Oct 1
RELATIONSHIP MEASUREMENT TECHNIQUES
New Book on How to Measure Relationships
Now in Final Proofing and Available for Download at No Charge
"Measuring Public Relationships" by Katie Delahaye Paine is a practical guide to hands-on public relations measurement.
As public relations professionals realize, PR measurement is a multi-disciplinary combination of communications, research and statistical methods, social psychology, and office politics. Katie Paine's new book adds the study of human relationships to the mix—a theme that’s always been present, but that is now far more accessible thanks to the recent development of practical survey techniques for measuring relationships. Katie's book is now almost ready to be printed, and interested readers can download it as a pdf file here.

Sept 21
PUBLIC RELATIONS MEASUREMENT CONFERENCE
Measurement Summit Preview
Must-see highlights of the conference,
plus, the best things to do in Portsmouth while you are there.
For the fifth fall in a row, the crème de la crème of the research, measurement and corporate communications community will be in Portsmouth NH, for the IPR's annual Summit on Measurement. We started this event as The Summit on the Future of Measurement five years ago with the idea of bringing all the measurement mavens together to find out what the future looked like. We turned it over to the IPR in 2004 and it just keeps getting better and better every year. Here are some highlights, you can find the complete agenda here. And if you'd like to start planning your extra-curricular activities, see Bill Paarlberg's list of the best non-Summit things to do...

Sept 21
TRUST AND TRANSPARENCY MEASUREMENT
Trust and Transparency Go Hand In Hand
Brad Rawlins' research shows that doing things right
isn't nearly as important as doing the right thing.
In a recent presentation at the Universidad Del Norte in Barranquilla Colombia, Dr. Rawlins outlined his findings. The overall results of the study demonstrate that transparency and trust are highly correlated, and, "one could conclude that as organizations become more transparent they will also become more trusted." Although the study was limited to employees, the results are strong enough to imply that the correlation between trust and transparency will hold for other stakeholder groups as well...

Sept 21
RELATIONSHIP MEASUREMENT CASE STUDY
Relationships Audit Reveals Precise Public Relations Weaknesses
"The client even applauded at the end of our presentation!"
by Forrest W. Anderson Until I tried it, I dismissed the idea of measuring relationships. However, I've changed my thinking since using these measures in a communications audit led by Paul Raab at Denver-based Linhart Public Relations. The relationship measures gave us unexpected insights that led to solid business and communications recommendations. The client, the National Governing Board (NGB) for a U.S. Olympic sport, even applauded at the end of our presentation! They tell us they refer to it and use it every day -- the COO actually cuts and pastes our recommendations when assigning communications tasks to staff!

Sept 21
THE MEASUREMENT MAVEN AND MENACE OF THE MONTH AWARDS
The Maven:
Brad Rawlins
Associate Department Chair, Brigham Young University
You know how they say that dogs and their owners start to look like each other after they've spent a long time together? I think that might have happened to Brad Rawlins. Not that I know what his dog looks like, but he does spend most of his time researching trust and transparency, and he looks like such a nice guy....

The Menace:
Don't get me wrong, comScore does a lot of things right, and in the past we've even nominated them for our Maven of the Month. But their latest black box introduction of the "comScore Conversational Media report" does far more harm than good...

Sept 18
THE PAINE OF MEASUREMENT
The Old Bottom Line Collides with the New Public Relations
New public relations research -- old corporate mindset.
PR people in board rooms all over are headed for a confrontation that makes recent skirmishes between presidential candidates look like scuffles in the proverbial sandbox. For years, the vast majority of organizations have been driven by a single bottom line, profit. This was relatively easy to calculate. You added up what it cost to make something, plus a bit extra for administration and overhead, then subtracted that from what you charged the customer and you had your bottom line. But life in the 21st Century is anything but simple. Recent research has demonstrated that the old bottom line is not the whole story...

Sept 10
JENNY SCHADE'S MAKING IT COUNT
Seven Steps to Ignite Employee Engagement
How to overcome data doom and gloom.
It was a dark and stormy day at the retail giant's corporate headquarters. I walked into my client's office and sensed despair. Her desk was piled high with reams of survey data, benchmark comparisons, and ominous-looking charts. "The employee survey results are in," she said glumly. "Engagement is really low – we're below the benchmark on almost every key measure. Now what do we do? It's my job to fix this!"

Aug 20
MEASUREMENT BOOKS
Blogging Book Gets Mixed Review:
Some good things, some not-so-good things about John Cass' Strategies and Tools for Corporate Blogging.
I really like John Cass. I've hung out with him at numerous conferences and have been delighted to be part of the SNCR advisory board with him. Criticizing the work of a friend does not come easily, but I have to give his book a decidedly mixed review. Partly that comes from high expectations; John's a very smart guy and I expected something over the top from him. But while Strategies... is a useful book, it has definite limitations...

Aug 20
THE PAINE OF MEASUREMENT
Optimum Content Score: An Index Number to Love?
Here's a quick and easy way to design your customized article content score.
For years I've ranted about why a standard PR metric won't work (see "The Problem of PR Indexes: Magic Number or Big Headache?"). My argument has been that each PR program is different, so how can you possibly compare them all with one number? However, I am beginning to believe that there might be a solution to this problem, and that is to embrace the differences: build the differences into the measure. Here at KDPaine & Partners we now offer our clients a measure that is tailored to match their individual program goals...

Aug 16
MEASUREMENT TACTICS
How To Measure Success by the Gram Rather Than by the Ton
Five simple measurement steps for smaller organizations.
Here at KDPaine & Partners, we've recently seen more and more non-profits and very small businesses seeking ways to measure their marketing success. For these smaller organizations, it's not a matter of counting or analyzing thousands of media clips--getting 10 media clips would be a huge victory. So how do you measure success by the gram rather than the ton? It's actually a lot simpler than you think. You just need to think differently. Here are five simple steps for smaller organizations to get started in measurement...

July 31
MEASUREMENT BOOKS
2.0 Good Books on Marketing 2.0

There might be a thousand people on the planet that fully grok the implications of social media on the world of marketing. Then there are another ten thousand or so who think they understand it. And then there's the rest of the marketers on the planet who are clueless about what is about to hit them. For any of the millions in that third category, here are two new books that should really help...

July 20
JENNY SCHADE'S MAKING IT COUNT
Strange But True Tales
"The Personal Massager" and seven other bizarre adventures from the consulting frontline.
Colleagues often tease me that I have more than my share of Strange But True adventures. I'm not sure if I actually attract more of these situations than other people, but I do acknowledge that I'm more open to finding the humor in unusual workplace events. I think you'll enjoy the following seven bizarrely humorous real-life adventures...

July 6
MEASUREMENT MISTAKES
How To Really Mess Up Your PR Measurement Program
Ten fatal PR research mistakes and how to avoid them.
Despite the best laid plans, public relations measurement programs can sometimes go awry. Unforeseen problems and errors can creep in and part of your job is to figure out how to get the job done anyway. But there are certain errors your program just won't survive. Some mistakes will leave you with no options but to learn an expensive lesson and to start over. Here's ten fatal research errors that now you won't have to learn about the hard way (and, yes, these will be on the exam)...

© 2007 KDPaine & Partners LLC, all rights reserved. Read the Masthead. Meet our Advisory Board. Look here for reprint information.

The Measurement Standard publishes articles on public relations measurement, public relations research, public relations effectiveness and related topics.

Great Minds on Measurement
"Science is built with facts as a house is with stones -- but a collection of facts is no more a science than a heap of stones is a house."
---Jules Henri Poincare

KDPaine's Speaking Schedule
(see this page for the most up-to-date list):
-- 9/25: PRSA Boston Breakfast Program: "Measuring Up: Gauging the Effectiveness of Your Public Relations Efforts."
-- 9/26: Ragan's, Chicago
-- 10/2: 2nd Annual DIY User Group, Durham, NH
-- 10/3: IPR Measurement Summit: Measurement 101
-- 10/4: IPR Measurement Summit: "How to Measure the Impact of Blogs and Other Consumer-Generated Media"
-- 10/11: Tulsa: PRSA Professional Development
-- 10/12: Arlington, VA: ASMI Banking and Marketing Excellence
-- 10/16: Covington, KY: IABC Heritage Region Conference
-- 10/17: Washington, DC: eMetrics Summit
-- 10/20: Athens, GA: Social Media and PR Conference
-- 10/21: Philadelphia: PRSA
-- 10/30: PR News Webinar

KDPaine & Partners News
-- KDPaine & Partners and CustomScoop are giving the UNC School of Journalism and Mass Communication database access, design capabilities and data valued at $500,000. more here
-- KDPaine & Partners are finalists in PR News' Platinum PR Awards 2007, Research & Measurement category. more here
-- Second annual DIY Dashboard User Group meeting to be held in Durham, NH, 10/2/07. more here

Measurement Tip of the Month
Measuring trade shows? Consider a simple but very useful measure we've had success with. Categorize all booth visitors on a scale of 1 to 3: 1 being "visual only," they see the booth but don't come in; 2, they actually walk into the display area; and 3, they spend time for a demo or conversation. We've used data gathered this way to figure out which booth tactics just drew attention and which actually generated real interest or leads. --KDP

From Our Blog Edition:

Sept 24: Your Personal Wire Service Based on Your Phone Conversation?
There's an interesting article in the NY Times this morning about Pudding Media, a company that plans an Internet phone phone service that would listen in to your conversation and deliver targeted advertisements to your computer while you talk. Seems like someone could easily do a similar thing with press releases... Read more here.

Sept 17: NY Times Article on Research Difficulties
In yesterday's NY Times Magazine there's a great article by Gary Taubes on the difficulties of doing epidemiology and medical research that will interest anyone doing public relations measurement or empirical research in general... Read more here.

Sept 9: A Real-time Dashboard Public Relations Measurement People Can Only Dream About, So Far: The World Clock
If you haven't seen the World Clock, it's one of the most amazing examples of a real-time dashboard.

Sept 7: When Is An Impression Not An Impression: How Does Public Relations Measurement Take News Timing Into Account?
The other day I was re-reading Ed Moed's blog post about how much media coverage depends on what other events happen to be happening at the same time. His point, in part, was that events get pushed out of the media by other events, and what we think of as news actually depends greatly on what other news is also being covered. And this got me to thinking about how public relations measurement typically measures media outputs with media content analysis, but -- to my knowledge -- does not typically take the news environment into account... Read more here.

Measurement Blog Action To Check In On:
To find recent blog mentions of "PR measurement," go to technorati.com. Hey, we've done it for you already, just click here!

Our Back Issues are now organized by subject matter, take a look at this list:

You will need a subscription to read most of them.

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.