Changes to the Existing Committee Structure

Dear Members:

Last fall, the WAA Board participated in a strategic planning session to lay out the vision for the organization and set several key strategic priorities. As part of that process, we recognized the need to develop an improved operating model for organizational governance in order to maximize our resources to accomplish a clearly defined set of goals.

In an effort to increase WAA’s strategic and operational effectiveness – and more effectively harness our tremendous volunteer resources – the WAA Board has voted to implement several exciting changes to the existing committee structure. In doing so, we aim to promote better communication between committees by focusing on the following key strategic priorities:

• Inform and educate the marketplace about the field of web analytics, champion the effort to create, train and certify web analytics professionals, and encourage institutions of higher learning to add web analytics to their curricula
• Provide relevant and useful data and insight into trends, best practices, and emerging issues facing the web measurement and analytics industry
• Define web analytics measures in order to develop common vocabulary, definitions and standards for measuring and reporting web metrics
• Increase and promote the value of WAA membership

We want to take this opportunity to present the details of this plan and answer questions you may have about why we are making these changes and how they will affect the work that you do.

What is the rationale?

The WAA’s vision is to be the leading authority of excellence in digital marketing measurement. We know we can’t do everything. However, we can focus on making an industry impact and delivering member value in our core competencies of education, standards/best practices, and research.

The changes we are implementing are to ensure our invaluable volunteer efforts go to channel energies towards the WAA key priorities.

What exactly are the changes that are occurring?

Specifically, the current committee system will be adapted so that four committees remain to deliver on WAA core strategy.

The committees will be:

• Education
• Marketing and Membership
• Research
• Standards

What happens to the other committees? (International, Social Media, etc.)

Some committees will be integrated into the new committee structure. For example:

• The Strategic Events Committee, which is responsible for developing and overseeing WAA’s successful webcast series, will join the Marketing and Membership Committee. The current strategic events co-chairs will continue to lead webcast activities, but their work will be much more closely integrated into marketing to allow tactical use of communication, public relations and marketing support.
• Face to face regional events will not be part of the 2009 activity beyond educational events and members meetings at eMetrics. A partnership agreement has been reached with Web Analytics Wednesdays and WAA to jointly work to promote these regional events to members.
• International Committee. WAA cannot be a ’leading authority of excellence in digital marketing measurement” without a credible global approach. International can no longer be regarded as an isolated committee, but a global strategy that will permeate throughout the organization. To that end a global approach will be integrated into all the committees. Just as the Research Committee has developed an integrated European team, every committee has responsibility for developing and delivering on global strategy.

Members currently involved in the International Committee will be invited to help implement the association’s globalization strategy and to participate on the other committees to provide the global perspective.

Other committees will be reorganized into Special Interest Groups.

Special Interest Groups (SIG) will be formed to leverage members’ knowledge and interest in a particular issue. SIGs will address a specific industry or technological challenge and serve as a resource for members and WAA leadership. In some cases, the deliverable will be a white paper or guidance document that will be shared with members and industry leaders.

SIGs can operate as formally or informally as they choose, but will co-operate with committees such as Standards, Research and Education to feed their findings back into the organization and to leverage budget if required.

The SIG will remain in existence until its deliverable is achieved. At such time, the SIG will dissolve, unless other related challenges or issues are identified that warrant further activity.

The Social Media and Public Sector Committees will become SIGs. What does this mean? While SIGs are not funded to meet specific strategic/operation goals, they do have greater freedom to explore the areas of their choosing. (However, it is possible that some member outreach aspects of the Social Media Committee -- such as Facebook group management and the blog – may get folded into the Marketing and Membership Committee.)

Who will lead these committees?

Committees will no longer be led by a single director – instead directors will be responsible for developing the strategic goals and direction for the Association and will work to communicate those goals to the committees and ensure alignment.

Co-chairs will be responsible for developing work plans that support the strategic priorities of the Association. They will provide valuable input into association operations to ensure collaboration and cooperation among various committees. Over the next couple of weeks, Board Members and Virtual staff will follow-up with co-chairs to discuss next steps.

Why didn’t you ask our opinion?

The WAA Board sought professional strategic guidance and committed extensive time to developing a strategy that makes the best use of resources to ensure the organization’s continued success. Priorities have been developed to deliver benefits to the WAA members.

A great deal of work has been done to get us to this point, and we wanted to ensure the details were sweated before they were shared with you. We hope you will agree that the decisions the board has taken are with the intent of maximizing WAA’s resources to accomplish a clearly defined set of goals to ensure ongoing value to WAA members.

Is there still a role for me?

Absolutely! WAA depends on the strong leadership and commitment of volunteer members. We want your input and your active participation in the work of our committees and SIGs. What role do you want to play in advancing this exciting agenda? We want to work with you to ensure that you remain both engaged and recognized for your efforts. Where committees are merging, significant effort will be made to ensure that new members from other committees find their efforts become more effective and rewarding.

There are also new opportunities for committed volunteers who may want new challenges.

What are my options if I don’t want to do this?

Talk to us – if you’re not happy with the options being presented, let us know what would work for you. There are special interest groups to form, more operational senior level roles opening up and opportunities for the new committees to work more collaboratively than ever before.

Group discussions will be taking place, but please talk to any of the Board, or Lindsay and Clare at Virtual, to share your thoughts.

How do we encourage other volunteers to stay involved?

By welcoming their participation into existing committees and the new, developing SIGs. We expect that the Committees will have lots of work to do. For example, the Education Committee will need volunteers to help with the WAA certification activities.

What’s next?

We will be implementing changes over the next few months. If you are already involved in a committee, thank you. We hope you will be energized by these changes and find greater opportunities for learning, involvement and collaboration with your fellow members.

If you are not currently involved, please volunteer. Again, there are many exciting opportunities. Attached is a list of Board members and committee leaders and their contact information. Please get in touch with them and let them know that you want to be involved.

We value your opinion. Please feel free to contact us, or other members of the Board with your thoughts and questions.

With warmest regards,

Jim Sterne
Chairman

Seth Romanow
President

WAA Email Contacts

Board Members

Jim Sterne, Chairman
Seth Romanow, President
Vicky Brock
June Dershewitz
Andrea Hadley
Alex Langshur
Neil Mason
Dennis Mortensen
Laura Paxia
Marshall Sponder
Robbin Steif
April Wilson

Committee Contacts

Education Jim Novo and Raquel Collins
Marketing: Daniel Waisberg, Joy Billings and Enrique Gonzales
Membership: Josh Manion and Dani Giandomenico
Webcasts: Dave Winslow
Research: Jim Humphrys and Amanda Watlington
Standards: Angie Brown and Judith Pascual

Virtual, Inc.

Clare Madden

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