Almost a year ago I had left WebTrends to kick off a start up. I had always promised I'd return to WebTrends if they'd have me back. With that context, I completed this start up kick off and then headed back to WebTrends. I did this for a couple of reasons. The main one was the people I get to work with. WebTrends without doubt has one of the best crews of people out of all the software companies in Portland. The services department to the engineering group to the sales team are all a great team of people. They handle their jobs well, push forward with learning, and strive to make WebTrends a great place to work and make sure that the products and services we offer get better and better by the day.
Another one of the reasons that I returned to WebTrends is because of the industry itself. Analytics, specifically web analytics, are hot. Everything from Twitter tracking, sales trending, site analysis, and market studies, web analytics is an awesome field to be in. WebTrends is one of the leaders in that field.
WebTrends over the years has had varying development methodologies and this brings me to my third main point of why I returned. WebTrends is steadily getting more and more Agile. In the methodology sense. Anyone that has read my blog in the past knows I"m a fairly hard core agile advocate (I"ve seen more devoted like Arlo Belshee, but I"m an advocate none the less). From the iteration based to the kanban boards to the pair or promiscuous pairing to functional teams, the agile style of team & project work is awesome. WebTrends has started down this road heavily and that is my cup of tea.
What I've Been Working On
I was asked recently by some fellow .NETter geeks, "what have you been working on at WebTrends?" To which I've been happy to say, "Iz Zecret!" or the most part, what I've been working on has been on the down low lately, however, I?ll be blogging a LOT more about it real soon. I'll be providing examples here, and on a new site that isn't published yet, about how we'll be doing some awesome "fill in the blank" – so stay tuned for that.
Follow WebTrends
If you?d like more info on WebTrends here?s some places to check out and tune in.
- Alex Yoder, our CEO, has a blog, so definitely keep up with his site. Alex has been the industry for a good while and knows what is what. Twitter @yodera
- Jascha Kaykas-Wolff, our VP of Marketing. This guy is great – check out the material on his blog. Also a celebrity gossip aficionado from what I read. Twitter @kaykas.
- Eric Butler I work with and has a good read on his "Inside Analytics". Twitter @elbpdx
- Follow the company Twitter @WebTrends account for tidbits on what is going on at the company and various activities we're involved in.
- Some other key Twitter Accounts to follow: @justinogarrity, @agray, @derekfine, @naisan, & @WTEngage.
- WebTrends Outsider is a great blog for tips on usage & various ideas related to WebTrends.
- …and last but not least, check out and give a read to the WebTrends Blog.
Stay tuned, I'll have more coming from the WebTrends Data Pipe soon!
