Posted on 07.25.11

Lunch-n-Learn 4: Fritters and Analytics

by Jeff Livorsi

Lunch-n-Learn number four was a scorcher inside and out.

Our fourth Lunch-n-Learn Thursday took place on the hottest day of the year so far. Bryan whipped up a salad and some excellent summer squash vegetable fritters with white mushroom sauce while Tim shared his notes for an upcoming workshop for the Arts and Business Council of Chicago on website analytics and social media metrics.

Keeping with the theme of purchasing the majority of our items at the Andersonville Farmers Market, Bryan rustled up a fantastic vegetarian meal, leaving our kitchen 90 degrees and smoky (thanks electric stove), while it was 400 degrees outside with almost 100% humidity. After we ate, Tim gave an informative demonstration on using Google Analytics and social metrics tools to glean actionable business information from your online presence. Here’s what went down…

Lunch:

The entree is based on a recipe from the book Simply in Season (World Community Cookbook) and the sauce was based on a recipe from the book More-With-Less Cookbook.

Summer Squash Vegetable Fritters

• ⅓ cup flour
• ½ t baking powder
• ½ t salt
• ⅛ t pepper
• 2 eggs

1. Mix to form a smooth batter.
2. Add ingredients from below (summer squash option).
3. Drop a large spoonful of batter onto a greased/oiled frying pan, and fry until golden.
4. Turn and cook on other side until done.

• 3 cups grated summer squash
• ½ cup onion
• 1 T rosemary

Basic White Mushroom Sauce

• 4 T butter
• 4 T flour
• ¼ t salt
• 1 cup milk
• ½ cup of sauteed mushrooms
• ¼ cup of grated parmesan cheese

1. Melt the butter in a sauce pan
2. Whisk in flour and salt and cook until smooth & thickened
3. Add milk, mushrooms and cheese
4. Whisk to keep the sauce smooth & thickened

NOTE:  you can use parsley instead of rosemary, and parmesan cheese is optional.

Learn:

While we were enjoying Bryan’s dish Tim shared notes from an upcoming Arts and Business Council workshop on the topic of web analytics and social media metrics best practices. He used the Mightybytes site as a general case study. Tim stressed the following points:

• The importance of defining very specific goals, objectives, and targets.
• Why benchmarking and comparative data over time is critical to success.
• Using data to track whether online marketing efforts (blogging, social media, etc.) are effective and if so, by how much.
• Interpreting how efforts are tied together.
• Different views of reports in Google Analytics: Delta, Pivot, Segmentation, and so on.
• Using Annotations in GA to track dates blog posts were published; cross-referencing those with traffic spikes.
• How virtual pageviews and event tracking can be used to track unfinished forms, downloads, and other important metrics.
• Setting goals and using funnels to track goal success.
• Using third party payment gateways in tandem with Google Analytics to track sales and e-commerce data.
• Using campaign tracking functions with Google URL Builder.

Lunch-n-Learn Photos

Here are some photos of Lunch-n-Learn Thursday V.4 in action:

Until next week…

We can’t wait for what is in store for next Thursday’s Lunch-n-Learn. Will Tim keep up with the Joneses and cook an amazing meal? Will the presentation put anybody to sleep? Is it going to be 746 degrees outside? We’ll find out next week. Same mighty-kitchen, same mighty-Thursday!

Lunch-N-Learn 5