Lots of things happen at the WAA. Often, only small groups of people understand them. After all, we are all busy, with "real" jobs, and who can afford to keep up with everything? Until I was lucky enough to become the director for the Standards Committee, I didn't know much about how that committee worked, either. (Do you?)

So, if you don't really care, this is a good time to stop reading. But if you think that the Standards Committee is exclusive or snobby; if you think they don't care about vendors and their products (or feelings!); if you think they just "decide" without getting input - this would be the blog post for you:

1. We're a really exclusive committee, right? Well no -- anyone who wants to join the committee -- and who is a paid-up WAA member -- is welcome to join. Up until recently, we have been meeting weekly (yup, every week. I don't get credit for going to meetings every week, but co-chairs Angie Brown and Judith Pascual and a whole lot of other people do.) A lot of the work gets done on the phone call, so if you want to be part of the Standards Team, you should be prepared to be on the calls, too. Don't worry -- all our work has paid off -- we are finally moving to an every-other-week schedule.
2. We ignore vendors completely, right? We try not to, but the truth is, we don't get a lot of vendor participation on our committee. Currently, two vendors are represented. However, our volunteers use a variety of tools which include all the top vendors. We would love to have more vendor volunteers. Most of the web analytic vendors are already WAA members, so that's not an issue. The major issue we face is your time and commitment -- can you come to a meeting every other week? Or even once in a while?
3. Aren't we pretty dictatorial, just making decisions like that? Well actually, no. In the next month or so, we'll be releasing a revision to last year's set of standards, and then, we won't be finalizing them. Really. First, the IAB is reviewing our work to ensure our definitions fall in line with theirs. On top of that, we got some advice from ANSI, the American National Standards Institute, on best practices in this realm. When we "release" them, it is going to be a draft version, and everyone who is interested will have an opportunity to comment. And we will especially be looking for vendors to comment (and we know your names and numbers and email addresses, vendors, so we'll go out of our way to get your input, but you have to put in.)
4. So if we aren't a snobby, dictatorial committee that ignores vendors, how do we decide what the standards are? A long, long time ago (OK, now we are predating this author), the committee came up with a list of web analytic terms they thought were important to define. We originally started by compiling committee members' list of top terms. The list was revised as time went on, with the criteria being that the term must be something that web analysts are likely to encounter in their everyday work, regardless of the type of site they worked on -- e-commerce, ad-driven, product, tool, or lead generation.

For the last 18 months, none of our standard definitions have been written up privately before a meeting, a departure from our original process where a volunteer would write the first draft before it was discussed in committee. This has proved to be not only more efficient, but more democratic as well: it avoids the defensiveness and deep sense of ownership felt by smart, talented individuals who pour heart and soul into a draft, only to have it ripped apart in committee by eight to twelve other smart, talented individuals. Even the first draft of a definition is written in real-time on a blank page during a regular meeting, with the aid of shared software (we use Google Groups). As members discuss the concepts involved, notes are taken and the definition forms during the discussion. The notes page is updated frequently, to allow members to view the definition "on paper" and to make revisions accordingly. Our discussions are as spirited as ever, but participation has increased dramatically since no one person is considered to be the "expert" on a given topic.

Each definition is open for at least two meetings, so members who miss one have a chance to discuss any concerns at the next. Even terms that could easily be finished within one meeting are marked with preliminary approval, and the vote for final approval is delayed until the next meeting. The "discussion" part of the Google Group also allows members who miss a meeting to keep up with progress and to comment on definitions between meetings. Typical meetings are attended by eight to twelve volunteers. Our "real jobs" mean that some meetings are held with as few as four members, but final approval votes are not made unless at least six members are on the call.

During the last year, the committee revisited every single definition from the standards document we published in August 2007 [PDF]. Our volunteers compiled definitions and methodologies for the tools they use by scouring their vendor's glossary and/or talking with their account representatives, so as each term was revisited we had a good overview of how the term was represented in our tools. This formed the basis of the new "ask your vendor" questions you will encounter in the next release (and which we will soon ask our vendors to answer publicly!). We also incorporated comments received after our last release -- yes, some of them caused us to change what we had originally written -- and streamlined definitions to reduce confusion where possible.

And just in case you missed it above: the next release will also be in a draft state for a set amount of time so that any comments we receive can be discussed and incorporated into the final release where appropriate. That means that even those of you who are not "on" the committee get to participate.

So -- if anybody out there in web analytics land thinks we are not the most inclusive, democratic committee around, this is the time to raise your hand. (And join our committee, of course...)

Comments

[Robbin]

It occurs to me that we need to go out of our way to thank Angie Brown and Judith Pascual for their hard standards work.

[angie]

Robbin, thank you for this great post! We really appreciate all the support you give to our committee!

[Aseem]

Take a bow ladies.

[Cindy Dadon]

First off, I would like to express my gratitude for the group of people who dedicated themselves to such a worthy cause. So, Thank You!!

I think it may be worth looking into creating sections of this document tailored to different industries. For instance, I used to work in the publishing industry where the words "unique visitor" would send people into a flutter, but now that I am in e-commerce, the new "it" word is "Buyers" and "Shoppers" and "Browsers". I wish I had a document like this to look at!

Also it would be just great if we had a New Analyst's Guide to XYZ industry's top KPIs (or at least what we think they are). Wish I had that first day on the job!

Thanks,
Cindy Dadon