer capabilities and user experience supported by more native apps on various devices. This, George theorizes, will lead corporate IT to focus more on providing functionality through apps instead of the traditional web. It is the universe of these new app stores that comprises the new reality of the “App Internet”.

It would be interesting to see whether this prediction comes to fruition, but with the splintering of devices even on one base operating system (think Android tablet, Android phones with different form factors, etc), we think the biggest bang for the buck for our clients right now, looking several years out, is to still build out capabilities in being able to do more with less. This can be done by doing the following: designing compelling user interfaces than can scale multiple form factors, architecting a strategy for making content as reusable as possible across different channels,  implementing solutions using content management systems as repositories, and creating a service layer to federate that collateral across myriad service consumers.

In reviewing the events of the forum, we found a great metaphor of the dynamic state of flux that IT faces today. The first day we had to navigate the confusing Venetian-themed streets of the Palazzo Hotel. “The venue was right off of St. Mark’s Square to the left past the Blue Man Group theater overlooking the Grand Canal with its gondoliers ferrying tourist beneath an artificial sky” – these were the initial directions given at the hotel front-desk. Easy! After taking many wrong turns along the way, and asking lots of questions from people we encountered, we finally found the conference venue. It was worth it because the forum did deliver on its promise of providing a map of the major areas that IT needed to focus on, if it is to keep pace with our ever faster rates of change. You first had to get there though, and the journey itself was part of the insight.

If you are a student who has passion for finding out why people do things on-line and would love to analyze online behavior.  Or perhaps you are part of a non-profit with an inefficient website and you wish you could communicate more clearly to those you are trying to help.  Or if you are a seasoned Web Analytics professional that wants to give back to the community and help others.  This is the perfect opportunity in which a little bit of your time and expert advice can pay huge dividends to a non-profit organization and therefore people in need.  We here at Roundarch are now participating in our 4^th project for the Analysis Exchange.   We keep going back for one main reason…it’s a rewarding experience in so many ways.

What is the Analysis Exchange?  Simply a great idea

About a year ago, the folks over at Web Analytics Demystified created a Community called The Analysis Exchange.   The community consists of three participants:

1)      Non-profits and NGO’s (Organizations)

2)      Novice Web Analysts (Students)

3)      Seasoned Web Analytic professionals (Mentors)

The Analysis Exchange offers the opportunity for students/future analysts to perform hands on analysis on real data for real organizations (awesome for your resume, also, if you do a good job, your mentor might just give you a recommendation).  For mentors, it’s an opportunity to build your leadership experience and leverage your unique skills to improve the world (it’s not every day that you can improve the world).  Finally, non-profits and NGO’s can gain valuable insights into their digital efforts without having to commit anything (IT’S FREE!) more than a few hours of your time.

Rewards for everyone

Mentors build leadership skills, students learn, and Charities grow….everyone wins!   So far, Roundarch Analysts have been mentors on three completed projects.  While each project was different, they always had two common attributes…each had excellent students and each had highly gracious and thankful charities.

One added benefit that I personally have enjoyed is getting to know the students and the people at the organizations.   They are folks that have found a noble purpose and are dedicated to pushing their cause forward and helping others.  Even after the projects are over, I found myself staying in touch, attending events and assisting them as they improve their online presence.  Also I admire the students for their dedication (about 30 hours per project) and desire to improve themselves and to help someone at the same time.

The organizations we helped and why it is so rewarding

Dannydid Foundation ( www.dannydid.org ), a wonderful organization founded in 2009 by Mike and Mariann Stanton, is turning the tragic death of their son Danny (of an epileptic seizure while sleeping) into an organization focused on advancing awareness about Sudden Unexplained Death in Epilepsy (SUDEP) and facilitating the improvement and distribution of monitoring devices.

Since 1972, Prevent Child Abuse America ( www.preventchildabuse.org ), has led the way in building awareness, providing education and inspiring hope to everyone involved in the effort to prevent the abuse and neglect of our nation’s children.

Center for Independent Documentary ( http://documentaries.org/ ) was founded in 1981 to collaborate with independent producers to create films and videos on issues of contemporary social and cultural concern. These programs have been broadcast nationally and locally on public and cable television, won numerous awards, and are in distribution to educational markets worldwide.

A little about the projects

While each organization needed help with Web Analytics, each had very different visitor behaviors and technical needs.  The uniqueness of each organization makes the projects interesting and leaves you longing for the next.

Dannydid.org is a young organization and has very active Facebook presence.  Its site traffic is highly dependent on FB activity.  So our analysis was more geared towards Social media.  We analyzed where traffic was coming from and more importantly where it wasn’t coming from and ideas on how to spread their wings.   This included SEO assistance and setting up basic traffic monitoring reports.

For PCAA, the project took a longer in duration than expected (but the usual amount of work) and was more centered on improving the implementation and cleaning the data.  Once we cleaned things up we were able to setup custom reports that help them track the effectiveness key goals of their site.  They are currently in the process of redesigning their site and look forward to working with them again as the new site goes live.

For CID, the site had a Google Analytics account set up but had not had time to sift through the data. The site owner wanted to know the basics of site performance as well as a deep dive analysis into the various social media referrals. The final deliverable included well thought out analyses on the basic metrics, recommended steps to improve the metric’s performance, and valuable tidbits on how CID can maximize social network authority.

The Students

With each of our projects we were fortunate to be partnered with wonderful, caring students.  They were Ann Poritzky, Cedric Williams and Tonia Thompson.  Each did a great job.  They were professional, diligent, dedicated and produced valuable insights for their respective organizations.  It was a pleasure to work with each of them.

Get involved!

Go to the Analysis Exchange and signup.

Roundarch is #39 on the Advertising Age Top Digital Agencies list.

The list is ranked by 2010 U.S. digital revenue.

It’s been an interesting year for Bloomberg Sports. They introduced themselves in a big way to the world of sports after announcing partnerships with both MLB Advanced Media and NFL.com, and are out to prove they can revolutionize the way both fans and professionals consume statistics–just as they did when they introduced the “terminal” to the world of financial services.  In one short year, Bloomberg Sports has already been named one of the top 10 most innovative companies in sports by Fast Company and seem to be  well on their way to playing in the big leagues.

With over 10 million fantasy baseball players all fighting for bragging rights, enter Bloomberg Sports – Front Office 2011. Totally redesigned for this season, Bloomberg partnered with Roundarch to design and develop a suite of tools that gives fantasy baseball players an edge on their competition through a multi-channel digital experience.  With Bloomberg’s statistical algorithms and an easy to use yet powerful interface for the web, iPhone and iPad, fantasy managers are able to lead their teams to the championship from draft day straight through October.

A key feature implemented in this year’s version is the ability to sync Front Office 2011 directly with each of the 3 major fantasy providers (ESPN, Yahoo, and CBSSports.com).  Once synced, fantasy team managers can see news, lineup recommendations and player rankings that are fully customized to their team.  To date there are more than r 25,000 unique league settings synced with Front Office 2011, which means an equal number of different player rankings.  With this type of customized analysis, draft preparation has taken on a whole new meaning.

Traditionally, fantasy users are most engaged at the beginning of the season with post draft day user engagement falling precipitously.  For many, the adage is that the fantasy season is won or lost on draft day.  We believe that doesn’t have to be  the case when  a season is 6 months long and a host of moves can  win – or lose – that league championship between April and October.  To capitalize on this, Front Office 2011 aims to not only change the way fantasy players  prepare for their drafts, but to also create a market for a companion tool set that users rely on throughout the duration of the 162-game season.

Stay Engaged to Win

Through fantasy user research Roundarch has found a significant correlation between league standings and overall engagement level.   Analyzing league activity over the course of a season has shown that as teams fall lower in the league standings, users essentially stop playing. This reaction is sped up by a fantasy manager’s failed attempts to improve team performance. At the other end of the spectrum, managers of teams performing well will stay engaged, and actually show an increase in activity as the playoffs approach. One logical way  to keep users engaged all season long is to keep them  more informed and competitive throughout the season by  making information easy to understand and utilize to their benefit.

Manage Intuitively with Confidence

Once a fantasy league has drafted and the baseball season is under way, there are two management areas that impact a team’s performance.

1.       Starting lineup/Roster Management

2.       Procuring new players through Free Agency or Trade

.  The challenges in fantasy baseball are the frequency of the games, the uncertainty surrounding an MLB player’s availability to play and the amount of time a fantasy manager needs to focus on their lineup to ensure they are making good decisions.  This is compounded by the need to make decisions daily, rather than weekly.  For a fantasy manager this can be quite a time consuming process, especially if the user conducts his or her own research and player evaluation. To help combat this time consuming process, Roundarch designed Lineup Manager Tool to help the user answer all those questions quickly, easily, and with confidence.

Lineup Manager algorithms analyze the user’s roster based on the season to date by calculating daily projected performance to derive the best starting lineup for each day’s games. The Lineup Manager tool then displays easy to follow recommendations to Start, Bench, or Swap players in and out of the user’s lineup. Each recommendation highlights the affected players, explains the reason for the move, and the statistical impact allowing the fantasy manager to be confident that every decision made is well researched.

Lineup Manager

Free Agent Finder

The most difficult decision for a fantasy manager can be deciding to drop an underperforming player and replacing him with a new player. This is done in two ways:

1.       Adding a Player from Free Agency

2.       Trading for a New Player

Both transactions require the user to select departing and incoming players. Many users feel that like the draft, dropping and adding a player is a do or die moment in their quest for the title. From the fantasy players  we have interviewed, we understand that there is a tremendous fear of dropping the wrong player, dropping a player ahead of measurable improvement, or adding the wrong player. The Free Agent Finder was designed to help the user in each of these areas.

The Free Agent Finder is a tool to help the users identify players that can help their team in statistically weaker areas based on statistical splits, projections and side by side player analysis. This is not just a list of the best players available, but recommendations based on in-depth analysis of exactly what the fantasy player’s teamneeds based on their league standings

Free Agent Finder

Trading Between Teams with Trade Analyzer

An area that goes largely untapped by a majority of fantasy users is trading between teams. Roundarch has learned that users shy away from this strategy largely because they are unable to confidently evaluate trade offers. Trades that are accepted generally consist of players that are similar and ultimately do not improve either team, or worse, a user may accept a trade that is unfair and weakens their team. Once a user has been burned by a bad trade, the typical response is to reject every trade offer and utilize the free agent pool exclusively. Trades in fantasy baseball, just like in the majors, should be exciting opportunities to get players that will make an impact and help their teams.  Roundarch saw this as an opportunity for fantasy users to engage in every aspect of the game, and consequently created  the Trade Analyzer tool which allows users to easily view recommended trade ideas or evaluate any trade based on fairness and statistical impact.

Trade Analyzer Dashboard

Trade Analysis View

Trade Analyzer, like Free Agent Finder, will recommend trade ideas that will help the user’s team in underperforming areas. These trade ideas are based on past and projected performance as well as league standings. All trade ideas displayed are beneficial and balanced for the user and their trade partner. The Balance calculation looks at each player’s ranking and the value of the player to each team’s roster. A balanced trade involves players who are similarly ranked but are not necessarily similar players. A warning is displayed when an unbalanced trade is evaluated and the Trade Analyzer cautions the user against making the trade. Statistically, both teams improve from the trade idea, but each trade idea is customized to the user’s team needs. Beyond the recommended trade ideas, users may enter any combination of players from their roster with any other team in their league to evaluate the balance and statistical impact of trade offers. With these tools, users can now evaluate and offer trades knowing that they will improve their team.

Bloomberg Front Office 2011 featuring the new   Lineup Manager, Free Agent Finder and Trade Analyzer tools helps to keep  fantasy managers informed, competitive, and most importantly engaged through all 162 games of the baseball season, giving everyone a shot at fantasy baseball championships with just a few clicks.

Jeff Maling, president and chief experience officer
Hendrik Kleinsmiede, senior vice president, user experience

B2B has long been an afterthought when it comes to digital marketing. Yet while consumer digital marketing still gains the lion’s share of attention, a quiet revolution is occurring in the business-to-business space. B2B marketers, who historically have relied on offline processes and large sales forces, are increasingly fueling growth while reducing the cost of sales with digital.

Until recently, the typical B2B company viewed a Web site as a necessary evil, believing that the real action happened when the customer (or sales person) picked up the phone and initiated contact. Although facilitating contact remains central to digital marketing, B2B companies are recognizing the Web channel as a strategic asset that can support the process from awareness through post-sales servicing. To achieve this goal, B2B organizations must undertake the mammoth task of translating the entire traditional sales process for the digital realm, both from the organization’s and customer’s perspective.