Keeping the eye on the ball
Yesterday I was reading Dilbert (as I do every day) and the comic really stuck a chord with me. You can view it by clicking here.
It got me to thinking. Measurement is essential. Tracking results, time, and campaign effectiveness are core to great public relations. But we also need to be sure not to get trapped in Excel box hell.
Numbers are beautiful. I love working with them, parsing them and seeing what I can get them to do (And yes, I know many PR people do not share my love of numbers).
But we need to be sure that we don't just focus on the numbers and getting that Excel box or graph to move from 72 to 74. If we look only at the numbers, we can miss important things. We can put blinders on and not step back and think, should be blow all this up and take a new approach? It is taking the step back that often transforms incremental growth into exponential growth.
What do you think?
It got me to thinking. Measurement is essential. Tracking results, time, and campaign effectiveness are core to great public relations. But we also need to be sure not to get trapped in Excel box hell.
Numbers are beautiful. I love working with them, parsing them and seeing what I can get them to do (And yes, I know many PR people do not share my love of numbers).
But we need to be sure that we don't just focus on the numbers and getting that Excel box or graph to move from 72 to 74. If we look only at the numbers, we can miss important things. We can put blinders on and not step back and think, should be blow all this up and take a new approach? It is taking the step back that often transforms incremental growth into exponential growth.
What do you think?
posted by Mark W. McClennan, APR @ 12:44 PM
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