Remembering the Reason for Memorial Day
Measurement Series:
How to Measure the Effectiveness and Value of Your Networks
This Week …
But First: The Meaning of Memorial Day
Deep Dive: Debut of The Network Lens: A Framework for Assessment with Kelly Jefferson Minty
Before We Go: The latest in Scheffler vs Louisville Police
1. But First: The Meaning of Memorial Day
National holidays of honor also need continual communications efforts to remain understood and celebrated. If you had to stand and present the meaning of Memorial Day right now, would you know what to say?
From the National Archives:
Memorial Day is designated as an annual day of remembrance to honor all those who have died in service to the United States during peace and war.
Here are quick resources:
National Archives: Memorial Day: A Commemoration
Wounded Warrior Project: What is Memorial Day? Facts, Meaning, and History
Note the differences between Memorial Day and Veterans Day
PBS: The History of Memorial Day
Looking ahead to the fall, Veterans Day is on November 11, and celebrates the service of all U.S. military veterans.
2. Deep Dive: Establishing a Network Lens to Assess the Impact of Outreach
Erin Fogarty Owen and Kelly Jefferson Minty
“Networks can ‘produce benefits beyond what individual partners could achieve.’ By bringing together unique combinations of individuals and organizations to pool and align resources, networks have been able to shape public perceptions and policies, innovate delivery solutions, build political will, and unlock funding.”
- Shekufeh Zonji, A network for early childhood development,
Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences, May 23, 2018
Introduction
Have you considered how building a network or networks is critical to achieving your organization’s goal? As Shekufeh Zonji writes, networks amplify our efforts, foster innovation, and expand our reach in ways that individual efforts cannot. After all, large networks can help us meet the critical mass needed to tip the scales toward action, or a strategically built network can help us connect to that one person who has the answers we’ve been seeking.
This article seeks to:
inspire your focus on the value of identifying and tracking the networks connected to your organization and the value/s they bring to your work.
measure the effectiveness of your work in building and strengthening networks.
The Network Lens: A Framework for Assessment
Strategic communicators must be hyper-aware of how their budgets are funded—whether from clients, customers, taxpayers, student tuition, donors, grants, etc.—requiring extraordinary stewardship. Every expenditure needs to be tied to a strategic purpose.
Recognizing the value of network building is crucial in strategic communications. Networks amplify the reach and impact of outreach efforts, fostering collective progress through shared understanding.
To better recognize and measure network effectiveness, we introduce The Network Lens: A Framework for Assessment. This structured approach assesses the value of networks, ensuring that communications work connects people, builds meaningful relationships, and drives effective action. This method helps organizations evaluate how their network-building efforts contribute to broader goals, enhancing the overall impact of their strategic communications.
Products such as reports, events, media stories, social media posts, etc., serve as vehicles to disseminate ideas and information, fostering understanding and stimulating dialogue and action. The challenge lies in assessing the true impact of these efforts.
That is where The Network Lens: A Framework for Assessment comes in as a tool. The Network Lens measurement criteria include:
Creation of new network/s: Connect data to the creation of new networks that have been developed to address various aspects of the organization’s mission or strategic plan.
Diversity of network/s: This refers both to diversity across networks in terms of
the size, location, audience, and role of various networks, as well as the diversity of individuals participating in various networks.
Effectiveness of network/s: Consider indicators that communications efforts support networks fulfilling roles as “pathways” of information exchange and “trusted connectors.” (“A Network Approach to Capacity Building,” Jennifer Chandler and Kristen Scott Kennedy) Indicators can include citation of work, collaboration, funding, recognition, and trust.
Engagement with network/s: This includes a variety of indicators associated with how people interact with networks. Types of interactions can include amplification of information, events, information collection, information sharing/dissemination, interpersonal professional, or project management.
Growth of network/s: This is a measurement of the number of members involved in existing networks. This includes an increased collection of contacts within and across communications networks.
Internal achievement: Cultivate collaborative relationships with communications colleagues in other organizations within the field. Consider indicators of how work has helped to build and strengthen a network of communicators to achieve a common goal. (Nunez & Wilson-Grau)
Level of Network/s: Data regarding the extent of participation in networks at the following levels: local, state, regional, national, or global.
Closing
In practice, the criteria help guide you through a process that establishes the value of your organization's networks. By measuring these networks, you'll gain useful data that highlights the return on investment in your strategic communications team. This data can reveal how the team's efforts are not only creating but also strengthening networks crucial to achieving your organizational goals. The Network Lens can uncover the impact of networks that might otherwise go unnoticed.
This lens does not eliminate measurement tools that may already be in use by an organization – it’s simply a way to take hard data and give it an additional layer of meaning and value.
Curious to see how this works? We plan to bring this concept to life in future editions. Stay tuned!
Before we go:
Update on Scottie Scheffler’s legal issues:
Louisville police did not drop charges.
Scheffler’s lawyer remains consistent:
"He didn't do anything wrong," Romines told the media after Thursday's press conference. "We will go to trial or the case will be dismissed. We have no interest in settling the case."
The officer who arrested Scheffler was previously suspended for what?
WDRB: "He was also suspended 5 days for doing 'donuts' in his police vehicle while on duty with an intoxicated civilian in a 'Code 3' fashion."