Hi,
I should start by admitting I’ve neglected this website (copy, design, and maintenance) over the years…specifically the last three years I’ve been managing marketing automation at Harvard Business School Online and working on freelance web consulting.
The idiom “the cobbler’s children have no shoes” comes to mind. I know many marketing agencies that are often too busy with client work to update their own websites so I know I’m in good company. But I have to get with the times so I’ll be writing more in the months to come. Below is an article I originally posted in September 2020 that gives you an idea of my development up to that stage.
Obviously a lot has changed in the world of web analytics since posting that article. I’ll be writing (much) more about web analytics in the months to come, but for now here are some highlights since 2020 to get us nearly up to speed:
- Earned a promotion at Harvard Business School
- Grew from my original role to become the Technical Admin for our instance of Marketing Hub Enterprise and have managed email marketing automation across the customer lifecycle across six subject areas of online course offerings.
- Working on projects under development to improve multichannel marketingIncluding taking lead on our GA4 migration
- Capturing business requirements through a measurement plan
- Creating the solution design reference
- Deploying GA4 via Google Tag Manager
- Completed Harvard University Information Technology (HUIT) Academy’s Core Offerings
- Set of six foundational courses (core competencies) HUIT has determined that all IT staff across the university should be trained in. These trainings have been helpful in that they have equipped me with a shared vocabulary and methodology that has been crucial as my collaboration with developers and other IT staff has increased.
- Courses include
- IT Methodologies
- Trusted Advisor
- Information Security
- User Experience
- Service Mindset
- Digital Accessibility
- Completed Bounteous’ Google Tag Manager 201 Advanced course
- I’ve been taking in-person trainings with Bounteous since taking Google Analytics 201 when they went by Lunametrics and they do not disappoint.
Because GA4 is such a shift from UA, I’ve invested in building a solid foundation of knowledge through courses by Krista Seiden (KS Digital Academy), Julius Fedorovicius (Analytics Mania), and Charles Farina (CXL) to ensure as solid a foundation as possible.
With the pace of changes to GA4, there’s more of a need than ever to stay on top of the latest GA4 changes thanks to the #measure community (including Simo Ahava, Analytics Mania, Bounteous, MeasureSchool, and so many more) via blog/LinkedIn/Twitter.
Again – I’ll be writing more frequently in the near future – but for now I’ll share the pitch back in September 2019:
CXL Certified Digital Analyst Available for Consulting
I recently earned CXL Institute’s Digital Analyst certification on top of seven years of professional experience working with Google Analytics in some capacity. From teaching Google Analytics to other marketers, producing highly-relevant segmented reports, and ultimately informing marketing strategy, I have the experience and knowledge to help your organization. Tell me (via LinkedIn or my website) what problems you’re facing and I’ll tell you how I can help.
I recently felt inspired to restart my digital analytics consultancy. My 9-5 managing enrollment communications (converting leads into students with HubSpot and other marketing automation tools) while rewarding, doesn’t lend itself to very much time for hands-on Google Analytics work. Recently, I assisted another department with Google Analytics onboarding, and I was even more excited than when I had my first look at Google Analytics 12 years ago.
In addition to some basic onboarding, I also worked with JSON and API requests (as part of our efforts to improve the accuracy of our attribution efforts). I had known how JavaScript worked in theory, but seeing it in action and powering marketing automation was awe-inspiring.
Through that work, I realized I wanted to take my skills a step further and expand my analytics capabilities by using JavaScript and GTM as central tools in the process. I began a traditional JavaScript programming course at Harvard. While it was an exceptional course, I found that much of the content was outside the scope of what I needed. Simo Ahava – an analytics developer and perhaps the world’s leading expert on Google Tag Manager (outside of Google) – agreed and gave me some great advice (to revisit coding through freeCodeCamp.org).
Once I got re-started, I was hooked and knew this was something I wanted to get back into. I scoured the internet for the most relevant and authoritative courses (outside of Google) and all signs pointed back to Simo Ahava and his advanced course on Google Tag Manager. As CXL’s website is well organized, I found that I could take a full “Minidegree” to earn their Digital Analyst certification.
My education to that point had been self-directed (initially learning Google Tag Manager 5 years ago from Google directly, taking advanced courses on Analytics and Ads from Bounteous, and ultimately seeking out experts in higher ed) so when I looked over the courses the minidegree covered (everything from Google Analytics Audits, Excel and Google Sheets for Marketers, BigQuery, Data Studio, and Advanced GTM with Simo Ahava), it was clear it would provide the well-rounded foundation I needed. After completing 11 courses over three months, I earned their Digital Analyst certification.
Nothing beats a portfolio of work but given the outputs of my consulting work with OHO Interactive and others is proprietary – there’s aren’t many work products I can share.
What I can offer as evidence of my aptitude in this area are recommendations from people I’ve worked with and skill endorsements from experts in the field.
If your organization wants to optimize your website to help convert website visitors into customers (including students) – message me today.
