Measure.

A person with smooth grasp over English language and fluent usage of “heavy” vocabulary is measured as someone with superior communication. Is language skill and communication skill, the same? What are we measuring?

Measuring something that’s tangible, finite, mathematical – attracts us to measure those things, with enviable accuracy. But we fail to (refrain from) treading the path of measuring something that’s “gray”, limitless, and abstract – which is actually THE information we need.

Do you care about the Number of Twitter followers or the followers that actually have meaningful conversations and conversions with you? Facebook friends, LinkedIn connections, Page likes, Klout score, Google Analytics, Movie Box Office collections, School Grade, Years in industry, Revenue – these are the most obsessed metrics used with pride everywhere! What’s the purpose? Sure, even a child or a robot can measure these things with same accuracy; but is it useful?

One perpetual debate I have with many is regarding the efficacy of PowerPoint presentations – one of the frequently used formats to communicate something. When (invariably) asked to reduce clutter in the presentation, most people measure the number of slides and strive to cut down on that number. In the process, poor fonts become smaller, some keywords and statements find themselves omitted, and bullets become dense! The result, I say, is that the audience consumes no more than a tiny percentage of what seems like an overwhelming report, even if the number of slides were reduced. The information processed per page is far more critical metric than Total Number of pages. Look at the following comparison. A 15-Slide PPT makes the reader spend 10 seconds per slide; the same PPT if stretched into a 40-slide presentation, with minimal information on each slide, the reader spends 3 seconds per slide. And the information that actually registers is far more as the actual noise is reduced. Think again – does the reader really care about the total number of slides?

Case closed!

Revenue is not the same as earnings; years in industry is not the same as experience…

Wake up to the dawn of measuring things that mean something, even though it may be difficult. Escape the lust of measuring what’s easy to measure with accuracy, but mean nothing.