With a title like Advise and Consent  Gary Angel's latest post might have been a title of an old Perry Mason episode or a current one of  Law and Order, but it was nothing about either - it's a  mash up of two posts, bringing SEM in house (or not) and where to place Web Analytics in an organization, which I weighed in on.

"…I’ll start with Marshall’s comments, because they are easiest to consider. Marshall makes two points concerning my discussion of where to put SEM Measurement that I pretty much agree with. First, he argues that my example of a case where web measurement is organized to satisfy a single important executive in a company isn’t a good paradigm. He’s right, of course. I didn’t really mean to suggest it was.

Extremely dynamic and powerful individuals nearly always strain and distort company org charts – and this phenomenon is general – having nothing to do with web analytics per se (or even corporations – it happens in any sort of organized activity). I’m not sure how avoidable this problem is – or even how much of a problem it is. Companies should be aware that there is a price and, potentially, a benefit to be had from these distortions. There are times when it is appropriate to "bet the company" and let organizational lines go to pot (I always think of Tracy Kidder’s Soul of a New Machine as an almost novelistic case study in just that question). There are times when it isn’t. Deciding when such bets are smart has nothing to do with web analytics and is well beyond the plausible scope of a web analytics geek like me running a 15 person company!

Marshall’s second point is more interesting and, I think, more significant. He points out that just because a company has a Strategy Office or CSO doesn’t mean that’s where strategy is actually done. Not only is this undeniably true, but it points to a deeper truth. A big part of placing a web measurement department within your organization is understanding where having it can best influence, shape and enforce your vision for the web. There’s no reason to believe that place will be the same for every company."

My second point is really telling.  This year, for example, I have to execute on someone else's strategy on a series of projects - I like to control my own destiny an execute my own plan and then measure it - because then…the strategy and the measurement are more in line (like the egg and it's yoke).   I'm not saying that it won't work out … it will.   I'm just saying that companies would get the best results by a single line of ownership.

At the last EMetrics Summit - almost everyone that could get up and talk about their companies success stories, it seemed to me, had done this.  When I heard Tim Goudie of Coca-Cola speak, he did this.  Duane Schutz from Xerox, he'd done it too.  What did they both have?   A direct report, who ran Internet Marketing and Web Analytics to the CEO.

How many large organizations - and I'm talking "large" organizations allow that?

That's what I'm talking about.  Just try to get anything done the other way….the way it often is.   I'll leave it at that.