The WAA goes European?

This is our response to a very interesting post on Eric Peterson’s blog, Europe and the Web Analytics Association, in which Eric puts forward the idea to setup a European subsidiary of the WAA.
Based on the numerous and somewhat different comments on this post, I’m sure the last word hasn’t been written/spoken about this subject.

Anyway, here is my vision on the topic:

Hi Eric and others,

I already started this comment a few days ago, but I see many well-thought comments being added in the mean time, so I’ve modified my original version slightly and added my personal ideas on some of the comments you can read above.

Of course I and our web analytics team at These Days (WPP/Wunderman) can only encourage more coverage and focus on the wonderful world of web analytics for the European market.

Nobody can deny that there is a difference between the US market and Europe, but that applies of
course for more than only web analytics. We do live in the United States of Europe, with it’s wonderful local tendencies & flavours!
Stating that the US web analytics market is much more evolved then in Europe (between 2 and 4 years ahead as Eric states), I can not confirm or deny, but I hope to get better insights next week in San Francisco and we’ll definitely run a research exercise with our US WPP/Wunderman collegaues of ZAAZ and VML.

Anyway, if we take a look at the goals of the WAA, you can read on the top of homepage of the WAA:

The Web Analytics Association (WAA) unites and fosters the interests of industry practitioners, vendors, consultants and educators who use, sell, install, implement, consult, teach or train in the field of web analytics.

In regards to the goals of the WAA:

• I do agree that a more continental and regional focus should be applied for events, although the current overlapping events should continue.
• And I also agree that pricing (licenses, events, consultancy, etc) and privacy concerns need a different focus for both continents.

However, besides these, I don’t see any reasons why other goals, such as education and definition of standards, should be split in a NA and a EU group/subsidiarity/sister organization.

Rather than setting up a subsidiarity I would suggest

• setting up a NA and a European committee (maybe a split of the current international committee is an option), which exist out of regional expert volunteers, and which can be in the driver’s seat for continental events.
• Regional/country events can easily stay within the responsibility of the WAA country managers, as it is now, although I didn’t see much happen on country level in the Benelux so far.

So maybe these should rather be managed by the NA or European committee on their continent, I think my ideas are more or less in the line of the vision of Nick Potter and my dear friend Julien.

Anyway, I volunteer*** to brainstorm further on the subject in San Francisco and afterwards. But before any plan or suggestion is made to the WAA board, we definitely need much more thinking!

And yes, why not reach out for some professional association management consulting, as Jim Sterne suggests! (By the way, also read Jim Sterne’s comment on his blog)

*** In the line of Stephane Hamels’ great disclaimer: ‘I’m just an involved volunteer member of the WAA. I have absolutely no financial interest in stating my mind.’

I truly hope everybody involved in this discussion has the same ideology and look forward to continue the discussion. Please don’t hesitate to comment on Eric’s blog or ours! Getting involved will be a positive starting point!