I’m happy to say there’s an event that I helped to co-create, along with Sara Holoubek (who runs the SEMPO Meetup in NYC) called Data Stories, and the first occurrence will be held at Google‘s offices on May 14th.

Please join us on May 14th for “Data Stories,” an evening of analytics and actionable insight hosted by Google and DoubleClick. Here is our tentative schedule:
6:30 – 7:00 Arrivals and mingling*
7:00 – 7:30 Opening remarks and overview of Google and DoubleClick recent developments/Q&A
7:30 – 8:30 Main topic: Data stories (more details coming soon)
8:30 – Closing remarks, networking

* Beer, wine and light appetizers will be provided, courtesy of our hosts, Google and DoubleClick

As always, you must RSVP to attend.

There’s little detail, yet,  about what’s going to happen at Google on May 14th (see above), but I can say it’s going to be interesting, perhaps a first, ever, event (historical?).

The first part – Google and DoubleClick will  give the audience an update on recent developments as well as a preview on what they’re working on (and welcome feedback).

For the main attraction, “the Data Story,” we have a brand advertiser that will go in front of the  a panel group to open up data and work with the audience to tell a story.  We’ve closing in on  few potential “subjects” (who’ll have to provide us access to their analytics) and are very close to announcing who that’s going to be.

We’re planning an interactive session whereby we review a brand advertiser’s data landscape (analytics, email, search, etc.) and see what kind of story and actionable insight we can derive from the data picture.

It all came about 3 months ago, when I spoke to Sara Holoubek about about doing something new; we were both attending Clickable‘s first Interesting Cafe and  I had just stepped down from the WAA Board and was looking for a new challenge – having felt a new approach to Web Analytics based on transparency  (which I touched on in my recent article in Entrepreneur.com titled  Learn to Measure Your Web Presence ) was needed – and we are at a point where we can look at data directly, and get meaning out of it and the audience can help.

In this concept, however we end up executing it – we don’t want to know too much beforehand – we want to look at the data, itself, and figure out what it means – what the larger patterns are.

To me, we could even end up as  “Extreme Makeover Web Intelligence” where we not only come up with the “meaning” – but get involved in creating and reconstructing, in some cases, a subjects business (and go in and film it – too).   That’s  a bit farther than we’re prepared to go on May 14th – but I think, it’s fair to say that if we don’t do it (at some point) someone else will.

And do a lot of good plus make a lot of money on the concept and execution of it.