It gets tricky when you mix in the network of relationships we strive to maintain. In my classes, I often use the very simple example of a factory closing to illustrate. Investors may celebrate a closing, since it drives down costs. Customers may celebrate the lower prices that result. Employees and communities affected take a very different view, and for good reason.

In the end, we PR types must find a way to communicate the tough decisions that accompany sustainability. But somewhere along the line, relationships suffer.

Andrew: I didn’t mention the “conversation index” because I can’t translate it into real value (with apologies to Stowe Boyd). It does tell me conversations are happening, but I’m not sure that translates to any meaningful measure of attitude or behavior change. Mix in some content analysis and the index has a bit more meaning. That said, I’m pleased with my own index at ToughSledding, about 5 comments to every post (if you count my own).

João: Great feedback. I have a tendency to focus on those measures that play well in the C suites. But you are absolutely correct. Our measures must be matched to the task. Most top executives aren’t concerned with our traffic measures, yet we know that the longer someone spends on a site the more likely that person has become educated on our message. And it is that education that translates to the supporting behaviors we later seek.

Heather & João: There is always a danger when your focus is on “our” publics or stakeholders. We need to push back from the “table” and give our management’s a balanced focus and to insist that not all measures be focused only on “bottom-line” behaviors that benefit the organization. But unless we can show how our activities make the organization more successful, it’s difficult to sell our services to top managers. Getting beyond bi-directional symmetry will be a lot easier if have measures that show organizational impact. That’s self-centered, to be sure, but I think a more realistic approach.

I agree on the need to go further than bi-directional symmetry – which of course links into networks and more complicated relationships. Thinking back to the original social media topic of this post – that of course, is the relevant aspect that we need to understand and evaluate.

Thaks for the link to that discussion. I second Tom’s view when he says that he doesn’t agree with the attempt made by Jim Nail to substitute Output, Outtake and Outcome by Media Influence, Audience Influence and Business Influence.

I couldn’t agree more with you on the idea that objectives of our action shouldn’t be organisation-centered (in fact, I’m a great critic of the idea behind the expression “my organisation’s publics” because often we tend to believe that the publics belog to organisations). In fact, I’ve recently wrote about the fact that bi-directional symmetry is no longer enough as decisions satisfying both a focal organisation and a specific public might generate damages to other publics or to society itself.

I think we also need to take care in these methods and reflections on evaluation that success isn’t just considered from the perspective of the organisation.

If we are genuinely interested in two-way communications, one issue with a focus on achieving defined corporate objectives is that these may need to adapt as a result of the process of discussion and relationship building.

Decision makers will need to be counselled that an adaptive strategy may mean objectives accommodating the needs of publics, not just an asymmetric approach in satisfying its own needs.

I just downloaded Katie Payne’s book, thanks for mentioning it Karen.

From a conceptual standpoint, I think we should use more often the different professional roles (using Benita’s proposition, I like to speak in terms of Strategist, Manager, and Technician) to comment on PR concepts and issues, like that of Measurement, at different levels.

It’s clear that the bottom-line impact of investment is a concern of the C suite executives, and that the PR Strategist should be able to walk that talk. But it is also true that in order to do that, he must be helped by a lot of other measures made at different levels by Managers and Technicians. For example, the sales, cross sales and reduced services cost measures (assuming they are relevant indicators for the Strategist) must be broken down to small measures in order to be fully measured (e.g. You know each sale comes from a prospect and that you need website visitors to generate prospects, and so on…) – You see, I’m speaking here about difference between outputs, outcomes, outtakes and outgrowths.

On the other hand, it seems to me that we are mostly discussing the value of information. (and I quite often find myself talking to people who to forget that processing information is one of the most important tasks of PR within organisations). Speaking from a semantical point of view and not from the point of view of the Mathematical Theory of Information, the general value of information on measurement depends on how you’re able to relate it to your objectives. Saying that your website had an increase in visitors, time-spent on site, average depth of the visit and page views, etc. might be boring and uninteresting for a top level executive. But if you are running a campaign and you proposed to spend money to achieve an increase of X % in the period Y in those indicators, then it becomes a very important information. So probably the best way to make your measures relevant to decision-makers is by relating it to pre-agreed objectives.

Andrew Careaga,
who wishes the CI were higher on his blog

If you are referring to more traditional PR practices, likely that is more deserving of an original post by you.

Effective today (Friday), Bill is on an extended (and mainly offline) weekend of travel and fun. I doubt he will be checking in again until Tuesday. In the meantime, I’d encourage you to continue the discussion. Bill would particularly appreciate hearing success stories from non-(North) American readers of PRC.