The Measurement Tree
or,
Branching Out:
The IPR Offers A New Measurement Tool
For The New Century

By D.M. Leary

A ruler, a yardstick, a barometer, a template, a gauge, or a tree? That's right, you hear us, a tree. Reach into your PR research tool kit and grab everything you see, now toss it aside. Replace the content with the following measurement ingredients; Target Audience Research, Outcomes, Competitive Benchmarking, Media Analysis Content, Employee Attitude & Behavioral Studies, Brand Awareness Studies, Your Goals & Objectives, and whoopla—you’ve got yourself a Measurement Tree©. While this revolutionary new tool from a group of researchers at The Institute for PR may not be the Holy Grail of PR measurement, it does represent a step in the right direction. In fact, it's the closest step yet, to defining and charting PR's effectiveness.

Let your mind wander for a second and think of the Measurement Tree as a map. Maps contain certain landmarks that represent the basic elements of an area, such as mountains, rivers, and lakes. The Measurement Tree serves a similar function for the global push to define and plot standards for PR measurement. In the same way that a river is identifiable from image to image between different maps, the Tree encourages users to measure certain types of PR campaigns in certain ways, with the intent that if enough standardize their measurement, results may be effectively compared.

The Measurement Tree not only gives the audience a glimpse at a visual display of organizing PR measurement, it delivers a methodology that includes the latest terms and definitions of measurement units, guidelines and white papers. Also included are a variety of comprehensive best practices case studies, including Habitat For Humanity's development of a “Dashboard that Belongs in Every Boardroom,” and GM's "Measuring the Effectiveness of Employee Communications."

What really makes The Measurement Tree tool so unique is that the people behind the scenes represent each of the four "branches" of PR evaluation: agencies, clients, academia and research suppliers. It's a collaborative effort by names synonymous with measurement, including Dr. Walt Lindemann, Professor James Grunig, Bruce Jeffries-Fox and Katharine Delahaye Paine. To grow a tree of your own through the means of the experts, visit http://www.instituteforpr.com/measurement_tree.phtml or write us at KDPaine & Partners.