It’s official, we’re sold out once again!
Didn’t get a ticket in time? No problem! We’re broadcasting it to you live with help from our friends over at Justin.tv. The event starts at 6pm PST and the speakers go on at 7pm PST. Their presentation slides will be posted below so you can follow along at home too. Thanks for looking and be sure to sign up for our mailing list to find out about the next event!
For our 1.4 Session on Web Analytics, we’re bringing in a diverse
selection of speakers to cover a wide breadth on this exciting topic. From
technical architecture and implementation of analytics software and systems
to analytics theory to real-world examples of cutting edge web analytics in
use in web businesses. We’ll be looking at how analytics is being used to do
everything from gaining the critical business edge to defining the way web
services interact and operate and how this is being accomplished in various
contexts. Our speakers hail from Facebook, Microsoft, PayPal, and RockYou.
Event Info
What: geekSessions 1.4: Web Analytics
When: Tuesday, September 30th, 6:00pm-9:30pm
6:00pm - Registration, open bar, and dinner
7:00pm - Panel discussion and Q&A (bar closed)
8:30pm - Open Bar, and networking
Where: The City Club of SF, Google Map: 155 Sansome, 10th Floor
How: A limited number of tickets are now open to the public! Get them while they last.

Transportation: Parking can be a bit tricky in the financial district at this time, so it’s highly recommended you take public transportation. If you must drive, your best bet may be to park in the parking structure for the Metreon over on 4th and Mission and walk to the event.
About the Panelists
Raymond Chan
Architect, RockYou
Raymond is Architect at RockYou, where he is responsible for the software framework and the analytics group. Prior to RockYou he was a Research Associate at The SPHERE Institute / Acumen LLC, where he managed the software development group within a consulting firm focused on the issues of social welfare and health policy at the county, state, and federal levels. Raymond received his B.S. in Computer Science from Stanford University.
Marco Vriens, Ph. D.
Analytics Manager, Microsoft
Dr. Marco Vriens works at Microsoft as Group Marketing Manager where he is responsible for audience insights, marketing decision support tools, evaluating the impact of audience strategies, and analyzing data on start-up companies. Prior to Microsoft he was Chief Research Officer at Millward Brown IntelliQuest, and Sr. VP at Research International. Prior to coming to the U.S. that he was Assistant Professor of Marketing in the Netherlands.
Marco is recognized leader in Marketing, Marketing Science, Analytics, and Marketing Research. He has published extensively in academic top journals such as Journal of Marketing Research, Marketing Science, etc and in trade magazines on topics such as non-linear regression, latent class models, missing data imputation, multi-dimensional scaling, conjoint analysis, discrete choice analysis, service quality, survey design, strategic research design, etc. He published 2 book books: Conjoint Analysis in Marketing (1995) and The Handbook of Marketing Research (sage, 2006). He was the recipient of the 2000 David K. Hardin award, and has received several other professional awards.
Itamar Rosenn
Data Scientist, Facebook
Itamar Rosenn is a Data Scientist at Facebook, where he studies user adoption and user engagement. In his role, he builds tools, conducts research, and provides empirical expertise that help drive informed decisions across the company. Itamar holds a bachelor’s degree in economics and symbolic systems and a master’s in symbolic systems from Stanford University.
David Rogers
Senior Web Analytics Researcher, PayPal
For almost a decade, David has been using research design and statistics to measure and predict behavior. He started his career in psychological research before switching his concentration to the online world where he focuses on user experience and building models of consumer behavior by employing techniques such as segmenting, behavior targeting and testing. He holds a BA in Psychology, an MA in Psychological Research & Methodology, and an MBA from the University of San Francisco, all with distinctions and awards, including Fellowship. He is co-authored in peer-to-peer A-level journals and has presented numerous times on the topics of culture, research, and research design.
About the Moderator
June Dershewitz, VP Analytics, Semphonic
June Dershewitz enjoys helping companies improve their practice of web analytics. She held her first web analyst job at a San Francisco startup in 1999 and has worked in the field ever since. Between 2004 and 2007 she took freelance consulting assignments with enterprise clients such as Oracle, CNET, Wells Fargo and Blue Shield. In 2007 she joined the leadership team at Semphonic, a top web analytics consultancy. She has been a member of the Web Analytics Association since its inception in 2005, serving on the Education and Social Media Committees. As an original instigator of Web Analytics Wednesday, she continues to organize and attend WAW events throughout the Bay Area. She has spoken at conferences such as Emetrics, X Change and the Optimost Optimization Summit. She blogs at http://june.typepad.com/.
Submit a Question for the Panel

Got something you’re itching to ask? Use our form to submit a question for the panel. Selected questions will be asked by the moderator, June Dershewitz.
Good news everyone! geekSessions is back from a brief break with 2 new sessions in the works. The next two sessions will be on Mobile Tech and Web Analytics, though not necessarily in that order. We’re excited about both events and we’re rounding up our usual group of great speakers as I write this. The next Session will be on 9/30 followed by an event in early November. So save the date!
Speakers for both events are looking great. For Mobile we’ll be having a little iPhone, a little non-iPhone, a little hacking, and maybe even a dash of Andriod with Raj Singh, VP of BizDev at SkyFire moderating. For Web Analytics, we’re bringing in June Dershewitz, Founder of Web Analytics Wednesday as a moderator to help us wrangle an all star cast.
Call For Speakers

If you’d like to speak or recommend a speaker for either event, contact Shon at geekSessions ASAP as we’re locking down speaker slots in the next week or two.
What a crazy day for the geekSessions team! We’re excited about Macworld and we’re even more excited about tonight’s event. It’s another sold out geekSessions and we can’t wait to see what our speakers have to present.
Didn’t get a ticket in time? No problem! We’re broadcasting it to you live with help from our friends over at Justin.tv. The event starts at 6pm PST and the speakers go on at 6:30pm PST. Their presentation slides are posted below so you can follow along at home too. Thanks for looking and be sure to sign up for our mailing list to find out about the next event!
Speaker Presentations
Cal Henderson (PDF)
Director of Engineering, Flickr
Lucas Nealan (PDF)
Lead Engineer, Facebook
Sara Golemon (PPT)
Senior Engineer, Yahoo! Inc.
Andrei Zmievski (PDF)
Chief Architect, Outspark
* For full speaker bios, check out the original event posting.
With an allstar cast of PHP experts, it’s not surprising that this event is completely sold out. Stay tuned as we’ll be posting the links to the speaker presentations, and the LIVE Broadcast via Justin.tv.
Thanks to all of our speakers, sponsors, and attendees. We’re looking forward to a great event!
It’s a new year and that means more geekSessions! Join us on Tuesday, January 15 at the City Club in SF for an exciting event covering PHP scalability, prerformance, and the future. We are going to have a great panel discussion, catered reception, and an open bar.
Event Info
What: geekSessions 1.3: PHP Scalability, Performance, and the Future
When: Tuesday, January 15th, 6:00pm-9:00pm
6:00pm - Registration, open bar, and appetizers
6:30pm - Panel discussion and Q&A (bar closed)
8:00pm - Open Bar, dinner, and networking
Where: The City Club of SF, Google Map: 155 Sansome, 10th Floor
How: A limited number of tickets are now open to the public! Get them while they last.

Transportation: Parking can be a bit tricky in the financial district at this time, so it’s highly recommended you take public transportation. If you must drive, your best bet may be to park in the parking structure for the Metreon over on 4th and Mission and walk to the event.
Submit a Question for the Panel

Got something you’re itching to ask? Use our form to submit a question for the panel. Selected questions will be asked by the moderator, Terry Chay, Software Architect at Tagged.
We’re excited about Macworld and we’re even more excited about tonight’s event. It’s another sold out geekSessions and we can’t wait to see what our speakers have to present.
Didn’t get a ticket in time? No problem! We’re broadcasting it to you live with help from our friends over at Justin.tv. The event starts at 6pm PST and the speakers go on at 6:30pm PST. Their presentation slides are posted below so you can follow along at home too. Thanks for looking and be sure to sign up for our mailing list to find out about the next event!
Speaker Presentations
Cal Henderson (pending)
Director of Engineering, Flickr
Lucas Nealan (PDF)
Lead Engineer, Facebook
Sara Golemon (PPT)
Senior Engineer, Yahoo! Inc.
Andrei Zmievski (PDF)
Chief Architect, Outspark
About the Panelists

Sara Golemon
Sr. Engineer, Yahoo! Inc.
Sara Golemon is an engineer for Yahoo! Web Search and part-time OSS code-monkey. She’s a PHP runtime and Zend engine developer who literally wrote the book on “Extending and Embedding PHP”. Sara’s been featured several times on podcasts such as php|architect’s Pro::PHP, and the Zend developer zone PHP-Abstract. As a hobbyist in the field of cyrptography, she’s the originator behind the libssh2 C library and several PHP focused extensions centered around symmetric, asymmetric, and message digest algorithms.

Cal Henderson
Director of Engineering, Flickr
Originally from London, England, Cal Henderson currently works at Yahoo! Inc, as the Director of Engineering for Flickr, in San Francisco, California. He’s been working on Flickr from the day it started development (on his laptop) to the present day. In 2006, he wrote the book Building Scalable Websites for O’Reilly Media. Before Flickr, he was the technical director of Special Web Projects at emap, a UK media company. By night he works for a whole slew of web sites and communitites, including the creative community B3TA and his personal site, iamcal. (Photo by Scott Beale)

Lucas Nealan
Lead Engineer, Facebook
Lucas is a web developer with over 10 years experience. He has worked with PHP since 2000 and is currently a Lead Engineer at Facebook.com, one of the largest PHP infrastructures in the world. Lucas has been working at Facebook for the last two and a half years on PHP performance and scalability.

Andrei Zmievski
Chief Architect, Outspark Inc.
Andrei Zmievski is Chief Architect at Outspark Inc, where he is working on a technology platform for building an online playground with free video games and engaging communities. In the past he had worked on internal tools at Yahoo! Inc., specializing in i18n and infrastructure software, such as PHP and Apache. He is also a core PHP developer, leader of the PHP-GTK project, and a co-author of “PHP Developer’s Cookbook” and Smarty templating system. His current focus is the native Unicode support in PHP.








