OK. After now having spent some more time thinking about statistics, I’ve seen the light. Really. The light.

This proves that, with enough energy, you can prove darned near anything, including the end of the world as we know it. I just saw this news report this morning, and am now convinced that if you can get people to believe this pile of silliness, pretty much anything can be sold. And, heck, if I’m wrong, I won’t have to wait very long to find out!

So beware of simply counting things. It can lead you down some really unfortunate alleyways. I’ve often pushed my teams to measure critical things that are material measures of progress. Absent those sorts of measures, it can be difficult to know where you stand. But….. with the wrong kinds of measures, you can find yourself standing in a pretty unfortunate position. In these people’s case, you can very easily find yourself twisting metrics into some self-fulfilling prophecy.