“I think data should be the center of the universe”
In this interview, we talk with Bob Page about his position as Vice President Analytics at eBay, about the future of the Analytics industry, and also about how to create a data-driven culture on organizations.
Bob shares with us the trend he saw during the eMetrics Marketing Optimization San Francisco 2011: how to integrate different sources of data in the enterprise so that we can have one view of what is happening in the business.
When asked “How do you choose what to measure among the terabytes of data available?” Bob simply answers: we have the luxury of capturing everything and then we choose what to use and what not.
We can see today a big gap between Web and other types of Data (e.g. Finance and customer data); Bob believes that those sources of data will not be integrated into one single tool. The reason for that is that the silos are best of breed and each does a good job in its field; but ultimately there should be a birds eye view to management.
Bob advices CEOs to supply leadership, to demand data, to ask for results; not to ask for any data, but be focused on what is important.
Watch the interview to learn what Bob Page loves about his job at eBay.
Watch Bob Page’s keynote at eMetrics Marketing Optimization Summit Washington DC 2010: Managing Marketing Metrics at eBay
Bob Page
As eBay’s vice president of Data & Analytics Platform, Bob Page brings more than 15 years of passion for analysis to the world’s largest online marketplace. Bob leads eBay’s data and analytics infrastructure, and is responsible for the strategy and policies that power data-driven decisions. From data warehouse and business intelligence solutions to advanced analytics and custom insights, Bob delivers solutions for strategic use of data. Bob joined eBay from Yahoo!, where he led analytics teams across a broad range of responsibilities. He has been active in analytics since 1996, when he was co-founder, CTO and VP of Product Development for Accrue Software, a provider of large-scale web analytics. He is a frequent speaker at industry events, and serves on the eMetrics advisory council.
Bob occasionally posts to his blog at bobpage.net , and is @bobpage on Twitter.
Daniel Waisberg
Daniel Waisberg is the Owner of Conversion Journey, a consultancy that provides insights on improving the performance of websites. He is also the founder & Editor of Online Behavior. He is a frequent speaker at industry conferences and member of the Advisory Council of the eMetrics Marketing Optimization Summit. You can follow him on Google+ or on Twitter @danielwaisberg.