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The Paine of Measurement

New Tools
For The New Year
My public relations measurement tools wish list.

Santa was very good to me in 2006. I got the bicycling accoutrements that I wanted, some jewelry I adore, and some very cool stuff for my house. What Santa didn't deliver are some new and better measurement tools. So here's my list for this coming Xmas, (just a little early):

1. A way to automatically monitor and analyze blog comments. At the moment, all the automated analysis tools only monitor the blog body itself, so in order to find out what people are saying in response to the blog, you need to actually open up that blog and read the comments. Which can take a very long time.

2. Accurate circulation figures for blogs and not just the biggest, most mainstream ones. Not that I want to compare new media to old media, but it would nice to have an answer to one of life's most persistent questions: How do you determine the "influence" of a blog?

3. A giant sledge hammer to smash all black boxes and proprietary indexes and make all researchers more transparent. See Jim Macnamara's article in this issue: "Transparency, Not Black Box Measurement."

4. An easy to use, and easily understood social network mapping program.

5. A common language to describe the various elements of consumer generated media.

6. A 50% increase in the number of organizations that measure both outputs and outcomes.

7. An end to the debate about the need for a PR measurement standard – There will never be a way to measure return on your PR investment across the board, because everyone's definition of "return" is different. (And besides, there already is a Measurement Standard – it's a newsletter.)

8. More data-driven decisions, and less emphasis on the latest technological gizmo to collect the data.

9. A way to figure out if Second Life and other virtual communities are worth it.

10. Wireless power everywhere there is wireless internet.

Wishing you large measures of success,

You know you need to measure your results, but chances are there’s never been enough money in your budget for evaluation. Until now.
KDPaine & Partners’ new Do-It-Yourself Dashboard system combines a Web-based application with professional consulting to enable PR professionals to customize their own PR dashboards. Look here for more information.

1. You’ll learn how to use hard numbers to prove the results of your PR efforts. (Plus, it's free.)

2. You’ll learn which are the right vendors for your measurement projects. (Yes, it's free.)

3. You’ll learn how to design your program right from the start to be easily measureable. (Plus, yes, it's free.)

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