Bonus Link: Avinash recently interviewed Matt Belkin, VP of Best Practices, at Omniture..

Avinash has interviewed Matt.

So Avinash has interviewed Dan Rather.

No, Dan Rather has interviewed Avinash.

No, no, Dan Rather and Avinash are best friends.

No, no, no……

Damn six degrees of separation!! : )

Matt, thanks for satisfying our curiosity.

First, while I could spend hours answering Jen’s questions, I share one factoid that’s kind of neat. Specifically, in response to “A Fact no one reading this would know about you?”. When I was 10 years old, I was interviewed by Dan Rather of CBS News as part of an 8 part series they were doing called “The Computers are Coming”. I was actually featured in 2 of the 8 segments, including the closing clip of the whole series. It’s nothing earth-shattering, but it is definitly something no one would know (until now) :)

Second, to Sanjay’s question, which essentially covers product complexity. I see this frequently when working with web analytics customers, even those that are using products from other vendors. Often times, people simply do not know where to start. For this reason, my Best Practices team offers a KPI and Reporting Strategy service that helps people hit the ground running and realize rapid time to value. We offer this as an optional service to Omniture customers because customer sophisticated can vary so widely, and many customers are already comfortable with the basics. If you or anyone else is interested in learning more, I’d be happy to share - we have overviews of each major Best Practice service we offer (there are 10 total and the list keeps growing) :)

Cheers, Matt.

I kept thinking that Matt’s answers about the people he’d hire sound just like yours.

I would ask Matt this question: I am a user of Omniture and love it but so many people are completely overwhelmed by it and what are some of the things Matt’s Best Practices Group is doing to address that? Could there be a lite version to start with to ease into full blown features?

Thanks for starting the series.

Matt gave insightful answers to those but maybe I should use your set of questions because they are more direct. Ok I’ll learn and let’s see if I can improve my journalistic skills.

Keep your feedback and critique coming (this applies to everyone in the small band of Occam’s Razor readers).

-Avinash.
PS: Who will be next? You’ll have to wait!! : ) I am open to suggestions.

As far as questions you did not ask that I would have liked to see, I am a fan of the seemingly-silly questions that you often see on blogger interviews. The ones that really get you closer to a person’s personality. (For all I know Matt would have been completely unamused by this). Examples are:

-Who would play you in the movie of your life and why?

-What did you want to be when you were 10?

-A fact no one reading this would know about you?

-Or even simple things like hobbies!

I always ask what someone’s favorite food is and/or food-related questions like restaurant recommendations since food is my passion (after web analytics, of course)

Maybe this is only something my “demographic” is interested in though ;) A very interesting first interview! Who will be next?!