Comments on: Launching a social media experiment and piloting a metrics model: Aiming High for Young People

By: kdpaine

kdpaine — Fri, 26 Oct 2007 19:10:03 +0000

This is my favorite quote — from my Father when he was managing editor of Fortune: â€œIf we can put a man in orbit, why canâ€™t we determine the effectiveness of our communications? The reason is simple and perhaps, therefore, a little old-fashioned: people, human beings with a wide range of choice. Unpredictable, cantankerous,
capricious, motivated by innumerable conflicting interests, and conflicting desires.â€
Ralph Delahaye Paine, Fortune Magazine , 1960 speech to the Ad Club of St. Louis

By: Beth Kanter

Beth Kanter — Fri, 26 Oct 2007 18:47:16 +0000

Tim,

This is fantastic! I’ve been on the road and I’m finalizing the presentation. I’m going to reblog this right now! Thank you for taking the time …

I think the key to select one or two key metrics to evaluate each outcome. Then, I added another column – “value” you translate into dollars the value of your success.

Also, don’t forget that you also want to use the metrics to make adjustments that lead to effectiveness in your strategy – as well as learn more about your community.

Thank you again and I apologize for not being able to write this comment the instant you posted, but been on the road.

By: Tim

Tim — Wed, 24 Oct 2007 21:38:58 +0000

Spot on. The National Youth Agency does a lot of work about measuring the impact of interventions and involvement in decision making on young people and young people’s lived experiences.

We’re rather fond of the quote from Lord Herman Ousley (paraphrased here): “If the people who are supposed to benefit from change can’t tell you that they have, they probably haven’t”.

But I’ll certainly check out the Grundig model to see what we should be doing about adding relationship measurement to the mix.

By: KDPaine

KDPaine — Wed, 24 Oct 2007 10:28:00 +0000

Great stuff here, thanks for a great case study. One thing you might think about is to do some regular relationship measurement based on the Grunig model.The actual survey instrument is available here: http://www.measuresofsuccess.com/free+measurement+resources/research+reports/default.aspx
in the paper called Guidelines for measuring relationships. You’ve got great quantitative data, but I’m thinking that you’re not going to know if you really had any impact on the Youth unless you ask them.