By Deb Christian

ALEXANDRIA, Va. (April 10) — Research. We talk about it, know it is valuable, believe it will help us, but often don’t do it, is the conclusion of Dr. Douglas Cannon, assistant professor of communication at Virginia Tech University and a former national president of RCC, that opened his workshop titled, “Research and Evaluation on a Dime.”

Cannon began the session by asking participants questions – research – to show that information can be gathered cheaply and quickly. For the next 75 minutes, he explained principles of the Public Relations process, offered numerous simple, inexpensive sources, tools and insights into gathering and evaluating information to assist in any communications task.

Using acronyms from the PR industry such as RACE (research, action, communication, evaluation) to help attendees remember necessary steps in the process, he hit on topics such as the types of research, and provided sources for each of the types. Cannon shared categories of evaluation, things to evaluate, how to measure exposure to the research.