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The Paine of Measurement

How Far We've Come,
and How Far We Have to Go

As we recycle the champagne bottles and blow out the candles on KDPaine & Partners' fourth birthday cake, I sit here feeling quite overwhelmed with how far we've come and how far we have to go. We have so much to thank our clients -- and you our readers -- for.

In truth, the launching of KDPaine & Partners four years ago on St. Patrick's Day was really the rebirth of an idea that took shape some twenty years ago in my previous business, but got sidetracked along the way. The idea was to create measurement tools that would allow any PR person anywhere on the planet to measure his or her results in a way that was appropriate to their objectives and budgets.

I believe we've done a pretty good job of that mission and of growing KDPaine & Partners in general. In just four years we've created a million dollar business, we're measuring results for clients around the world, we have installations of our software in dozens of agencies and organizations on several continents, and we've grown this little newsletter to an authoritative voice in the PR community with over 10,000 readers every month.

But boy, do we have far to go. Having just returned from two amazing conferences, the New Communications Forum in Palo Alto and the IPRRC in Miami, I've seen the future and it is exhausting. More media, more forms of communications, more variety of objectives and an infinite array of publics.

Ahh, the good old days when audiences were monolithic and media were always at your finger tips. Yeah, right. What was I smoking?

The reality is that media have always been changing, audiences were never monolithic, and the consumers were always out there talking to each other. We just weren't quite as aware of them as we are now. The challenges aren't really any greater, they're just different.

What we're in right now is a great period of transition between the traditional one-way form of communications and a new world where dialog and conversation rules. The concepts set out in Cluetrain and Lovemarks are becoming more and more proven, as the old way of doing business fades into the background.

I have to say, despite the post-birthday hangover, I greet this new era with more enthusiasm than I've ever felt for the business we're in. More people -- and more smart people -- are coming on board the measurement bandwagon every day. There are more tools and more innovations appearing every day. No longer are there just a handful of us with the answers. There are dozens showing up on my blog and other blogs every week.

Thank God. The job of being a guru can get lonely, and it's just delightful that so many new smart people out there are thinking about the same things we've been thinking about for the past two decades.

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.

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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51 Durham Point Road, Durham, NH 03824
603-868-1550 fax: 603-868-3346 www.measuresofsuccess.com