The second winner would be, “hand-picked by Jim Sterne based on a complex algorithm of poignancy, humor, wit and panache, all baked into 140 characters and served on a bed of fresh tagliatelle in a tomato, basil and oregano sauce.”

Then, I went on vacation in London – not to visit SMX, the Adobe Summit or even Web Analytics Wednesday. Although I would have loved to, there was no time as we were there to see Shakespeare’s Henry VI, Part 3 in Macedonian and take the cast and crew out for a champagne cast party. Hey, a man’s got to have hobbies.

So no, Casper, you didn’t miss anything:

I am just late to the table with my selection of the winner.

And, since you prodded, let’s start with yours:

Pandering to the judge seemed to be the order of the day. More people tweeted that they want to see me than I expected. Pandering without bribery is a crime in these parts and as there were no offers of cash, gem stones, silverware or car washing, I dropped them all to the bottom of the list. Nice try, folks!

The Wry Smirk  award goes to amysample who cited her own session: Engagement in Public Media: PBS and NPR Case Studies co-presented with Sondra Russell form NPR. I sure hope you intend to see it Amy! I also hope you know that your speaker’s pass is good for both days so winning this contest would have netted a zero gain and deprived some other poor tweeter of the opportunity. But thanks for playing!

And so, by process of elimination, through the magic of retargeting, confirmed through a process of multivariate open-source selection and by dint of the Diogenes lantern search algorithm, I hereby grant the One Day eMetrics pass to eMetrics enthusiast Farris Khan, known far and wide as ‏@BobbleHeadGuru for his straight forward tweet (with a twist) identifying the session he most wants to see:

Yes, it was Farris’s one-two punch of following the spirit of the contest with the tipping his baseball cap to our previous Haiku contests that won the day. His 5-7-5 syllable format is our winner.

Intriguing title
Predictive Analytics
With Satisfaction

In fact, his submission was so good, I’m upgrading his pass
to Two days.
In fact, his submission was so good, I’m upgrading Heather’s
pass to Two days as well!

So the next time we run a contest, remember:

Bribery beats pandering
Quality beats quantity
Cleverness beats sincerity
Sincerity beats silly
Silly works wonders

See you in Chicago!

Happy holidays to all!

Names have been deleted to protect the guilty, but you know who you are… Mike.

Happy holidays to all, indeed!