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Big Changes in Four Years
A measurement retrospective:
More speed, more pressure, more accountability, more media and more business.

by Katie Delahaye Paine

It must be the old newspaper gal in me that just loves an anniversary. Nothing provides a better excuse for a retrospective, be it six months after a hurricane, ten years after an earthquake or, in our case, four years after the launching of KDPaine & Partners. The measurement industry has come a long way since then; I'll bet most of you are using different technology and working for a different company than you were four years ago. Here are the most important recent changes I've noticed in our industry.

Accountability and measurement: An extreme makeover
Measurement is in the middle of its makeover from geek to pretty darn cool. In this post-Enron, SOX era of accountability, the boards are pressuring clients, clients are pressuring agencies and all in all, measurement is just about as cool a concept as Truthiness. And, in fact, measurement is a big part of Truthiness and transparency. As more and more companies come under investigation for their accounting practices -- or worse, their PR practices (Department of Defense, are you listening?) -- the greater the demand for accountability. And the greater the demand for measurement.

Response time has gone from "next day" to "next instant"
The media are faster and the messages more frequent. In my old company four years ago, our snail-mail newsletter went out once a quarter and everyone seemed reasonably happy with its medium and timeliness. With KDPaine & Partners, we went to monthly on the Web with The Measurement Standard, and that too seemed suitable in frequency and format. Today the medium of choice is the blog (see my PR measurement blog at kdpaine.blogs.com) and the industry is hungry for daily updates. The measurement business, like most, is in transition between the traditional one-way form of communications and a new structure where dialog and conversation rules. On the one hand, it's the march of progress. On the other hand, is there really that much happening in the world of PR measurement?

Data digest, not data overload
Too much data, as anyone who studies their Web server logs knows, is not always a good thing. Obviously, quarterly reports aren't current enough for many organizations anymore. But just because people want the latest information at their fingertips doesn't mean they want to respond to data daily. Sometimes it seems that PR professionals are afflicted with a greater level of information overload than space shuttle pilots.

The past four years have seen reports shrink from ten pages to three, and updates become available 24.7.365. It used to be that we would determine when the information was available, now the client decides when he or she wants to access it, and does so via a secure online Website.

Technology makes things a heck of a lot more efficient
Along with this demand for faster access to data has come enormous improvements in productivity. Thanks largely to more efficient software, people who once only dreamed of having data at their finger tips now make data-driven decisions every day.

Cymfony and Biz360 have automated the content analysis business to such an extent that many programs are now being measured that would have been considered "unmeasurable" for budget reasons ten years ago. And here at KDPaine & Partners, Olivier Gaudissart has created software that shaves hours off just about every phase of the measurement process. I'm pleased to say that our revenue per employee is more than double what it was at my old business four years ago. And I'm sure we're not alone in that leap in productivity.

The playing field keeps expanding
In the early days of measurement, we pretty much measured print media: trades, daily newspapers and magazines. Occasionally we'd get a request for broadcast. Boy, how things have changed. There isn't a client anywhere who hasn't at inquired about monitoring blogs and/or consumer generated media. (And we can't wait for them to start asking about wikis, podcasts and whatever else comes up next.) If a measurement firm is going to be around a decade from now, the size and variety of measurement tools will need to expand as quickly, if not faster, than the media we're measuring.

PR -- and measurement -- now plays much better with others
Increasingly, organizations are measuring PR results alongside direct mail or advertising or community relations or employee relations. This trend towards consistency is a great thing, and it's a reflection of a trend we spotted several years ago: Good PR people use measurement to be successful, move up the organizational hierarchy, assume more responsibility for more different types of communications, and take their measurement mindset with them.

Despite the speed of change, a surprising number of things have stayed the same.

• The world is still made up of Martians and Venutians. Martians still think in terms of numbers and charts and graphs. The fastest way to send Venutians running for their space ships is to show them an algorithm. On the other hand, Venutians can chase away the bravest Martian by using too many words in a row when reporting results.
• There are still Mavens and Menaces. Despite our best efforts to turn everyone into a Maven, and to eliminate most Menaces, we still see far too great a split between the measurement wonks that really truly believe in this stuff, and the Menaces that continue to search for a magic bullet or an "AVE" number that makes them feel good but is ultimately meaningless.
• International measurement is still the measurement equivalent of a third world country. Whether it's the cost, the complexity or the differences in culture and mentality, international measurement just hasn't progressed to the extent that domestic measurement has. Too few companies are looking beyond their borders to see what the rest of the world is thinking or saying about them. The reality is that, as in so many other areas, US communicators have their head in the sand way deeper than their counterparts in other countries. Communicators in England, France, Scandinavia, India, China, New Zealand, Australia, Turkey and even Iran are looking seriously into establishing measurement programs, and many are focused on better understanding the perceptions that Americans have of their countries. If only we here in the US were so enlightened.
• Finally, the rules of measurement still apply, despite the radical changes in how we communicate:
  • Measurement is still a comparative process; you need to know what you're going to benchmark yourself against.
  • How you measure is still entirely dependent on what your objectives are.
  • What you measure is still dependent on who your target audiences are.
  • Why you measure should still be because you want to improve your results and make better data-driven decisions.

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.

2. You’ll learn which are the right vendors for your measurement projects.

3. You’ll learn how to design your program right from the start to be easily measureable.

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