CIRCDS Measurement seminar

On 21 August CIRCD held a cross-disciplinary seminar on measuring communication for researchers, teachers and practitioners. The purpose was to investigate how measurement can be developed as a discipline and applied in practice and to share insights and experiences. Furthermore, the aim was to create new knowledge and to reflect on how we can develop the field of measurement of communication and interaction, thus integrating better measurement into our projects, practices and teaching.

The seminar was arranged by Lecturer and Senior Digital Strategist at Kontrapunkt Marta Karolina Olsen and PhD Fellow Ann Merrit Rikke Nielsen and consisted of a mix of presentations, discussions and workshops. Presenters at the seminar were:

Jesper Andersen, strategic advisor and director of Quantum Public Relations, who spoke on the subject “Ways to work with measurement in practice: Communication campaigns & PR” addressed the challenge of actually identifying where and how communication can make a difference and what tools to use when splitting vague, strategic business goals into concrete, operational measurable targets.

Lasse Skjoldan, senior advisor at Infomedia, whose talk on “The good and the bad KPI” discussed how to work with KPIs´ in a useful way and how to avoid the common pitfalls of measuring on the wrong KPIs. The talk contained advice on process and content, based on experience from Infomedia's work with customer KPIs.

 Thomas Bjørn Hansen psychologist and lead of Poppelgården family centre spoke on the subject “Measurement of conversations provides effective conversations - on measuring social interactions” and focus on how to optimize the efficiency of conversations through management for feedback. Inspired by the therapeutic effect research, the presentation was about the value of actively seeking critical feedback from clients about their experience of collaboration.

Ann Merrit Rikke Nielsen PhD Fellow at UCPH & Mie Femø Nielsen Professor of Communication and head of CIRCD, whose presentation "Trust was measured ..." About validity and measuring the intangible discussed how the humanities can get inspiration from the social sciences and psychology and their strong traditions for measuring intangible and abstract phenomena. On this basis, the presentation discussed validity in current communication measurement and considerations on ongoing work with developing instruments for measuring the quality of interaction and social processes.

The seminar was attended by exciting participants from both private companies, the public sector companies and the research community from a number of universities. Another seminar on communication and interaction measurement is to be held in spring 2018.