Summer 2009 – Editor’s Perspective

A Few Sterne Words

I recently attended the eMetrics Marketing Optimization Summit in San Jose, Calif. The eMetrics events are perennially among my favorites of the many online marketing conferences. The topic areas are always fresh and thought-provoking, and the speakers are consistently industry leaders in their respective fields.

I also get a kick out of the host of these events, Jim Sterne. Granted, that’s in large part because I enjoy his sense of humor and delivery, which is dry as a West Texas wind. But it’s also because of the perspective he brings to his presentations and to his conferences as a whole.

Believe it or not, Sterne has been educating online marketers in events like these since 1995. He’s seen businesses–entire industries–rise and fall and heavily hyped new technologies gain traction or vanish without a trace. Perhaps as a result, he’s a realist–intellectually curious enough to be interested by any truly promising trend or technology, but pragmatic enough to see past the shine and gloss to discern whether a viable business application lies at the core.

You’ll be sure to leave a Jim Sterne presentation with a few nuggets jotted down on the ubiquitous, conference center-supplied notepad.

Here’s one I scribbled down in San Jose, regarding the application of analytics. “You don’t need to be precise; you need to be compelling.” In other words, if the numbers suggest an obvious business decision, don’t waste time figuring out the “why” to a scientific certainty–have the guts to be a change agent. Go to the decision maker and present your case passionately. (Sterne used an example of a retailer who noticed a hotbed of online shopping in a region where no brick-and-mortar store existed and where there was little brand presence. They were essentially clueless as to why this phenomenon was occurring. But they did have the business sense to place a store ">now, a very successful one in the middle of this hot spot.)

Here’s another one that’ll get you thinking: “In five years, your business will be utterly dependent on technology that doesn’t exist yet.”

With that remark, Sterne introduced Rene Dechamps Otamendi. Otamendi, the Belgian CEO of NextStage Analytics, then described his company’s Evolution Technology. According to Otamendi, all humans have a sort-of “map” and subconscious rules they apply when making any decision. Evolution Technology identifies and reads our maps and rules as we navigate a website. This information can then be used to dynamically re-arrange the elements of an e-commerce site to conform to the individual, making navigation easier and presenting purchasing decisions in the way most likely to promote the desired outcome.

Sound far-fetched? The technology has been proven to predict age and gender to 99 percent accuracy. The realist Sterne is a believer in the technology’s validity. So are executives from The World Bank, Mitre Corp., Bristol-Myers Squibb and HP.

Stay tuned. We’ll take a harder look at the technology and its applications in the next issue of Online Strategies.