The great and the good of the PR measurement industry gathered last night for the annual AMEC Awards, and it was a "scorcher" of an evening, as a tabloid-inspired Nick Grant put it. With winners from as far afield as Australia, Germany, Dubai and right here at Metrica towers, our industry seems in rude health. 

Trevor Morris, Visiting Professor of Public Relations at the University of Westminster and chair of AMEC's judging panel, noted the high quality of entries put before the judging panel. His opening remarks served as a great reminder of the attributes that make good PR measurement programmes great, and in turn provide maximum value to the clients we work with:

- Wrap every aspect of your measurement around your client's objectives. And don't stop at PR objectives either- clients need our help to show the contribution PR has made to the wider organisation, as well as keeping its own house in order. The language in which they communicate performance is also key.

- Think about what isn't published, as well as what is. In tricky times our clients spend a lot of time minimising the impact of negative coverage and / or killing the story before it draws breath. Consider negative message tracking (with upside down "maximum of" KPI's) and look for ways to correlate media relations activity with journalist output.

- Focus on the Outcome. Too many organisations stop their measurement at the output stage, when that's only half the story. Our clients conduct newshook research all the time - just one additional question could help them to demonstrate a change in behaviour/ attitude as a result of their PR activity. Find out how data is correlated on your client's organisational performance and aim to feed measurement data into it. 

 The number of companies winning awards last night (I lost count at ten - and I don't mean glasses of wine!) shows that we're getting the message as an industry, and our clients are getting greater insight from our measurement as a result.

One final thought from last night  - Geordie Greig, editor of the London Evening Standard, spoke of the reasons behind the decision to adopt a free distribution model, and insisted that, had the paper not gone free, it would not have been in circulation today. Greig also mentioned that certain UK national papers are losing in excess of £100,000 a day. With closure the only other apparent outcome, I'm fascinated by the concept that newspapers may have to become free outlets to survive, just as news outlets and the NLA begin to charge people for accessing online content.

The death of the newspaper has been announced time and time again, but perhaps we are approaching the point where the only "scorcher" left is print itself going up in flames.