Tracking the Internet, Human Rights & Social Change
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Disclaimer: These opinions are mine and mine alone. Nothing here can or should be taken to represent the viewpoint of my employer.
Yes, yes and...but?
Hi Dan. Thanks so much for posting on this, because I think this is (to continue the elephant theme) the elephant in the room for social media for social change. As I say towards the end of my forthcoming NESTA piece, "online approaches need to be measured for their social impact if resources are put into them that could go elsewhere". Which, IMHO, is just NOT happening at the moment. And I'm saying this very much from the point of an advocate and believer.
Stats like unique visitors or comments or people touched or connected are the onlne version of counting people in the room who turn up. Useful for a headcount snapshot (particularly if your project is about reach / awareness etc), but no measure of outcomes and impact on the ground. If online and web 2.0 projects can't measure (both qualitatively and quantitatively) their impact in comparison with offline projects (rather than with each other) then how can they ever really justify the resource put into them to funders, policymakers, users, frontline groups etc.? After all, that's what the rest of the sector has to do: tell me what your mission is, what your objectives are, and show me how this activity is contributing to achieving those.
[I also think it helps, for those acting from within an organisation, if the person responsible for the web 2.0 stuff in an organisation is rooted in frontline / "real-world" activity. Every minute I spend blogging or twittering or e-mailing on Facebook is a minute I'm potentially not spending on a funding bid, on supporting an SSE Fellow, on advocating for social entrepreneurs to government, on writing a press release, or on delivering a session to SSE students. That rapidly brings home whether something is adding value, helping achieve your mission and so on. And whether your colleagues also agree. ;0)]
Like I say: I'm a fan and user of this stuff, and I believe passionately that MySociety projects (and I know Tom wants to get resource to do a more in-depth evaluation cos we've spoken about this), initiatives like SavvyChavvy and sites like UnLtdWorld are having a positive impact in a way that wasn't happening elsewhere as effectively and could not happen as effectively offline or in another form. I'm sure they all know of real-world outcomes from their work. But I think that all these types of initiatives, if they are utilising resources designated for the third sector that could be used in another way, have got to prove it (or have a bloody good go at it), and do it more/better than is currently the case.