This week I am in New Hampshire representing Metrica at the Institute for Public Relations' Summit on Measurement.  This is the big event in global PR measurement, media analysis and research, and its well attended by all of the major players from all around the world.  Nick Grant and Barry Legetter are here representing AMEC, there is a strong contingent of Brits form measurement companies and PR agencies, and Mazen of Media Watch in Dubai is also here.

Yesterday was a full and busy day attending the pre conference workshops.The morning session I attended was Measurement 201, hosted by David Geddes, Senior VP & Partner at Fleishman-Hillard, Brad Rawlins, chair of the Communications Department at Brigham Young University and Angela Jeffrey of VMS. David and Brad focused their sessions on techniques to ensure that PR research was reliable and accurate.  They concentrated on best practice in survey techniques and formative research.  Angela covered news content analysis which she did admirably, especially as she was so conscious of many of her competitors sitting in the audience! 

Angie touched on a potentially interesting new development which I gather the IPR (note this is the Institute for Research based in the US, not the UK's CIPR) is working on developing to replace the dreaded AVE.  It's called Media Cost Weighting, or MCW, and is apparently 25% better as a measure than clip counts, and 12.5% better than impressions or OTS alone.  MCWs are still in development, but I have to say I am uneasy with them.  To me, they run the risk of becoming just another confusing metric in an attempt to put a standardised financial value to editorial content.  I am not sure how they will address negative coverage, or for that matter media that doesn't accept advertising and doesn't have a rate card.  On that subject, I wonder what base price they use - the rate card for an ad where available or a discounted rate?  I don't know anyone who buys advertising space (especially in the current economic climate) at anything like a rate card price.  These and many more problems seem likely to rear their ugly head with MCWs, but we will watch their development with interest.

At the end of the day, good PR work involves delivering your messages consistently and accurately to your target audiences.  Target audiences are getting more fragmented and difficult to reach as the media environment fragments.  The rise of social media and various digital networks only makes this more the case.  A model based upon any form of ad value is becoming more and more last century.  What the board (or C Suite as they are called over here) want to know is whether your message has been delivered to your highly defined target audience, how frequently, and what the effect was on a pre-defined objective.  This is how other marketing disciplines report, and what the PR industry should emulate.  Anything else will continue to add to the confusion with which PR analysis has been for too long associated.

On another subject, what a real privilege it is to be visiting New Hampshire during fall.  The landscape is beautiful, and the trees are turning amazing shades of reds and browns.  I thought I might share a photo of that with you all, but instead I thought I would share this whale beautifully captured in a photo by Mike From, a semi-pro photographer from Michigan.  I flew into Boston at the weekend, and keen to get onto US time as quickly as possible, I went for a walk around the (very attractive) city.  At the harbour I saw a sign for a whale watching tour and jumped aboard.  Mike and I got chatting; Mike was on board keen to try out his new telephoto lens.  On the feeding grounds about 25 miles out of Boston we were treated to some sites that will live with me forever - Hump Back whales, Minke whales and a Fin whale too.  This Hump Back breached right beside the boat, and Mike captured the moment perfectly.  He took some great shots which can be viewed and purchased on his website www.mikefrom.com