FAQ

What is Measure Chat?

Measure Chat is a real-time social forum where people in digital marketing are able to come together to discuss, hash out, and create shared solutions with those that are willing to contribute.

How much does it cost to join Measure Chat?

Nothing. Zero. Zip. Nada.

Measure Chat is not an association or organization with membership fees. The only expectation is that you will contribute to the conversations.

While we could make efforts to have sponsors we do not want your personal details and content to be sacrificed as a result.

How do I get an invite to Measure Chat?

You may request an invite here: http://join.measure.chat

How will any information about me be used?

Signing up for Measure Chat does require some information about you (name, email, LinkedIn profile URL, etc.) but this is only used by an admin to verify you are a real person and to send an invitation to Measure Chat.

While in Slack, personal information such as your full name and email address are not included in any of the data collected unless you provide this information in the body of the messages that you write. Additionally, direct messages and communication in private channels are not collected. The only source of data used comes from public channels where other users could have seen your message either way.

How do you collect my data?

Measure Chat leverages the native integration capabilities built into Slack to send data to analytics solutions such as Google Analytics, Mixpanel, and Localytics to better understand which channels are being utilized the most and general user engagement. Additionally, the contents of messages are collected at the same time and stored in a database for search capabilities. This information is collected and sent to the respective endpoint using Slackalytics, an open-source project.

Once you are signed up as a user of Measure Chat, if you would like access to the analytics data that is collected please write @leeisensee (in Measure Chat) and permission will be granted. This analytics data is not shared beyond members of the Measure Chat team and the respective solution providers.

What about my information? Will my details be protected?

Your information is never shared or sold. Period, end of sentence.

Won’t Measure Chat eventually become “noisy” like Twitter eventually became?

To protect users from potentially annoying users (sales pitches, SPAM, etc.) each person is verified by a Measure Chat admin to avoid these issues whenever possible. A best effort is made to stop trouble at the door, but we cannot monitor every conversation to ensure you will be happy or on the same page as everyone else. We expect everyone to act like adults and respect the opinions of others, even if they may differ from your own.

Isn’t Measure Chat just for Adobe Analytics and Google Analytics users?

Absolutely not!

Measure Chat covers multiple topics such as R and Statistics, SEO/SEM, Mobile, Data Visualization, Job Postings, and many others. While we do our best to keep a concise group of channels, there are times when particular topics have taken over more general channels and as a result, those topics are broken out into their own channels. As an example, there are channels specific to Adobe and Google but they were created out of necessity rather than any favoritism.

I have a topic worthy of a channel, can I create it?

New public channel creation is limited to admins only. You are always welcome to create a private channel (much like a direct message) if there is a topic you want to discuss with a couple people.

We limit new public channel creation for a couple reasons; content exposure, limiting new user confusion, and idea nurturing.

Content Exposure: If there were 100 channels there is a likelihood that your comment or question wouldn’t access all the people that could best help you, or you would need to cross-post the message, and then some people wouldn’t be able to see a great answer elsewhere.

New User Confusion: There are hundreds of new users added each month to Measure Chat. New users are immediately exposed to a couple key channels (#measure, #lobby-bar, #job-postings, #conferences, etc..) which are typically the seeding ground of discussions. Imagine walking into a party with hundreds of people in a single room – at first you might be overwhelmed by everything but eventually, you might overhear a conversation and join. Now the flip side, if you walk into a party with hundreds of people but everyone is split into hundreds of rooms, you would have no idea what else is going on in those other rooms. We want to foster conversation, not isolate it unless it becomes a distraction.

Idea Nurturing: The best ideas happen in numbers. The more eyes that are on a discussion the more conversation will happen around the topic.

With many channels, we could end up with completely empty channels because they weren’t popular in the last two or three days.

How should vendors behave?

  1. avoid any bias or negative speak about another company or the landscape
  2. add true unbiased user value to an existing conversation if referencing your company or product
  3. no “new feature!” or changelog-like posts
  4. no DMing people about the company or product without their consent first (it is ok to ask “hey I work for X and am happy to chat in a DM if you want to hear about it.”)
  5. don’t make a majority of your posts about the company or the products – it lessens your personal value/trustworthiness.

How can I get the most out of Measure Chat?

We recommend treating Measure Chat as if you are attending an industry event. It is great that you are learning something directly from others, but the best ideas come from when you are engaged yourself. This is especially helpful when you are sharing what you find with coworkers that may not have joined Measure Chat yet.

Measure Chat isn’t intended to take you away from your day job, but it certainly can help you accelerate your learning which can help you get things done faster, more efficiently, or at least with greater understanding and context as to how others in the industry address similar problems.

It is recommended that you pick a couple channels that represent your area of interest, where you cannot only consume but also contribute, but also look around at what your coworkers are doing and join channels relevant to their work as well. Being able to come back to the rest of your team with ideas that they may not have known about previously will only increase your overall value and keep your entire team ahead of your competitors.

Think of Measure Chat as a never-ending conference where everyone has an open mic and whiteboard.