1.I fully support you on this, Shel. Have you talked to Jeffrey Ory about it? I think it's a big opportunity for us to embrace these new media and I think it would get a good response, although it's still early days for this stuff.

And I see what you about the metrics -- it's hard to measure the incremental value of building an online community. Or is it? You did a survey of your listeners awhile back -- couldn't you ask readers of a blog if they get value out of it, just as you could ask a CEO if he gets value out of a golf game?

But I've also had my own issues with the Gold Quills, particularly in the writing category. How do you measure the business impact of a feature article in a newsletter? Nothing is a better judge of the impact of a piece of writing than a sensitive reader -- so why do writing submissions have to adhere to the same specs as a communication program? Can't they be judged mainly on the quality of the writing?

In any case, we should obviously have a social media category next year. Jeffrey, what do you think?

2.Thanks for the comments, Ron; and it was great seeing you in New Orleans!

I think you CAN measure the impact of a feature article -- sometimes. I remember an instance at a company following a layoff when employees focused their ire at the small fleet of corporate jets. A feature article explained the business rationale for the jets, and measurement efforts revealed the article met its objective of helping employees understand that these were not extravagances maintained at the expense of colleagues' jobs. But you're right, that kind of thing is the exception, not the rule.

Here's another Gold Quill issue: I was speaking with a colleague about the problem when he told me his first tier-one judging experience had him assigned to judge annual reports. He had never worked on one, and when he voiced that concern, he was told he'd learn about them during the course of the judging! The Oscar judging is restricted to people who know the work -- sound people judge best sound, film editors judge best editing, and so on. We ought to find a way to ensure that annual reports are judged by people with AR experience, media efforts are judged by people with media experience, and so on.

3.It's true. In an ideal world we should have expert judges -- but that would entail a complete restructuring of the judging process because right now it's done at the chapter level -- you volunteer to judge a category and you muster as many judges as you can to take it on. So our judging has a geographic focus where it might be better to have it focused on areas of expertise. Maybe in the distant future when everything is done online you could have a virtual judging group for each category consisting of experts from everywhere.

And I had another thought about the social media category that might be useful in how it could be judged differently. In some cases at least, the measure of the effectiveness of a podcast or blog might not be the strictly defined business goal of its originator, but rather the audience's perception of the usefulness of the information and the ability to connect with other readers/viewers. Social media is all about creating online communities, so they should be judged in relation to how those communities perceive them.

As for New Orleans, it was indeed great to get together. That is one special, crazy place.

4.It's not just the Gold Quills, either. The profession as a whole isn't evolving fast enough to incorporate technology, never mind social media.

I work in a web communications role in a large organization with a communications staff of about 20. It's disheartening how many times I have to explain the difference between the Internet and our Intranet. Many of them are completely at a loss as to how to incorporate the web into communications planning, and don't know what a podcast or blog is. That's particularly true at the higher levels, the people with the authority over budgets and overall strategic planning, because they tend to be older and more frightened of technology.

I'm talking about intermediate and senior communicators, including ABCs. If understanding the tools of our trade - and one can call these "new" tools - isn't a component of certification, what good is it?

5.That's an excellent point, Diane, and one worth considering in another thread: Should there be new standards for accreditation that require an understanding of current communication tools and channels?

6.I think it's definitely a question that should be considered. I had to comment again to say I meant "no one" can call these tools new, not "one." Hate those typos that result in me saying the opposite of what I meant!

7.Good points all 'round, and I wanted to pass back that the question of adding and finding alternate ways to measure social media tools for business communicators IS something that has been talked about for Gold Quill.

Shel: I admitted to you this past year in my term as GQ chair that I knew I wouldn't have the volunteer time/energy to give this issue the consideration it deserves; this year's chair, Jeffrey Ory, and I have chatted about it, and we are all in agreement that this needs attention.

However, in the interest of IABC's own strategic approach to Gold Quill, I - personally - am challenged by the idea of creating separate judging standards for one category that - by many accounts yet - still wouldn't garner much understanding, interest or entries in. ("Yet" being the operative word.) An additional conundrum is what that might do to expectations around judging in other categories. Not saying that's a bad thing, but with a volunteer-run global program such as this, I just don't see how we could hold our standards as high as I'd like to think they are if more than 400 judges around the world were all singing from different songsheets.

As you know, it's hard enough to get consistent, high-quality judging across the board, and that's with judging standards and guidelines that are the SAME for all categories.

Anyway, again - not to diminish the need for thinking and solving all of this - just wanted to shed light on the behind-the-scenes listening, and mulling.

Thanks for the dialogue, Shel, and great to see you both in New Orleans. That is some magnetic place, eh? :)

8.Hi, Jennifer; and thanks for posting (not to mention, thanks for reading my blog!).

Indeed, it's a conundrum. Having been a first-tier judge, division coordinator, and Blue Ribbon panel judge, I know the challenges GQ chairs face (and my post is by no means meant as any kind of criticism of the way the program has been run).

However, I would argue that the importance of social media is growing by leaps and bounds in organizations, evidenced by the attendance at conferences focusing on the subject and sessions at broader conferences that deal with social media, not to mention the number of articles in association and professional journals that deal with it. Also, the statistics are worth noting -- I just saw a study that says more than half of American companies plan on having corporate blogs.

Consequently, IABC needs to SET the standards for appropriate communication through these tools, including leading the way in helping communicators assess the value of the tools they manage. It simply wouldn't be right to tell communicators to measure social media the same way they would measure, say, a media relations campaign. And that means we can't hold them to that standard in a competition that focuses on excellence.

If I may be so bold, I'd recommend that the social media entries be parcelled out to a discrete panel of social media experts assembled by IABC. I'd even be happy to take part on listing names of people who would be appropriate for such a judging panel. Even better, just do something reciprocal with the Society for New Communications Research (SNCR). I'd love to see IABC and SNCR get together in any case!

And yeah, I LOVE New Orleans!

9.I think the key here is to discuss setting specific judging criteria but sticking to our longstanding principles as an association -- that all the strategic components of a good communications plan are the same, from setting clear objectives to making sure the impact is measured against those objectives.

Also, I agree that although there's a lot of interest in social media, the number of people doing it -- at least at a level where they might want to put in for an award -- is still very low. I judged the internal blog category for the Ragan Recognition Awards this year and they only got two entries. Both were worthy of recognition but both were very primitive in some ways. It really is early days for this stuff, particularly on the employee comms side.

10.Ron, I wonder -- and I'm just wondering -- how many people didn't submit an intranet blog because the GQ requirements weren't in synch with the approaches taken to internal blogging. That is, they would have had to stretch in order to produce a work plan that met the requirements and figured it just wasn't worth it.