{"id":1026,"date":"2010-10-14T12:31:40","date_gmt":"2010-10-14T11:31:40","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.meanboyfriend.com\/overdue_ideas\/?p=1026"},"modified":"2010-10-14T15:41:02","modified_gmt":"2010-10-14T14:41:02","slug":"monitoring-and-maximising-organisational-impact","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.meanboyfriend.com\/overdue_ideas\/2010\/10\/monitoring-and-maximising-organisational-impact\/","title":{"rendered":"Monitoring and Maximising Organisational Impact"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;m at Internet Librarian International today and tomorrow (I&#8217;m speaking at the end of today). This session is being delivered by <a href=\"http:\/\/copac.ac.uk\/development-blog\/joy-palmer\/\">Joy Palmer (MIMAS)<\/a> and <a href=\"http:\/\/ukwebfocus.wordpress.com\/\">Brian Kelly (UKOLN)<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>Starting off with Brian Kelly &#8211; with a focus on the impact of the Social Web:<\/p>\n<p>First thing to maximise impact of content &#8211; set it free! So he encourages people to record and disseminate his talk via many methods &#8211; and applies Creative Commons license to enable this.<\/p>\n<p>Brian highlights there is increasing acceptance of &#8216;Social Web&#8217; as of value to us as professionals &#8211; so time to start asking questions about impact and showing value. Brian believes we need to reshape the <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Hype_cycle\">Gartner hype cycle curve <\/a> &#8211; avoid the &#8216;hype&#8217; being too much, and jump the &#8216;trough of disillusionment&#8217; straight to productivity.<\/p>\n<p>Brian showing stats about his blog http:\/\/ukwebfocus.wordpress.com\/ &#8211; but stressing stats in isolation are meaningless &#8211; need to give context. But also stresses the dangers of &#8216;rankings&#8217; for blogs &#8211; measurement leads to &#8216;winners&#8217; and &#8216;losers&#8217;?<\/p>\n<p>Arguments against gathering stats:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>We know we are doing a good job<\/li>\n<li>Users happy with services<\/li>\n<li>Gathering stats distracts from core businesses<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>But:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Government (and other bodies) unconvinced<\/li>\n<li>Maybe some services need to be &#8216;retired&#8217;<\/li>\n<li>Evidence could be in favour of more investment in some services<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Need to understand trends&#8230; e.g. how effective are mailing lists? About 3rd of the audience saying still important way of discussing things, about 3rd saying people have moved onto other mechanisms &#8211; RSS, Twitter, blogs etc.<\/p>\n<p>Brian shows two pieces of evidence &#8211; lists aimed at web managers and web professionals have dropped significantly in use, whereas lis-link although has dropped slightly still very well used&#8230; &#8211; shows importance of context.<\/p>\n<p>What types of metrics?<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Blog usage statistics &#8211; but beware of automated tools artificially boosting stats (and other reasons why stats vary)<\/li>\n<li><a href=\"http:\/\/technorati.com\/\">Technorati<\/a> &#8211; Some say Technorati rankings not worth screen they are projected on, but Brian saying this is worthwhile because no effort and people will pay attention<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>People&#8217;s behaviour changes over time &#8211; Brian now seeing impact of <a href=\"http:\/\/twitter.com\/\">Twitter<\/a> referrals in terms of what drives traffic to his blog &#8211; so he knows to focus in this area to bring more traffic. He can also see in stats the impact of him adding a &#8216;subscribe by email&#8217; to his blog &#8211; big leap in number of hits &#8211; so makes sure he always includes this option on blogs now.<\/p>\n<p>What to do?<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Register with Technorati<\/li>\n<li>Look at <a href=\"http:\/\/www.wikio.com\/\">Wikio<\/a> for blog rankings as well<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>But Brian stressing limitations &#8211; league tables can be flawed &#8211; blogs may stop at end of project and drop from rankings etc. &#8211; but important to have a &#8216;story&#8217; to explain.<\/p>\n<p>Brian noting that the effort of tweeting a post is absolutely minimal &#8211; and substantial return &#8211; look at effort. Recommends registering with <a href=\"http:\/\/bit.ly\/\">bit.ly<\/a> to get stats on use of any shortened URLs you post using the service.<\/p>\n<p>Finally Brian suggests that we can identify popular services and contribute to reach audience &#8211; so <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Main_Page\">Wikipedia<\/a> good example.<\/p>\n<p>Now over to Joy Palmer to talk about moving &#8216;Beyond Usage Stats&#8217; &#8211; or demonstrating value and marketing services when you have no money:<\/p>\n<p>Joy faces the challenge of understanding the impact of JISC national services &#8211; <a href=\"http:\/\/copac.ac.uk\/\">Copac<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/zetoc.mimas.ac.uk\/\">Zetoc<\/a>, <a href=\"http:\/\/archiveshub.ac.uk\/\">Archives Hub<\/a> &#8230; &#8211; on the UK knowledge economy.<\/p>\n<p>Wanted to use audience research to drive engagement &#8211; needed to understand:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Perceptions<\/li>\n<li>Value<\/li>\n<li>Unique selling points<\/li>\n<li>&#8230; but most of all BENEFITS<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Benefits drive engagement (in the commercial world = SALES).<\/p>\n<p>Often we think we know who are users are, and how they benefit from our services &#8211; but if you question and dig you may find answers are not what you expect, or that you know less than you thought.<\/p>\n<p>Statistics only give very partial information about usage, and give little or know information about how a service is actually valued and where it fits in the users&#8217; context. That&#8217;s not to dismiss statistics completely &#8211; as Brian outlined you can interpret statistics in useful ways.<\/p>\n<p>However, there is a lot that statistics don&#8217;t tell you. Understanding impact and value means <strong>rethinking performance<\/strong>. Joy\u00a0going to outline what they did at MIMAS:<\/p>\n<p>Looked at who exactly is using the services &#8211; but beware you may find biggest users are not the people you are funded to provide services to &#8211; e.g. Archives Hub has a great deal of use from family historians &#8211; which is great, but not the target of the core funding for the service.<\/p>\n<p>Looked at questions of market penetration (and defining market) and other areas&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>Joy recommending the JISC &#8220;Guide to Researching Audiences&#8221; &#8211; did it on a shoestring, over Christmas! Carried out online surveys (over 3 weeks), and then follow up interviews.<\/p>\n<p>Polite insistence to get surveys filled in &#8211; e.g. popup on COPAC website. Also found bribery effective &#8211; amazon vouchers for interviewees. Used 4 staff to do 12 x 30 minute interviews.<\/p>\n<p>Wanted to understand:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>If users UK based<\/li>\n<li>Were they from HEIs<\/li>\n<li>What their role was (academic, student, librarian)<\/li>\n<li>&#8230;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Got lots of good feedback &#8211; much more feedback on Zetoc and Copac than on Archives Hub &#8211; perhaps because screened for people from UK HEIs &#8211; and for Archives Hub lots of users outside this core audience.<\/p>\n<p>However, still left with holes in knowledge&#8230;<\/p>\n<p>Features are not benefits!<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;simple and convenient&#8217; is not a benefit &#8211; it is a feature.<\/p>\n<p>Need to put yourself into the mindset of the user &#8211; far too often we talk about features of our services &#8211; which can be useful but doesn&#8217;t clearly communicate what your product is and what it will do for the user.<\/p>\n<p>&#8216;create new knowledge&#8217;, &#8216;further your career&#8217;, &#8216;gain recognition&#8217; &#8211; these are user benefits &#8211; and this is the language MIMAS have started to use on the homepage of the Archives Hub.<\/p>\n<p>E.g. &#8211; we don&#8217;t need to sell &#8216;cross-search&#8217; but the benefits of serendipity.<\/p>\n<p>Quotes from users very valuable &#8211; and can be mined for benefits.<\/p>\n<p>e.g. on Zetoc alerts &#8220;The alerts have enlightened me on many topics&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>What next for MIMAS in this area?<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Need to do more market analysis &#8211; who aren&#8217;t we currently reaching<\/li>\n<li>Need to develop marketing startegy<\/li>\n<li>&#8230;<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Key message &#8211; you don&#8217;t have to spend a lot &#8211; 3-5 interviews can give you a huge amount of valuable information. This is NOT A SCIENCE &#8211; there is no set way of doing this, although there are some methodologies you can adopt.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I&#8217;m at Internet Librarian International today and tomorrow (I&#8217;m speaking at the end of today). This session is being delivered by Joy Palmer (MIMAS) and Brian Kelly (UKOLN). Starting off with Brian Kelly &#8211; with a focus on the impact of the Social Web: First thing to maximise impact of content &#8211; set it free! [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[57],"class_list":["post-1026","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized","tag-ili2010"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.meanboyfriend.com\/overdue_ideas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1026","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.meanboyfriend.com\/overdue_ideas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.meanboyfriend.com\/overdue_ideas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.meanboyfriend.com\/overdue_ideas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.meanboyfriend.com\/overdue_ideas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1026"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"http:\/\/www.meanboyfriend.com\/overdue_ideas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1026\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1028,"href":"http:\/\/www.meanboyfriend.com\/overdue_ideas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1026\/revisions\/1028"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.meanboyfriend.com\/overdue_ideas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1026"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.meanboyfriend.com\/overdue_ideas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1026"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.meanboyfriend.com\/overdue_ideas\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1026"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}