I awoke this morning intending to write a post about how sentiment is not measured well by any social media platform because it’s often not “topical” – strong statements are often counted to be “negative” or sometimes,  “positive” regardless of what the statement is about.

But then I realized this sentiment of mine … is also connected with a theme – how to we get the industry players together so they can agree on how to measure sentiment and influence as well as they could?

Well, two events are happening in November 09 that are going to have a role in shaping how sentiment and influence are measured, henceforth – one of them, I’ve already written about #MSM09 – Monitoring Social Media, that’s taking place in London on November 17th.   But the other meeting, I haven’t written much about – because it was still forming …. now the details are beginning to emerge.

Influence Scorecard 2009 NYC is an invite only gathering (location is being determined shortly).   I’m not pitching this gathering, I’m attending it.   But I will say this.   The Social Media “industry” (if you want to call it that) needs some standards around measurement – like defining “what is influence” and “what is sentiment” and how it’s measured.

It’s what I tried to do at the Web Analytics Association with Social Media Standards in 2007 and 2008, I pushed the agenda as far as I could but ultimately found I could not accomplish what I needed, and what the industry needs, at the WAA, and left it, earlier this year.

Invites have gone out to the platforms or thought leaders in those areas – the gathering probably won’t be more than 20 or so people – if everyone shows up … I hope everyone does come!

….. a small group representing the collective disciplines and expertise needed to help take this definition forward. The workshop delegates represent some of the leading thinkers from the following areas of expertise, and confirmed participants are listed here.

• Public relations strategy
• Social media
• Public relations measurement and evaluation
• Business performance management
• Social Web analytics
• Web analytics