Gilligan on Data by Tim Wilson

I’m finding myself in a lot of conversations where I’m explaining the difference between “outputs” and “outcomes.” It’s a distinction that can go a long way when it comes to laying out a measurement strategy. It’s also a distinction that can seem incredibly academic and incredibly boring. To the unenlightened! Outputs are simply things that [...]

Yesterday, I wrote about my beef with the popular cliché that “ROI for social media is Return on Influence.” This latest take was prompted by Connie Bensen’s ROI of a Community Manager post that has some great thoughts when it comes to measuring the value of social media. As I put in my last post, [...]

I’ve taken a run at this before…but my assertion that the emperor has no clothes didn’t stick. Either that, or the dozens of people who read this blog simply agree with me in principle, but don’t really think it’s worth the effort to raise a stink. Regardless, I’m not quite ready to let it go. [...]

Not a week goes by that I don’t see, hear, read, or preach on the topic of measuring marketing results. From equating Marketing ROI to The Holy Grail, to sticking my tongue in my cheek to the point of meanness when it comes to a “simple” process for establishing corporate metrics, to mulling over Marketing [...]

Awareness (the company) has a Measuring ROI Around Web 2.0 webinar this Thursday, May 22, at 2:00 PM EDT. That’s heavy on the buzzwords, but it sounds like it might have some interesting information. And, I found out about it thanks to a mention on Twitter from Connie Bensen, who will be leaving her new [...]

I realized that my Data Posts from Non-Data Blogs Yahoo! pipe wasn’t working correctly, and when I fixed it, a recent post from Debbie Weil at BlogWrite for CEOs popped up: More on the ROI of Social Media: Return on Influence. Ordinarily, I’m a big fan of Weil’s thoughts, but this one had me wondering [...]

The topic of “Marketing ROI” has crossed my inbox and feed reeder on several different fronts over the past few weeks. I don’t know if the subject actually has peaks and valleys, or if it’s just that my biorhythms periodically hit a point where the subject seems to bubble up in my consciousness. The good [...]

I’ll admit right up front that this is the least value-add post on this blog to date. Part of me sincerely hopes that it holds that distinction indefinitely. But, I know me better than that, so no promises. We all have them. Those moments where someone says something — in person, in an e-mail, in [...]

I’ve been involved with United Way for the past seven or eight years in Austin and, now, in Columbus. One of the attractions to spending my volunteer energy with United Way is that they are very accountability-focussed. That means that, in their agency funding cycle, they require agencies that are requesting funding to specify measures [...]