The Education Series: Advocacy

I’ve written advocacy into my past three job descriptions. In fact, as an Analytics Advocate, it was my job. So what is advocacy and how can you get started with it? I’m sure there are many definitions of what advocacy can mean, but to me, it means this: Being present in market (via blogs, social media, conferences, etc) to share your best practices, thoughts and experiences on behalf of a practice, product, or field. Further, I think there is a responsibility built into advocacy to educate others about the topic you are advocating for, not just preach to them. I’ve spent the last 5+ years of my career advocating for data, analytics, and optimization best practices. At times, this was a “20% project” for me where I had a negotiated
Continue reading...

The Education Series: 5 Tips for Becoming a Public Speaker

This post is part of the Education Series, a series focused on learnings and tips for the softer skills of digital marketing, many of which come from my experiences over the past decade in this industry.    One of my first (large) public speaking engagements was in front of a crowd of about 300 young adults at a political networking event in Washington D.C. in the summer of 2007. I was running the event and was the Emcee + speaker for organization background and event purpose, prior to introducing our keynote for the evening (a US Congresswoman). My voice quivered uncontrollably, I turned bright red and felt faint as I stumbled my way through. Friends in the audience promised I didn’t sound nervous, but I never believed them. After a second
Continue reading...

The Education Series: Introduction

I’ve spent the past 2.5 years as Google’s Analytics Advocate (and unofficially filled part of this role for 2 years prior to that) focused on advocacy for our GA360 Suite products, including (but not limited to) product design, user feedback, training, troubleshooting, and education. This role has stretched my mind (and at times, my patience), given me the opportunity to engage with and learn from users all over the world, forced me to become a better writer, and provided opportunities to grown and scale Analytics Education more than I could have ever imagined. Breaking it down by a few stats of my time in this role, it *roughly* looks like this: ~100 speaking engagements & webinars, many of which were large conference keynotes all over the world 80-100 client and agency meetings 30 livestream/hangout
Continue reading...