A contribution to AMEC Measurement Week (the Association for the Measurement and Evaluation of Communication). Lifting a dominant focus on measuring media to one focused on measuring business performance in the communications context.

1. a contribution to!
AMEC! Measurement Week 2014
Philip Sheldrake, 12th September 2014, CC BY-NC-SA 4.0
INFLUENCE
MEASUREMENT
to learn, adapt, survive and thrive

2. The International Association for the
Measurement and Evaluation of Communication!
!
www.amecorg.com

3. The single!
biggest problem in
communication is
the illusion that it
has taken place.!
George Bernard Shaw.
In the last analysis,
what we are
communicates far
more eloquently than
anything we say or do.!
Stephen Covey.
It is not the voice
that commands the
story; it is the ear.!
Italo Calvino.
The most!
important thing in
communication is
hearing what isn't said.!
Peter Drucker.

4. We don’t have media for media’s sake but to
communicate.
And we don’t communicate for communications’ sake but
to influence and to be influenced1.
You’re in the business of
influence. Everyone is.

5. A media business focus.
Whether paid, owned, earned
or machined2 media,
maintaining a focus on the
means rather than the ends
causes problems for translation
into the organizational context.
So don’t begin with media and
media measurement.!
Begin with the business and
business performance
management3.

6. A management focus.
Management is about doing
things right, and therefore about
ascertaining how well things are
going. Measuring. Sensing.
Sense making.
It’s about operational flexibility,
performance and accountability.
It’s about executing the plan
devised by the leadership4.

7. A leadership focus.
Leadership is about doing the
right things5 – learning and
determining what the right things
might be. Shaping. Adapting.
Deliberate and emergent6.
It’s about helping people with
shared values and purpose
come together to do great things,
to create mutual value. It’s about
hearts and minds.

8. Hearts and minds.
What is the intended outcome of your marketing and PR campaigns, and
the design of your organization overall, if it’s not to get stakeholders7 to
think and behave as you’d like, and to be sensitive to how they’d like you
to think and behave?8!
The business of influence.

9. The business of influence.
We employ information
technologies to track the flows of
time, money and materials.!
Now we’re developing IT to track
influence flows.
The Six Influence Flows
We’re sensitizing the
organization to all stakeholders,
for all stakeholders, building
mutual understanding to enable
mutual influence in the pursuit
of mutual value9.

10. Who ‘does’ influence?
There’s influence in everything an
organization does, and sometimes
in what it does not do10. It involves
everyone, but it will be useful to
have people focused on the
system of influence flows11.
It’s cross-departmental12, bigger
than the current scope of
marketing and PR practice and
theory13. Yet perhaps today’s
practitioners are best placed to
grow into such a role14.

11. Who does influence measurement?
It’s about understanding how
influence goes around comes
around. Tracing influence15.!
An augmentation of performance
management I call the Influence
Scorecard16.
It’s bigger than the current
scope of marketing and PR
measurement. Yet perhaps
today’s providers are best
placed to grow into this role.

12. It is not the most intellectual of the
species that survives; it is not the
strongest that survives; but …!
the one that is able best to adapt and
adjust to the changing environment
in which it finds itself.!
Leon C. Megginson!
http://www.darwinproject.ac.uk/six-things-darwin-never-said !
!
!
Note: nor is it the loudest firm, nor
that with the greatest reach, nor most
engagement, absent adaptation in
pursuit of sustainable mutual value.

13. Influence measurement.
Assessing the importance, effect, or value
of changing hearts, minds and behaviours
of all stakeholders in creating mutual value
in the context of our organizational
purpose, goals and values.

14. Notes.
1. http://www.attenzi.com/forty-five-ii/!
2. http://www.philipsheldrake.com/2011/11/the-influence-view-of-content-0-1/ !
3. http://www.eulerpartners.com/balanced-scorecard-and-strategy-maps/ !
4. Whether specific indviduals or more sociocratic / collective!
5. http://www.philipsheldrake.com/2014/04/triple-loop-profound-leadership/ !
6. http://www.philipsheldrake.com/2014/07/deliberate-emergent-design/ !
7. A person or organization with an interest or concern in the organization or something the organization is involved in.!
8. http://www.philipsheldrake.com/2013/03/influence-request-for-comments/!
9. http://www.philipsheldrake.com/2014/03/social-business-mutuality-stack/!
10. http://www.attenzi.com/thirty-iii/ !
11. http://www.eulerpartners.com/influence-flows/ !
12. http://www.philipsheldrake.com/2014/06/measuring-communications-reconciling-models-amsterdam/!
13. http://www.prredefined.org/ !
14. http://www.philipsheldrake.com/2014/08/pr-changing-whos-going-to-do-it/ !
15. http://www.eulerpartners.com/the-business-of-influence/ !
16. http://www.eulerpartners.com/influence-scorecard/