“Analytics. Metrics. Evaluation. Impact. . . . . Public Diplomacy (PD) professionals in the field . . . have been historically reluctant to discuss them,” wrote State Department Public Diplomacy officer Carissa Gonzalez in an article, “The Evaluation Revolution in Public Diplomacy,” that appeared in the Fall 2015 issue of The Ambassadors Review. Gonzalez was a Kathryn W. Davis Fellow in Public Diplomacy under the auspices of the Council of American Ambassadors. The reluctance, she wrote, stems from “fear that admitting such loaded, mathematical terms into the equation of their work will undermine the relational, long-term, nuanced public outreach they do day in and day out.”
This praiseworthy article represents the kind of professional writing – aimed to encourage professional discussion and debate – seldom produced in the Foreign Service. Her thumbnail description of the state of evaluation is "numbers of activities organized, hours logged, or dollars spent, with a heart-tugging anecdote or flashy photo tossed in for good effect." Here are other key points: