A year ago, my friend and colleague Colin Morley was murdered by a terrorist at the Edgware Road Underground station.
   Before he was killed, he wrote to me and asked the following. I never had a chance to respond.
   ‘I am interested in … measuring standards. I have a lot of experience of that at Vodafone and the measurements are still rudimentary despite millions of pounds’ worth of market research. And we can measure the number and intensity of people’s network relationships. Still isn’t easy to define the human side of things.
   ‘Any ideas on this very welcome.’
   There is no simple way to measure intangibles, and it has kept mathematicians like Chris Macrae working for years. Chris, and I, are pretty sure that brand is one of the indicators of the strength of the human side.
   We know the failure of numbers and even the Dow Jones index as being inhuman. I am not even sure if they are good indicators of whether a company will be successful. It is better to develop, in my view, a scale that measures the strength of a vision, of the quality of brand research, of the effectiveness of the exposition of a brand, and the brand image.
   All of these involve understanding human reactions and perceptions, and since I have done research linking them to business performance, they can be modified as a measurement of a company’s success.
   One could even use those network relationships to build the model on. I used concepts from Narver and Slater to underpin my brand model; the network relationships at each stage could be measured to make a new model “more human”. How strong is the network at the time of research, for instance? Did its strength ensure more accurate research? Were more people reached? And how intense are the feelings the further out you get on the network?
   This new model could indicate not just how good each stage of the brand is, but how many people the brand touches, and, therefore, how influential the organization can be. You also get a clearer idea of the organization’s business performance.
   I may be over a year late, Colin, but I know you are up there, inspiring my answer. I hope I did your question some justice, at long last.
   Although we did not get a chance to meet up at Medinge 2005, I think of you and your family today. You will be missed, because you showed us a way forward in our business lives. People may think that you did not get to see beyond July 7, 2005. I argue that you were so ahead of your time that you lived well beyond 2005 in your attitude and vision—and we will only ever catch up as we get through each year.

Read Colin’s obit in The Guardian last year, after he was confirmed as one of the victims in late July 2005. Colin’s obit in The Times is here, and he was every bit the visionary the newspaper said he was.

Del.icio.us tags: brand measurement standards human network relationships branding vision Colin Morley 7-7 Posted by Jack Yan, 08:50  permalink

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