10 tips for translating PR results into the language of business

Dow Jones Insight have produced an interesting e-book  “Talk to me – 10 tips for translating the PR results into the language of business“. The e-book is well worth a read, following are some highlights I appreciated:

• 60% of companies are measuring PR/communications at the request of senior management. So as a communication professional it’s probably wise to take an initiative and start measuring activities before management asks for it.
• Measuring just one form of PR/communications activity, such as print media mentions, doesn’t offer a comprehensive view of your strategy – a combination of data is recommended to provide a complete picture. In a recent article by Drs Gregory and Watson, they point towards the trend of using multiple formal and informal metrics and feedback to measure PR/communications.
• As PR/communications is primarily concerned with managing perception and building strategic relationships, one key metric should be measuring relationships. How can this be done? A good starting point is to read the Dr Grunig / Dr Hon “Guidelines for measuring relationships in PR“.
• Presentation of the measurement report is important. Top executves only need a high-level summary of results. Dr Macnamara calls this “two-tier evaluation” explained well in this article (pdf).

Download the e-book>>

US summer program on evaluation

 If you are not able to go to Turin and if you are based in the US or close by, you might want to consider the summer evaluation courses taking place in Atlanta, Georgia, USA (pictured above) from 14-17 June 2009.

Organised by the American Evaluation Association and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention,  there are more than 40 workshops on offer over four days, in addition to keynote speakers. Here are some workshops that I would love to attend:

• What Counts as Credible Evidence in Contemporary Evaluation
• How Policy Is Made and How Evaluators Can Affect It
• Making Your Final Report Useful and Used
• Using Social Network Analysis in Program Evaluation
• Taking it Global: Tips for International Evaluation
• Every Picture Tells a Story: Flow Charts, LogFrames 
• Evaluation 2.0: Measuring Connected Communications  

More information and registration>>

Summer School in Italy on Monitoring and Evaluation

What could be better than spending some summer weeks in Bologna, Italy (pictured above) and learning about monitoring and evaluation?

Well, the University of Bologna in Italy is organising a summer school on monitoring and evaluation of international programmes and public policies from June 8 – 13  2009.

Further information on the programme:

“The 2009 Summer School On Monitoring And Evaluation Of International Programmes And Public Policies is part of the University of Bologna International Summer School Programme. It is organised by the Centre for International Development (www.cid-bo.org) in cooperation with the Faculty of Political Sciences, the Department of Economics, and the Department of Political Science of the University of Bologna and with the Office for International Programmes of the State University of New York at Albany.

Enrolment fee is € 1,500, and scholarships are available for participants from low-income countries.”

More information and registration>>