1 - The context of measuring impact to deliver strategic value

Summary

The demand for evidence-based strategies in the digital domain

The cultural society we live in has speedily traversed from, historically, primarily live experiences to engaging with recorded ones, and now back to a hybrid of live, social experiences and the digitally recorded. For instance, performance dominated our experience of music before the 1900s; even if one had the sheet music, performance of it defined the common experience. Since then, as the composer Stravinsky noted, recorded music has changed our experience, such that most music is now proportionally experienced in the recorded format:

When I think that a disc or magnetic tape of a piece of music can be several thousand times as powerful (influential) as a live performance, that disc or tape becomes an awesome object indeed.

(Stravinsky and Craft, 1959)

With the growth of digital media, digitalisation and the transition from the 1990s web initiation, through Web 2.0 and linked data, to our current social media and big data-driven digital culture, almost all interactions with digital content are now mediated such that it is again more of a live experience, with the option to comment, tag or share ever present. For instance, in the UK the average number of connected devices per person is now greater than 3.5 (Consumer Barometer – Trending Data, 2017), while 62% go online via another device (e.g. computer, smartphone, tablet) while watching TV (Consumer Barometer – Second Screens, 2017). For comparison, these statistics for the USA are 4.1 and 50%, respectively. This ‘second screen’ use may be enhancing the experience as is often seen in reality TV shows, or it may be distracting, placing the TV as mere background noise.

It is relatively easy to count the people coming to a live performance venue or to observe and even survey people entering a building like a library or a museum. In a digital environment the number of visitors may often be comparatively bigger, but they remain more diffuse and harder to understand. It is not just about knowing the number of people who accessed a resource; it is about understanding the value and worth they place on that visit, which is ever more difficult without additional evidence. In a world where people have multiple devices, and many a second screen, it is harder to assume that a digital click or a visit equals attention or a sense of value.