Hello everyone, welcome to my first blog post as a Forrester Analyst.

I joined Forrester in late January after nearly six years at Alterian, an Enterprise Marketing software company, where I was Vice President of Platform Strategy, supporting Product Marketing, Analyst Relations and Corporate Development.

First and foremost, I’m thrilled to be on board at Forrester and I’m looking forward to getting to work!  Many thanks to the Forrester team and our clients who have been so supportive. 

As implied by the location of this blog post, I’m a member of Forrester’s Customer Intelligence team, already loaded with CI rock stars Suresh Vittal, Dave Frankland and Zach Hofer-Shall.  My specific coverage area will be Site Optimization, which encompasses web analytics, testing & targeting, as well as the metrics and strategy behind measuring web activities and leveraging those insights for relevant and engaging customer experiences.  This is a fascinating coverage area, undergoing tremendous change and full of even greater opportunities. 

One of the initial attraction points I found with Forrester was what I consider to be the visionary move of placing the Site Optimization coverage area within the Customer Intelligence team. This is consistent with my longstanding view that all channels, online or offline, produce valuable insights to drive decision making that must be leveraged in the context of the complete customer experience.

The web is a common thread throughout the customer experience, and the key to taking full advantage of the treasure trove of web data organizations collect will lie in linking that information with marketing and enterprise data, performing informed analysis and making that analysis actionable.

Over the coming weeks I’ll be formalizing my research agenda, but in 2010 my plan will cover the following broad themes:

•    Understanding the rapidly evolving Site Optimization vendor landscape, including the major players as well as a number of upstarts and established vendors from other segments entering the space.

•    Exploring the opportunities and challenges of emerging media in Site Optimization, such as video, social, mobile and applications.

•    Vendor evaluation of Testing and Targeting tools – this Wave report is long overdue!

•    Moving past pure technology considerations for Site Optimization to understand the metrics, organizations, governance and maturity required for executing web measurement strategies.

I’m looking forward to speaking with the organizations who use Site Optimization technology, those considering adopting these tools for the first time, and the community of vendors who support them.

And last but not least, don’t be a stranger!  I want to hear about your challenges and opportunities, and maintain a dialogue that ensures our research agenda matches your needs as a Customer Intelligence professional.

Next up: I will be at the Omniture Summit in Salt Lake City the week of March 1.  It promises to be a fine event as always. If you're going to be there please let me know!