Thank you to all who attended the annual Alldredge Lecture and Business Meeting on Tuesday! We had a total of 39 attendees, with 11 of them attending virtually. For those of you that could not make the event, you can watch Marilyn Harmacek’s talk online. You can also download Marilyn’s slides, “Lost in Translation: Measuring and Managing Good Web Intentions.” Jason Youngstrom took some great photos of the event, which you can view on Flickr.

The event started with dinner and networking opportunities. A special thank you goes out to Maura McGrath for making the dinner arrangements. After spending some quality time catching up with old friends and meeting new ones, Rachel Bates Wilfahrt started the business meeting. As many of the members had a strong connection with Kathleen Rainwater, a few minutes were dedicated to her memory. Members were given a chance to tell stories of how much she did for the chapter and influenced the lives around her. She will be missed dearly.

Laura Cullerton then announced the recipient of the Meritorious Service Award, Joe Kraus. After that, Rachel gave recognition to the 2012 officers. Thank you for your time and service to the chapter.

Throughout the next year, Rachel plans to increase communication at both the chapter level and within the greater SLA community. She will be helping with the Virtual Lunch webinars and chairing Spotlight On Your Career. The webinars have provided us with opportunities to reach our more remote users, and SOYC will provide tips on how individuals can transition to new job opportunities. Finally, she will be helping the new officers, which she introduced next, learn their roles and reach their goals. Thank you in advance to both the executive and advisory boards for your contributions to the chapter.

Rachel also gave a short recap of the Leadership Summit, which she and I attended. She encouraged members to get involved and attend the Summit as soon as possible. At the conclusion of the business meeting, Rachel introduced the speaker of the Shirley Alldredge Lecture, Marilyn Harmacek, President of MHConsulting, Inc. Marilyn gave a fabulous presentation on web analytics.

Marilyn stressed the need for web designers and companies to understand what they want their website to measure, why they want it to measure that, and how you want it to be presented before choosing a web analytics tool. You must set goals for your website, monitor and analyze it, and change it as appropriate. Marilyn also provided tips to make your website even more productive. Even if you follow all of the best practices, it may not be right for the customer. So ask your customers what they want and make your website work for them. Want to hear the whole talk? Watch it online!