Omniture Competition

Yesterday was the culmination of a long month of hard work for Justin and his team. They competed in the Omniture Web Analytics competition. Basically, Omniture is a large technology company here in Utah. They are hired by online companies to track all kinds of info about their site so that they can make recommendations to that company about what is working for them and what they could do to be more effective, etc. It is quite complicated, but I guess some people find web analytics fun! :)

So this whole thing started at the end of January. About 80 teams signed up to compete from BYU and about 40 teams signed up from the University of Utah. Then about 80 total teams submitted their presentation slides to be reviewed by Omniture and 20 teams were selected to present their findings at Omniture for the semi-finals. Out of that group, two teams from BYU and two teams from the U were selected to compete in the finals, which happened yesterday at BYU. Let's just say it has been a long week with lots of very early mornings, late nights and hard work! I think this first picture is very appropriate to start things off. The kids found their daddy still home when they woke up on Thursday this week and decided to spend some quality time cuddling in bed. They definitely miss him when he is so busy.

Thankfully I was able to attend the competition because Marianne, my sister, came to watch the kids. Thank you so much Mar! I was pretty nervous for Justin and his team all afternoon. They presented first which was nice because then they got to watch the remaining presentations. They did a great job! After a long 2 1/2 hours of presenting and questions from the judges, they were ready to announce the winners. Here is a picture of all the finalists on the stage awaiting the results:

It was so exciting when they won first place!

And yes, that is a big check with a big chunk of money for them to split. What a blessing for us! Along with the cash, each of them get a 50" plasma tv to take home. I'm not sure what we're going to do with it. I mean, that's a big tv!

Here is a picture with Justin's team (named .convert) and the Omniture executives.

Here is the happy and relieved team, Oliver, Nate and Justin

Here is Nate wishing that he was as tall as Oliver and Justin

Here is Nate on a stair so that he is as tall as Oliver and Justin

Here is the happy wife (me!)

And here is Angela, the happy wife of Nate, who sat with me as we nervously waited for the results

And here is Brandon modeling the other winnings from Omniture:

an Omniture blanket,

an Omniture towel,

an Omniture backpack,

an Omniture t-shirt,

an Omniture hat,

and an Omniture water bottle with candy and 2 Utah Jazz tickets in the box seats with dinner included for tonight which we won't use because it's my Mom's birthday and we're going to see Mar's play, but we gave them to another happy MBA couple

And to top it all off, this is the first time in 8 competitions that an MBA team has won. It's about time! So there you have it! Whew!

To celebrate last night, we decided to take the kids out for a fun dinner at the mall and ice cream cones from McD's. That was the favorite part!

Here are the happy kids that are glad to be spending some fun time with daddy!

And of course the happy wife again, who is happy that it is OVER!!!

Congrats Justin! I'm so proud of you!