KDPaine's PR Measurement Blog

What to you wish for in 2008?

Geoff Livingston posted his : Ten Social Media Wishes for 2008 and asked for others to list theirs. So here are mine:

 

1. I wish      that people would stop looking for one social media measurement tool and      realize that social media is a many faceted phenomenon with many different      goals and objectives and there will never be one metric that satisfies      everyone, just as there isn’t all encompassing metric for traditional PR, despite the best efforts of those nice Canada folks in.
2. I wish that people would stop using the excuse of “no standard for measurement”  o not be accountable for their marketing and PR efforts
3. I wish for a “silo-busting” bomb or application that will get market research departments to share information with PR so we can truly see the impact of   social media and traditional PR on outcomes
4. I hope that society breeds more Measurment Mavens and that all Measurement  Menaces move to Mars.
5. I wish      for more authenticity and transparency for all our clients and friends,      because that’s the only way people will build trust and credibility.
6. I wish      for more accuracy in the measurement discussion. Tracking words or phrases      is not and never will be measurement. Lets call a yardstick a yardstick      and be real about whether we are simply monitoring or actually producing      data that helps us make better decisions.
7. I hope      that all those students that are flooding into PR and Marketing classes      get the measurement/research bug and go into my field. It’s our only hope.     
8. I hope      the US loses its arrogance over its marketing and measurement prowess and learns from the      likes of Metrica, Salience and Canada’s Joe Thornley.
9. I hope      we can figure out how to measure Twitter and Utterz and Seesmic before the marketers mess it up
10. I hope and pray Barack Obama wins in November 2008

Virtual vs real communities

Shel Israel and Jeremiah Owyang have been going at it trying to define the term community. At roughly the same time they were doing their on-line community thing, I was doing my actual community ritual, having coffee with "the girls" on Sunday morning at Breaking New Grounds. For over two years a group of us have met at 8 am on almost every Sunday morning to walk/run thru the streets of Durham and the campus of UNH. We typically wind up at Breaking New Grounds around 9-ish so that other less atheltic types can join us for the fun and the conversations. The one rule is that anyone who doesn't make it is the #1 topic of conversation. We speculate about her love life, her job prospects, her happiness, her marriage -- whatever the concerns of the day. After that we get down to talking about politics or work or whatever strikes our fancy.
Yesterday we talked about blogs. Why people write them, why people read them, how you find them, and how people find the time to read them. I advanced my theory that people are finding the time because they are spending less time doing other things -- watching the news on TV, or reading a physical paper. (On a side note, I had to unwrap a Christmas present the other day just so I could start a fire. It's been so long since I subscribed to a newspaper, I didn't have a single newspaper or anything resembling one in the house.)
But it's not just blogs. It's Facebook,  where I'm connecting to people all over the world that share my common interest in measurement - -and reconnecting with people I haven't seen since high school. It's Twitter where one funny story about frozen peas has now raised thousands of dollars and connected survivors everywhere -- and taught everyone just how influential a 140 character mini-post can be.
I raised the question to Tom Sander on the impact of social networking on social capital and we agreed that it would be an interesting area to study.
My take is that electronic connectedness of all types enhances social capital. Is my email thank you note any less heart felt than the ones I used to write in long hand. Hell no. In fact, I can express myself much better now with a key board than I can with a pen. Is the connection that I make on Facebook any more or less valuable than one I make at a Christmas party. Of course not, the only difference, as Shel Israel points out, is that if I don't like the online community I'm in, it's a heck of a lot easier to pick up and move than it is to move out of your physical community. I can ignore a friend request on Facebook alot more easily than I can ignore the call for help from a friend who is stranded, carless, in a snowstorm.
And maybe that's the lesson in all of this. Friendship isn't just about convenience and common interests. It's about doing the stuff that matters because its the right thing to do.
Happy New Year to all my friends wherever you may  be.

When all is said and done, it's still winter in New Hampshire

Walter Shapiro is one of my favorite political writers and he is currently blogging at Roadies for Salon. His rules for the road are priceless. He is currently, along with the rest of the media, in Iowa trying to figure out who will win the caucuses on Thursday. We in New Hampshire chose to pick our candidates more traditionally, by going to a booth and actually casting a ballot,  so we look at those Iowans as a bit odd, but still similar to us in that ultimately, we are still powerless against the weather--

I' m looking out on what has to be the  sixth snow storm of this season and it still takes my breath away  how beautiful  the snow is before the snow plows, and  snow shoes, and skis and  shovels  make their imprints.

But then you think that a storm like this one,

that keeps some voters home and brings others out, could in fact determine who becomes President of the US.  For all our electronics and on-line communities, our virtual offices and instant connectedness, we still can't do much about Mother Nature's whims.

Once again the Canadians are taking the lead..

Joe Thornley is proposing a Roundtable on Social Media Measurement"
Guess I'll be in Canada in May.

Why I do what I do

I just read Shel Israel's post on the the quietest time on the net, and it really hit home. The importance of real conversations, and real human contact. I’m sitting here, in front of roaring fire, burning wood that grew on my farm, looking at a giant 16-foot  Christmas tree that was cut down and put up by two rockin dudes that work for me, Jeremy Willis and Peter Kowalski. The fact that it bears a distinct resemblance to my overweight Maine Coon Cat, Catalina, is not lost on anyone.It is covered with ornaments all of which were given to me by friends over the past 7 years since my house burned down. Each one reminds me of someone or somewhere I hold dear.

Over the fireplace hangs a quilt made by m

y friend Pam. I'm cuddling under another quilt made by my cousin Amy. I'm looking at the stockings hung by the chimney with care, made for me by friends and relatives and stuffed by my cousin Lucy who is the ultimate stocking stuffer.

And it occurs to me, this is why I do what I do. Why I struggle to keep all the balls juggling, why I work as hard as I do to pay the taxes and the mortgage and keep it all going. It's also why I love Christmas. It's all for one moment like this. In front of a fire, on a full moon night, having just seen most of the people I love most on the planet in the last week.. It's for the pleasure of giving someone a Christmas  basket made entirely from things you grew or made.  It's being surrounded by things that remind me of the people that I love. Its for all those connections, real and electronic, naked or otherwise, that make us human.

Happy solstice, Christmas, Boxing Day and New Years to one and all.

Nuff said

Don Batholemew has summed up all the best arguements agains Advertising Value Equivalent. I couldn't have said it better myself.

My father would be proud, but oh those PR moves

Fortune's 101 Dumbest Moments in Business 2007 makes for some very entertaining reading. My father, an early Fortune managing editor, who started the Fortune 500 list, would have been tickled with the whole concept.  What is truly distressing is how many of the incredibly dumb moments can be traced back to either PR, marketing or advertising. What does THAT say about our profession, other than we lack a good understanding of business implications of what we do

Great source for links and info on social media measurement

Geoff Livingston has done a great summary of the The Measurement Meme
-- a great end-of-the year summary of where we are with measurement and metrics in social media

Why I love this state..

Especially at this time of year, with snow falling in bucketloads, we still manage to get people like One the Media's Brooke Gladstone, courtesy of New Hampshire Public Radio.
It was a fascinating night.

These guys make my life so much easier, and they're fun to hang out with too

I

The smart folks at BuzzLogic have beat me to the punch. About this time of year, I get a few calls about what we find to be the hottest stories of the year. They've already done it for me.

They also really know how to have a Christmas party. They were kind enough to invite us to join them last night in San Francisco. We had a really lousy time, as you can tell: