2024: Measurelab’s year in review

Same same but different

At the beginning of the year, I wasn’t quite sure what Measurelab would look like by the end of 2024. Altman’s assistants had just been unleashed. The robots were on the march. Would the analytics arena be conquered by AI? Would we all be replaced by intelligent agents?

As it turns out, no. Things are pretty much the same – on the surface at least. And that’s no bad thing. After the tumultuous ups and downs of a rollercoaster 2023, I’ll take steady, deliberate progress any day.

Establishing a new normal

If 2023 was the year of the GA4 migration, then 2024 has been about establishing a new normal. A lot of that has involved rebuilding trust. Resolving issues with data discrepancies, explaining gaps and dealing with the vagaries of modelled data – helping clients come to terms with the loss of absolute certainty in web analytics. There was also the curveball of Consent Mode v2 and another about-turn on third party cookie deprecation – thanks again, Google, you certainly keep us on our toes.

But we weren’t just focused on today’s challenges – we helped clients build for tomorrow. For those with aspirations of implementing AI models and applications, which is errr… everyone, the quality of the underlying data is paramount. So no surprise we’ve seen an uptick in server-side tracking implementations and Google Cloud data integration and transformation projects, with an emphasis on observability and governance.

With that foundation (re-)established, it’s still remarkable to see the impact a well-designed dashboard can make. And we should know. A welcome reminder there’s plenty of situations where AI isn’t necessary – many companies just need better analysis and the confidence to act or automate.

That said, we’ve also been busy building some exciting AI applications, including an LLM-driven chat interface for one client with the potential to transform how business stakeholders interact with their confidential data. Exciting times.

New names, new faces

While we’ve been dealing with many of the same old problems, how we get to the solutions is certainly changing, with AI-assisted programming and a number of automations now fully embedded in our ways of working. All spearheaded by Brian, our friendly but feisty internal AI assistant and agent of change.

Along with Brian, we’ve welcomed the distinctly more human Hugo, Mac and Prasanna to the team – extending our strategic and data engineering capabilities, not to mention a fine head of flaxen hair, a magnificent tache and a mean mushroom curry.

With the work becoming more connected and complex, we’ve reorganised into multi-skilled squads, comprising consultants, analysts, engineers and implementation specialists. Not a dramatic transformation, just a deliberate shift toward how work gets done best – through shared context and combined expertise.

New clients benefiting from this move include (in alphabetical order), Autodata, CSL Vifor, Exeter University, Leightons Opticians, New Era, Riverford, and Unit4 – and we’ve been delivering some chunky projects for and through some new agency partners too. But none were more welcome than the renewals of our perennial partnerships with the BFI, CIPD, EDF, Euro Car Parts, Google, Springer Nature and others.

The gatherings

But it’s not all work work work. We switched up our social calendar this year, focusing our organisational efforts on four quarterly all-company in-person gatherings, interspersed with some virtual meet-ups and socialising.

The spring saw us take a break in Manchester. A Spring Break of sorts – just with umbrellas and anoraks, rather than board shorts and bikinis. We sacked off the formal presentations and held our very own two-day unconference, MeasureCamp-style. Something we’ll be doing again, for sure.

For the summer party, we gathered in a Peckham pottery studio to demonstrate our creative talents – or in some cases, the distinct lack of them (is it a bird? is it a plane?) – before savouring some rooftop cocktails in the evening sunshine.

In the autumn there was a visit to the fantastic Judges Lodgings in Gloucester for our Oktoberfest overnighter. More unconferencing, a magnificent home-cooked mexican feast and a game of traitors that put our team bonds to the test. Congrats to Magda, Matthew and Dan for scooping this year’s company values awards.

And finally a Christmas party in Soho with a visit to Ronnie Scott’s for some swing, soul, jazz and carols at their All-Stars christmas lunch (and we all know who the real stars of the show were).

Inbetween there was an AI hackathon where we built custom assistants and an automation-focused Zapathon (OK, that one could have gone better), a couple of poker nights, plus a smattering of Skribbling, Geoguessring, Mario Karting and quizzing.

Looking forward to 2025

Maybe next year will be the year everything changes beyond recognition. I suspect not, but the truth is, nobody knows – least of all those who know the most about all this AI stuff.

You can keep your trumped-up transformations, we’re getting our heads down to focus on more pragmatic progress. On behalf of Measurelab, I’d like to wish you a year of incremental improvement and many many marginal gains.