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Review
previous electronic activism
campaigns and home pages
Use
of information and measurement do’s and don’ts
From the book
Momentum: igniting social change in the connected age by
Allison Fine
Information
is the grease of the Connected Age. It is important to think of
information as part of ongoing conversations, not historical documents
to be put behind glass. Because so much information is now available,
it needs to be presented in useful and honest ways; the misuse of
information is the loud noise that makes it so difficult to divine
the “realness” out there.
Use these guidelines
when trying to decide what information should be shared with whom:
- If you have
a choice, let information out, do not keep it in.
- Archives
must be easy to access; just because this information is not front-page
news anymore does not mean that it is not valuable. Make it easy
to find and use and do not charge for it; your costs are already
sunk for the content you’ve developed; let it go!
- With digital-communications
tools like scanners and e-mail so widely available, assume anything
written has already been shared with the world.
- We cannot
erase all biases that we bring to analyzing information; we bring
assumptions and experiences to every part of our lives. Recipients
of analyses deserve to know the thinking that is behind the results.
They can then choose to agree or disagree on a level playing field.
Sharing information
is more than an action, it is also intended to spur action. Therefore,
participants need to be asked whether the information they accessed
was the kind that they needed and was in a format they could use;
and ask also what other kinds of information would be useful to
them.
Measurement
Do’s and Don’ts
Do:
- Challenge
yourself and your organization when you decide what to measure.
You can go through the motions and ask yes/no questions for which
you probably already know the answers. Or you can challenge yourself
and ask interesting questions that speak to the heart of our efforts.
Are you doing the best you can to recruit students to your program?
Have families become more self-sufficient as a result of your
efforts? Has the rate of recidivism been significantly reduced
for your participants? There are no right or wrong learning questions,
but there are important and unimportant ones.
- Free the
trees! Think about how you can collect the least amount of information
to answer the most questions. Also think about information you
can collect electronically. With services like Survey Monkey and
Zoomerang, surveys can be created and filled out online inexpensively
and without using paper. These survey results are automatically
tabulated and presented on a web page for analysis. Only under
extraordinary circumstances – in places where no public
terminals exist and access to the Internet is truly difficult
– should paper surveys be used anymore.
- Recognize
that conversations are two-way streets. This is true even if a
conversation is started through a form like a survey. People who
give you information deserve to know the results. They should
be given an opportunity to join a conversation to provide additional
feedback.
- Keep at it!
One time around is only one data point. You cannot get to any
destination with one data point; you need to connect it to something.
Measuring results has to be a regular, ongoing activity that gives
you information about trends over time.
- Involve your
network in any way you can: with regular updates, reviews of plans,
involvement in conversations about learning. Network members want
to be involved, even just to listen, because when you get better,
by definition they do as well.
Don’t:
- Think about
being perfect. Get started, do the best you can. With lots of
input from others, and a little practice, collecting useful information
that will provide real-time help will become easier.
- Worry about
what academics think. Your measurement activities are not intended
to be part of a doctoral dissertation, although it can be table
setting for future research. Your measurement plan reflects your
questions and needs.
- Over-collect.
Nothing is worse than asking people for information that you cannot
use. It is rude, like asking someone to save you a seat for lunch
and then not showing up. You need to get into the habit of asking
and answering the same questions over time to figure out what
is working and what is not, but that does not mean that you have
to collect reams of information that sit in a database. Remember
the old advertising slogan, “KISS: Keep It Simple, Stupid.”
- Wait for
a grant to measure your results. The worst way to compromise your
pathway to self-determination is to expect short-term, stand–alone
grants to support your learning efforts. Just as we need telephones
and computers to be successful, we also need to anticipate that
costs associated with measurement will be a part of doing business.
Waiting for specific grants results in stop-and-go measurements.
It may also allow funders to have too much influence over your
measurement efforts.
Measuring results
is difficult. Few of us are trained in it; it takes time away from
service delivery, and there is no magic recipe specifying what and
how one should measure. But it is the only way that we will know
that we are making progress. Rather than view it as a potentially
deflating experience, connected activists can make it an opportunity
to build stronger relationships with participants and work out constructive
improvements of our efforts.
Buy
Momentum: igniting social change in the connected age by
Allison Fine by visiting
this link.
You can write
to Allison Fine at afine@afine.us
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