Smarter than the average bear? Here's a fun, brief, and probably instructive little science quiz from the people at Pew Research. If you like this sort of thing, the Pew Research Center has 18 more quizzes on everything from online dating to the news media. --WTP
From datascience@berkeley comes this literally awesome "Data Size Matters" infographic which will help you understand Moore's Law and the size of big -- really big -- data. This infographic is really big itself (that image on the left is only a tiny part of it). So if you can't see it below, you'll have to click to the full article page to experience its hugeness. -- WTP
Brought to you by datascience@berkeley: Master of Information and Data Science
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The Measurement Standard is a publication of Salience Insight. Salience Insight is the media measurement division of News Group International – a global provider of business intelligence and media resource services. Salience is a fresh, new global brand which incorporates the former UK-based Report International and US-based KDPaine & Partners, acquired in 2012.
In the PR measurement geek's pantheon of popular culture heros, Bill Nye the Science Guy is right up there with MacGyver. (And, speaking for myself, just below Sherlock Holmes yet nowhere near the inimitable Doctor.) No doubt many of us in the public relations and social media measurement industry gained an early taste for empiricism thanks to Mr. Nye's entertainingly antic explorations of scientific topics. Here, from The New York Times, we have a video on Bill's continuing efforts to bring reality-based decision-making to the world. Don't miss the shot at 00:22: The Science Guy Show's objective was "Change the world." -- Bill Paarlberg, editor
What is wanted is not the will to believe, but the will to find out, which is the exact opposite.
--Bertrand Russell, philosopher, mathematician, author, Nobel laureate (1872-1970)
In God we trust; all others must bring data.
--W. Edwards Deming
Faced
with the choice between changing one's mind and proving that there is
no need to do so, almost everyone gets busy on the proof.
--John Kenneth Galbraith, economist (1908-2006)
It is not bigotry to be certain we are right; but it is bigotry to be unable to imagine how we might possibly have gone wrong.
--G.K. Chesterton, essayist and novelist (1874-1936)
If you shut your door to all errors truth will be shut out.
--Rabindranath Tagore, poet, philosopher, author, songwriter, painter, educator, composer, Nobel laureate (1861-1941)
Experience is not what happens to a man; it is what a man does with what happens to him.
--Aldous Huxley, novelist (1894-1963)
We find comfort among those who agree with us, growth among those who don't.
--Frank A. Clark, writer (1911- )
The nice thing about standards is that there are so many of them to choose from.
--Andrew Tannenbaum, computer science professor (1944- ) and Grace Murray Hopper
The cure for boredom is curiosity. There is no cure for curiosity.
-- Dorothy Parker
If we knew what we were doing it wouldn't be research.
--Albert Einstein, physicist, Nobel laureate (1879-1955)
By seeking and blundering we learn.
-- Johann Wolfgang Von Goethe
The human mind treats a new idea the same way the body treats a strange protein; it rejects it.
--Peter. B. Medawar, scientist, Nobel laureate (1915-1987)
A mature person is one who does not think only in absolutes, who is able to
be objective even when deeply stirred emotionally, who has learned that
there is both good and bad in all people and in all things, and who walks
humbly and deals charitably with the circumstances of life, knowing that in
this world no one is all knowing and therefore all of us need both love and
charity.
--Eleanor Roosevelt, diplomat and writer (1884-1962)
The study of error is not only in the highest degree prophylactic, but it
serves as a stimulating introduction to the study of truth.
--Walter Lippmann, journalist (1889-1974)
It doesn't matter how beautiful your theory is, it doesn't matter how smart
you are. If it doesn't agree with experiment, it's wrong.
--Richard Feynman, physicist, Nobel laureate (1918-1988)
If you have the same ideas as everybody else but have them one week earlier
than everyone else then you will be hailed as a visionary. But if you have
them five years earlier you will be named a lunatic.
--Barry Jones, politician, author (1932- )
A mass of Latin words falls upon the facts like soft snow, blurring the
outline and covering up all the details. The great enemy of clear language
is insincerity. When there is a gap between one's real and one's declared
aims, one turns as it were instinctively to long words and exhausted
idioms, like a cuttlefish spurting out ink. In our age there is no such
thing as "keeping out of politics". All issues are political issues, and
politics itself is a mass of lies, evasions, folly, hatred, and
schizophrenia. When the general atmosphere is bad, language must suffer.
--George Orwell, writer (1903-1950)
We lie the loudest when we lie to ourselves.
--Eric Hoffer, philosopher and author (1902-1983)
The only statistics you can trust are those you falsified yourself."
--Winston Churchill
A business that makes nothing but money is a poor business.
--Henry Ford, industrialist (1863-1947)
Almost all our faults are more pardonable than the methods we resort to to hide them.
--Francois de La Rochefoucauld, writer (1613-1680)
The universe is like a safe to which there is a combination. But the
combination is locked up in the safe.
--Peter De Vries, editor, novelist (1910-1993)
I get up every morning determined both to change the world and to have one
hell of a good time. Sometimes this makes planning the day difficult.
--E.B. White, writer (1899-1985)
The only man I know who behaves sensibly is my tailor; he takes my
measurements anew each time he sees me. The rest go on with their old
measurements and expect me to fit them.
--George Bernard Shaw, writer, Nobel laureate (1856-1950)
The only person you should ever compete with is yourself. You can't hope for a fairer match.
--Todd Ruthman
Be careful how you interpret the world: it *is* like that.
--Erich Heller, essayist (1911-1990)
Where is the wisdom we have lost in knowledge? Where is the knowledge we have lost in information?
--T. S. Eliot (1888-1965)
All truths are easy to understand once they are discovered; the point is to discover them.
-- Galileo Galilei (1564 - 1642)
Science is built with facts as a house is with stones--but a collection of
facts is no more a science than a heap of stones is a house.
--Jules Henri Poincare (1854-1912)
Do not believe that it is very much of an advance to do the unnecessary three times as fast.
--Peter Drucker, management consultant, professor and writer (1909-2005)
Say not, "I have found the truth," but rather, "I have found a truth."
-Kahlil Gibran, mystic, poet, and artist (1883-1931)
The butterfly flitting from flower to flower ever remains mine, I lose the one that is netted by me.
--Rabindranath Tagore, philosopher, author, songwriter, painter, educator, composer, Nobel laureate (1861-1941)
No longer is it acceptable to hide poor performance.
-- George W. Bush, 43rd President of the United States
An error does not become truth by reason of multiplied propagation, nor
does the truth become error because nobody will see it.
--Mohandas K. Gandhi (1869-1948)
To freely bloom - that is my definition of success.
--Gerry Spence, lawyer (b. 1929)
No sensible decision can be made any longer without taking into account not
only the world as it is, but the world as it will be.
--Isaac Asimov, scientist and writer (1920-1992)
It is almost impossible to carry the torch of truth through a crowd without
singeing somebody's beard.
--George Christopher Lichtenberg, scientist and philosopher (1742-1799)
There is a wonderful mythical law of nature that the three things we crave
most in life -- happiness, freedom, and peace of mind -- are always
attained by giving them to someone else.
--General Peyton C. March (1864-1955)
Imagine a world in which generations of human beings come to believe that
certain films were made by God or that specific software was coded by him.
Imagine a future in which millions of our descendants murder each other
over rival interpretations of Star Wars or Windows 98. Could anything --
anything -- be more ridiculous? And yet, this would be no more ridiculous
than the world we are living in.
--Sam Harris, author (1967- )
It is an ironic habit of human beings to run faster when we have lost our way.
--Rollo May, psychologist (1909-1994)
Research is the process of going up alleys to see if they are blind.
--Marston Bates
Enough research will tend to support your conclusions.
--Arthur Bloch
Research is what I'm doing when I don't know what I'm doing.
--Wernher Von Braun
Not
many appreciate the ultimate power and potential usefulness of basic
knowledge accumulated by obscure, unseen investigators who, in a
lifetime of intensive study, may never see any practical use for their
findings but who go on seeking answers to the unknown without thought of
financial or practical gain.
--Eugenie Clark
After all, the ultimate goal of all research is not objectivity, but truth.
--Helene Deutsch
What is research, but a blind date with knowledge.
--William Henry
Data is what distinguishes the dilettante from the artist.
--George V. Higgins
Research serves to make building stones out of stumbling blocks.
--Arthur D. Little
Not everything that counts can be counted, and not everything that can be counted counts.
--Albert Einstein
It is one thing to show a man that he is in error, and another to put him in possession of the truth.
--John Locke, philosopher (1632-1704)
Learning without thought is labor lost; thought without learning is perilous.
--Confucius, philosopher and teacher (c. 551-478 BCE)
Oh, would that my mind could let fall its dead ideas, as the tree does its withered leaves!
--Andre Gide, author, Nobel laureate (1869-1951)
Life consists in what a man is thinking of all day.
--Ralph Waldo Emerson, writer and philosopher (1803-1882)
If anything can be measured, it will be measured.
--Seth Godin
A good listener helps us overhear ourselves.
--Yahia Lababidi, author (b. 1973)
Solitude
has but one disadvantage; it is apt to give one too high an opinion of
one's self. In the world we are sure to be often reminded of every known
or supposed defect we may have.
--Lord Byron, poet (1788-1824)
I believe I found the missing link between animal and civilized man. It is us.
--Konrad Lorenz, ethologist, Nobel laureate (1903-1989)
We lie the loudest when we lie to ourselves.
--Eric Hoffer, philosopher and author (1902-1983)
It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends upon his not understanding it.
--Upton Sinclair
I refuse to answer that question on the grounds that I don't know the answer.
--Douglas Adams, satirist (1952-2001)
With most men, unbelief in one thing springs from blind belief in another.
--Georg Christoph Lichtenberg
Men have slow reflexes. In general it takes several generations later for them to understand.
--Stanislaw J. Lec, poet and aphorist (1909-1966)
The perfect is the enemy of the good.
-- Voltaire
Only the educated are free.
--Epictetus, philosopher (c. 60-120)
Without deviation from the norm, progress is not possible.
--Frank Zappa, composer, musician, film director (1940-1993)
On
the mountains of truth you can never climb in vain: either you will
reach a point higher up today, or you will be training your powers so
that you will be able to climb higher tomorrow.
--Friedrich Nietzsche, philosopher (1844-1900)
The saddest aspect of life right now is that science gathers knowledge faster than society gathers wisdom.
--Isaac Asimov, scientist and writer (1920-1992)
The true delight is in the finding out rather than in the knowing.
--Isaac Asimov
Understand
this, I mean to arrive at the truth. The truth, however ugly in itself,
is always curious and beautiful to seekers after it.
--Agatha Christie, author (1890-1976)
Dominant coalitions tend to value and support communicators who first demonstrate their worth.
-- David Dozier
One accurate measurement is worth a thousand expert opinions.
-- Admiral Grace Hopper
In questions of science, the authority of a thousand is not worth the humble reasoning of a single individual.
--Galileo Galilei, physicist and astronomer (1564-1642)
Every great advance in natural knowledge has involved the absolute rejection of authority.
--Thomas Henry Huxley, biologist (1825-1895)
I
have lived in this world just long enough to look carefully the second
time into things that I am most certain of the first time.
--Josh Billings, columnist and humorist (1818-1885)
Do not condemn the judgment of another because it differs from your own. You may both be wrong. --Dandamis, sage (4c BCE)
I
believe in evidence. I believe in observation, measurement, and
reasoning, confirmed by independent observers. I'll believe anything, no
matter how wild and ridiculous, if there is evidence for it. The wilder
and more ridiculous something is, however, the firmer and more solid
the evidence will have to be.
--Isaac Asimov, scientist and writer (1920-1992)
The greatest challenge to any thinker is stating the problem in a way that will allow a solution.
--Bertrand Russell
A couple of months in the laboratory can save a couple of hours in the library.
--Frank H. Westheimer, chemistry professor
Gods are fragile things; they may be killed by a whiff of science or a dose of common sense.
--Chapman Cohen, author and lecturer (1868-1954)
Our
choicest plans / have fallen through, / our airiest castles / tumbled
over, / because of lines / we neatly drew / and later neatly / stumbled
over.
--Piet Hein, poet and scientist (1905-1996)
The end of surprise would be the end of science. To this end the scientist must constantly seek and hope for surprises.
--Robert Friedel
There
is a lot of noise in the world. And there is a lot of idiosyncrasy. But
there are also regularities and phenomena. And what the data is going
to be able to do -- if there's enough of it -- is uncover, in the mess
and the noise of the world, some lines of music that actually have
harmony. It's there, somewhere.
-- Esther Duflo
Nothing
is at last sacred but the integrity of your own mind. Absolve you to
yourself, and you shall have the suffrage of the world.
--Ralph Waldo Emerson, writer and philosopher (1803-1882)
Confusion is a word we have invented for an order which is not understood.
--Henry Miller
Do not get trapped into prior thoughts. It’s perfectly O.K. to change your mind as you learn more.
--Dr. Donald A. Redelmeier, physician-researcher
Thank everyone who calls out your faults, your anger, your impatience, your egotism; do this consciously, voluntarily.
--Jean Toomer, poet and novelist (1894-1967)
It
is not necessarily true that averaging the averages of different
populations gives the average of the combined population. (Simpson's
Paradox)
--Edward H. Simpson, statistician (b. 1922)
The future lies in analyzing data. Lots of data.
— Tim Berners-Lee
We judge ourselves by what we feel capable of doing, while others judge us by what we have already done.
--Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, poet (1807-1882)
No
fathers or mothers think their own children ugly; and this self-deceit
is yet stronger with respect to the offspring of the mind.
--Miguel de Cervantes, novelist (1547-1616)
Inquiry is fatal to certainty.
--Will Durant, historian (1885-1981)
Nothing is so firmly believed as what is least known.
--Michel de Montaigne, essayist (1533-1592)
Shake
off all the fears of servile prejudices, under which weak minds are
servilely crouched. Fix reason firmly in her seat, and call on her
tribunal for every fact, every opinion. Question with boldness even the
existence of a God; because, if there be one, he must more approve of
the homage of reason than that of blindfolded fear.
--Thomas Jefferson, third US president, architect and author (1743-1826)
Between truth and the search for truth, I opt for the second.
--Bernard Berenson, art historian (1865-1959)
We
are not afraid to entrust the American people with unpleasant facts,
foreign ideas, alien philosophies, and competitive values. For a nation
that is afraid to let its people judge the truth and falsehood in an
open market is a nation that is afraid of its people.
--John F. Kennedy, 35th US president (1917-1963)
One of my greatest pleasures in writing has come from the
thought that perhaps my work might annoy someone of comfortably
pretentious position. Then comes the saddening realization that such
people rarely read.
--John Kenneth Galbraith, economist (1908-2006)
One of the great mistakes is to judge policies and programs by their intentions rather than their results.
--Milton Friedman, economist, Nobel laureate (1912- )
We are usually convinced more easily by reasons we have found ourselves than by those which have occurred to others.
--Blaise Pascal, philosopher and mathematician (1623-1662)
In all affairs it's a healthy thing now and then to hang a question mark on the things you have long taken for granted.
--Bertrand Russell, philosopher, mathematician, author, Nobel laureate (1872-1970)
“The
dangerous man is the one who has only one idea, because then he’ll
fight and die for it. The way real science goes is that you come up with
lots of ideas, and most of them will be wrong.”
--Francis Crick
Uncertainty is an uncomfortable position. But certainty is an absurd one.
--Voltaire
Only
the good doubt their own goodness, which is what makes them good in the
first place. The bad know they are good, but the good know nothing.
They spend their lives forgiving others, but they can't forgive
themselves.
--Paul Auster, novelist and poet (b. 1947)
It is the mark of an educated mind to be able to entertain a thought without accepting it.
--Aristotle, philosopher (384-322 BCE)
Lying to ourselves is more deeply ingrained than lying to others.
--Fyodor Dostoevsky, novelist (1821-1881)
Essentially, all models are wrong, but some are useful.
--George E. P. Box
Actually,
we have no problems - we have opportunities for which we should give
thanks… An error we refuse to correct has many lives. It takes courage
to face one's own shortcomings, and wisdom to do something about them.
--Edgar Cayce
When you blame others, you give up your power to change.
--Robert Anthony and Douglas Noel Adams
Clear thinking requires courage rather than intelligence.
--Thomas Szasz, author, professor of psychiatry (b. 1920)
When you blame someone else for keeping you back, you are accepting your powerlessness.
--Sheryl Sandberg
It is not what we do, but also what we do not do, for which we are accountable.
--Moliere, actor and playwright (1622-1673)
There is nothing so useless as doing efficiently that which should not be done at all.
--Peter Drucker, management consultant, professor, and writer (1909-2005)
Things
do not ... run around with their measures stamped on them like the
capacity of a freight car: it requires a certain amount of investigation
to discover what their measures are.
-- Norbert Wiener
A problem well stated is a problem half solved.
--Charles F. Kettering, inventor and engineer (1876-1958)
It
is unwise to be too sure of one's own wisdom. It is healthy to be
reminded that the strongest might weaken and the wisest might err.
--Mohandas K. Gandhi (1869-1948)
To a clear eye the smallest fact is a window through which the infinite may be seen.
--Thomas Henry Huxley, biologist and writer (1825-1895)
Data will become the new soil in which our ideas will grow, and data whisperers will become the new messiahs.
-- Jonathan Mildenhall, VP of Global Advertising Strategy at Coca-Cola
Every advance in civilization has been denounced as unnatural while it was recent.
--Bertrand Russell, philosopher, mathematician, author, Nobel prize in literature (1872-1970)
The best way to have a good idea is to have lots of ideas.
--Linus Pauling, Nobel Prize in chemistry, Nobel Peace Prize (1901-1994)
If what you are getting online is for free, you are not the customer, you are the product.
--Jonathan Zittrain, professor of Internet law (b. 1969)
Although men flatter themselves with their great actions, they are not so often the result of a great design as of chance.
--Francois, duc de La Rochefoucauld, moralist (1613-1680)
Art is the elimination of the unnecessary.
--Pablo Picasso, painter, and sculptor (1881-1973)
Truth, like gold, is to be obtained not by its growth, but by washing away from it all that is not gold.
--Leo Tolstoy, novelist and philosopher (1828-1910)
The important thing is not to stop questioning. Curiosity has its own reason for existing.
--Albert Einstein, physicist, Nobel laureate (1879-1955)
We can’t solve problems by using the same kind of thinking we used when we created them.
--Albert Einstein, physicist, Nobel laureate (1879-1955)
Anyone who has never made a mistake has never tried anything new.
--Albert Einstein, physicist, Nobel laureate (1879-1955)
Imagination is more important than knowledge.
--Albert Einstein, physicist, Nobel laureate (1879-1955)
If you can’t explain it simply, you don’t understand it well enough.
--Albert Einstein, physicist, Nobel laureate (1879-1955)
Any
intelligent fool can make things bigger, more complex, and more
violent. It takes a touch of genius and a lot of courage to move in the
opposite direction.
--Albert Einstein, physicist, Nobel laureate (1879-1955)
If I had one hour to save the world, I would spend 55 minutes defining the problem and only five minutes finding the solution.
--Albert Einstein, physicist, Nobel laureate (1879-1955)
It is error only, and not truth, that shrinks from inquiry.
--Thomas Paine, philosopher and writer (1737-1809)
…if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.
--Albert Einstein (attributed)
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"...peers of Nobel laureates who were not as successful tried to maintain first authorship for themselves far more often, garnering more glory for themselves. By their forties, Nobel laureates are first authors on only 26 percent of their papers, as compared to their less accomplished contemporaries, who are first authors 56 percent of the time. Nicer people are indeed more creative, more successful, and even more likely to win Nobel prizes."
This is just one of the fabulous tidbits included in today's book excerpt from delanceyplace.com: Nice Scientific Guys Finish First, from Samuel Arbesman’s The Half-Life of Facts: Why Everything We Know Has an Expiration Date. (And if you are not familiar with Delancyplace, they'll email you a daily excerpt from an interesting new book. Go sign up, it's great.)
Also in today's excerpt is an introduction to scientometrics:
"...much of the field of scientometrics is devoted to understanding the relationship between citations, scientific impact, and the importance of different scientists.
...scientometrics can even determine what types of teams yield research that has the highest impact. For example, a group of researchers at Northwestern University found that high-impact results are more likely to come from collaborative teams rather than from a single scientist. In other words, the days of the lone hero scientist, along the lines of an Einstein, are vanishing, and you can measure it."
Go check out Delancyplace. --Bill Paarlberg, editor (thanks to the BBC for The Dr. image. And for Dr. Who.)
Seems public relations and social media measurement has gone from not enough data to too much data in the blink of an eye. On this subject, two more-or-less antipodal posts arrived in the in-box today. David Brooks likes data, especially when it proves common knowledge wrong. Thomas Tunquz, on the other hand, argues that too much data can be debilitating.
Mr. Brooks, columnist for The New York Times, keeps an eye on research in the social sciences. Today he asked in "The Philosophy of Data": "In what situations should we rely on intuitive pattern recognition and in which situations should we ignore intuition and follow the data?”
In his post he relates several interesting instances in which the data proves intuition wrong:
Meanwhile, venture capitalist Thomas Tunguz argues against too much data in his post "How to Optimize Every Decision in Your Life and Accomplish Nothing": “...the byproduct of the relentless pursuit of the ‘best’ can be debilitation.”
He relates the story of Richard Feynman and Ralph Leighton’s data-driven restaurant menu decisions. They developed a formula to determine how many different dishes they should order from a menu before settling upon a favorite. I know you can't wait to find out, so here it is:
The number of dishes to try = √2(Meals remaining at restaurant+1) - 1
--Bill Paarlberg, editor
Thanks to Let's Graph for the illustration!
Just in time for another season of chocolate overindulgence, here's some good news from the New England Journal of Medicine: A country's per capita chocolate consumption is strongly positively correlated with the number of its Nobel laureates. (Messerli, F.H.: "Chocolate Consumption, Cognitive Function, and Nobel Laureates"). So go ahead, have some more chocolate. (But beware of making false assumptions of causation based on correlation.)
Thinking about another cup of coffee? Go ahead and indulge while you read "The Case for Drinking as Much Coffee as You Like" in The Atlantic. Happy Holidays! -- WTP
Here at The Measurement Standard we just love mathematical models, so it was with great anticipation that we read the NYTimes article "A Mathematical Challenge to Obesity." Especially because it's an interview with the aptly named Carson Chow, a MIT-trained math and physics whiz, who has developed a model to predict how the human body reacts to changes in diet and exercise.
The Chow model's major finding: The U.S. obesity epidemic is caused by too much food.
At first taste, this breakthrough seems so underwhelming that it makes one sympathize with the Fox News rants about wasted tax dollars and the cluelessness of scientific research.
But on closer reading, there's more to chew on. Mr. Chow's model provides some significant clues as to why people get fat and stay that way:
Apparently, that last point is a big deal. Says Mr. Chow:
"Well, what do people do when there is extra food around? They eat it! This, of course, is a tremendously controversial idea. However, the model shows that increase in food more than explains the increase in weight."
Read the whole article here. --WTP
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(Thanks for the image to LOLpie.)
These first two posts demonstrate the relationship between math and design, thanks to GigaOM. (I tried and failed to relate them somehow to public relations or social media measurement, but you measurement geeks will love them just the same):
The Golden Ratio Otherwise Known as Feng Shui in which Feng Shui and mathematics are discussed as linked by the Golden Ratio.
Design of Apple Logo and The Golden Ratio, where the Apple Logo is dissected and found to be built of components built on the ratio of 1:62
And if you want to see more of how the golden ratio appears in apple design (and human faces) visit this tumblr page.
And if you want to learn more about the golden ratio, visit this wikipedia page:
--WTP
--Bill Paarlberg is editor of The Measurement Standard blog and newsletter, and of Katie Paine's book “Measure What Matters.” He is also editor of the book “Measuring the Networked Nonprofit,” by Beth Kanter and Katie Paine, which will be published this year by Wiley.
Follow Bill Paarlberg on Twitter.
The Measurement Standard is a publication of KDPaine & Partners, a company that delivers custom research to measure brand image, public relationships, and engagement. Katie Paine, CEO of KDPaine & Partners, will be glad to talk with you about measurement for your organization.
I am a long, long time Mac user. After working as a freelance creative in the corporate world for two decades now, I’ve been in many meetings — almost all of them, in fact — where I’m the only Mac in the room. I’ve tried to stay out of the whole Mac vs. PC discussion, but have been, on very rare occasions, just slightly smug about the whole thing. Now I have to pass this along.
“People Who Use Macs At Work Are Richer And More Productive” is the title of a Business Insider article that reports on new Forrester research that shows that very productive employees are bringing Macs to work. Get this:
IT departments don't usually buy Macs, but high-level employees who can afford to bring their own computer to work are often choosing Macs. "There is a strong correlation between higher corporate average salaries and the number of Macs purchased by employees and brought to the office."
...These employees tend to be the richest and most productive. Forrester suggests that the typical Mac user fits in the segment it calls "power laptop" users, who work an average of 45 hours a week and make 44% more money. "Most of the Macs today are being freewheeled into the office by executives, top sales reps, and other workaholics."
What’s amazing is that I have managed to write this post without saying “I told you so.” Oops. --WTP
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--Bill Paarlberg is editor of The Measurement Standard blog and newsletter, and of Katie Paine's new book Measure What Matters. The Measurement Standard is a publication of KDPaine & Partners, a company that delivers custom research to measure brand image, public relationships, and engagement.
In the field of public relations measurement, it is a given that decisions based on data are better — better informed and thus wiser and more accurate — than decisions based on gut feelings. That’s the point of measurement: You gather data on your success and use that data to be more successful.
And it’s also a given that there are a great many decision makers out there who do not trust the data. Or the process of measurement. Especially when it points to a decision that is different than the one they would like to make.
As Homer Simpson said, “Facts are meaningless. You could use facts to prove anything that's even remotely true!”
And so I was especially pleased to find, in yesterday’s The New York Times, an intriguing article by Daniel Kahneman: “Don’t Blink! The Hazards of Confidence.” It is about how us human beings are often erroneously over-confident in the wisdom of our judgements, to the point of not doubting our decisions when it is obvious that we should. To the point, in fact, of rejecting even the most compelling demonstrations of our incompetence.
As an example, the author tells a story of researching the effectiveness of stock brokers. He and a partner examined the portfolio performance of 25 brokers over the course of eight years, and found that the brokers were no better than chance at making money. The researchers then had to break the news to the directors of the brokerage:
...we told the directors of the firm... that, at least when it came to building portfolios, the firm was rewarding luck as if it were skill. This should have been shocking news to them, but it was not. There was no sign that they disbelieved us... our findings and their implications were quickly swept under the rug... The illusion of skill is not only an individual aberration; it is deeply ingrained in the culture of the industry. Facts that challenge such basic assumptions — and thereby threaten people’s livelihood and self-esteem — are simply not absorbed. The mind does not digest them. This is particularly true of statistical studies of performance, which provide general facts that people will ignore if they conflict with their personal experience...
I added the bold italics to that last sentence. Because it made me realize that it is no wonder that there is often such great resistance to measurement and data-informed decisionmaking. As Kahneman goes on to say,
Overconfidence arises because people are often blind to their own blindness... overconfident professionals sincerely believe they have expertise, act as experts and look like experts. You will have to struggle to remind yourself that they may be in the grip of an illusion.
I encourage you to read the article: “Don’t Blink! The Hazards of Confidence.”
I myself, of course, am extremely confident in the effectiveness of public relations measurement. --WTP
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--Bill Paarlberg is editor of The Measurement Standard blog and newsletter, and of Katie Paine's new book Measure What Matters. The Measurement Standard is a publication of KDPaine & Partners, a company that delivers custom research to measure brand image, public relationships, and engagement.
How exciting is this? Statisticians can detect corporate accounting fraud just by looking at the first digits of the numerals in the accounting books!
The Economist Free Exchange blog reports on Jialan Wang’s fascinating application of statistics to corporate fraud. She has applied Benford’s Law to actual accounting numbers to judge if they are faked.
Benford’s Law states that within sets of numerals that span orders of magnitude, the distribution of first digits is strikingly regular: Numerals beginning with 1 occur about 30% of the time, those beginning with 2 about 18% of the time, falling to roughly 5% of the time for the number 9.
The actual formula for Benford’s Law:
The probability of the first digit from a set of numbers is d is given by
Here's how this comes in handy for detecting corporate fraud. Someone who is faking data, as in cooking business account books, is more likely to choose numbers at random, rather than in accordance with Benford’s Law. Thus the deviation between what Benford’s predicts and what is observed in actual accounts can be taken as a measure of accounting fraud.
Jialan Wang’s chart above shows the deviation from Benford’s Law since 1960. Note the drop off in 2003-2004 after the enactment of Sarbanes-Oxley. Ms. Wang goes on to break out the data for individual industries:
Be sure to read her discussion of how these curves reflect the Saving and Loan Crisis of the 1980s.
How much do you trust corporations now? Or, as Ms. Wang says: “...it's just one more reason for investors to beware.”
Here is the original analysis by Jialan Wang: “Benford's Law and the Decreasing Reliability of Accounting Data for US Firms.”
See also Tyler Durden’s discussion at Zero Hedge. --WTP
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--Bill Paarlberg is editor of The Measurement Standard blog and newsletter, and of Katie Paine's new book Measure What Matters. The Measurement Standard is a publication of KDPaine & Partners, a company that delivers custom research to measure brand image, public relationships, and engagement.
The Power of Large Numbers. Of Beards.
I have taken to growing a beard each fall. I think of it as installing the winter upgrade. And this morning, while congratulating myself on a very masculine one week’s worth of stubble, I began to think about how a beard is insulation. My body must require less energy to keep warm with a beard than without one. “Wow,” I think, “a beard must be the original green and sustainable energy saving device.” (I wondered, briefly, if a beard could qualify for a tax credit.)
(I am, by the way, not the first guy to think about the insulating qualities of facial hair. Consider the guy who shaved half his face for the winter to judge his beard’s insulating power. That’s him to the right.
Also, last spring, Budweiser sponsored a Save-Water-By-Growing-A-Beard campaign. They figured five gallons of water per shave, which adds up to a lot of water.)
So then I thought, well I must save some small amount of energy by having a beard. I suppose I could turn the thermostat down by some small amount thanks to my greater bodily insulation. Like Jimmy Carter wearing a cardigan around the White House and turning his heat back to 68 degrees F. Maybe it's only a tenth of a degree, or a half of a tenth of a degree. But it’s got to be something.
Now a half of a tenth of a degree (or whatever) on the thermostat is not going to save much on my fuel bill. Or save the planet. But suppose a large number of men grew beards and all turned their thermostats down? What kind of a difference would it make?
Let’s do the math.
So I went to The Daily Green and there they claim that for each 1 degree you turn down the thermostat in the winter, you save between 1 and 3 percent on your heating costs. I have no idea how accurate this estimate is, but let's say 1%, just for fun.
So how much are heating costs? Using my house for example (a small house in southern Maine), between firewood and heating oil that's approximately 3 cords at $225@ and 500 gallons at $2.50@ . Which makes roughly $2000 a year.
So, if I turn my thermostat down 1 degree and save 1%, then I'd save 1% of $2000 or $20. Now let’s assume that money saved is a linear function of thermostat reduction. (Which it probably isn't, but we should be close enough for beard research.)
Now, suppose my beard allows me to turn my thermostat down only a half of a tenth of a degree. (And, again, I'm just making that up. If you have more accurate figures, please let me know.) So half of a tenth of degree will save half of a tenth of a percent on my heating bill. Which makes (1% x 1/10 x 1/2) x $2000 = .01 x .1 x .5 x $2000 = $1.
I will save $1 on my heating bill by growing a beard!
So a million men could save a collective $1 million on energy by growing beards. (Well, O.K., a million men living in small houses in southern Maine.) --WTP
(That's Jack Passion with the big red beard above. He is World Champion in the Full Beard division.)
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--Bill Paarlberg is editor of The Measurement Standard blog and newsletter, and of Katie Paine's new book Measure What Matters. The Measurement Standard is a publication of KDPaine & Partners, a company that delivers custom research to measure brand image, public relationships, and engagement.
OK, not even I could think up a reason why this has much to do with public relations measurement or social media measurement. But this video about cephalopod camouflage from NPR’s Science Friday is very, very amazing.
And, hey, the point at the end is that there is a whole lot of information out there that we can’t sense—or at least make sense of. So I guess this does have something to do with social media measurement, after all. --WTP
Serendipity and bungling are the crazy uncle of invention. And the weird science of yesterday is the panty hose of today. Think about that next time your data gets sliced an odd way by accident and something turns up that looks very interesting. Don't be so quick to chuck it out.
As Eric Elfman says at mental_floss, “They say that patience is a virtue, but the following eight inventions prove that laziness, slovenliness, clumsiness and pure stupidity can be virtues, too.”
Includes:
#1. Anesthesia (1844)
Mistake Leading to Discovery: Recreational drug use
Lesson Learned: Too much of a good thing can sometimes be, well, a good thing
#5. Photography (1835)
Mistake Leading to Discovery: Not doing the dishes
Lesson Learned: Put off today what you can do tomorrow
#7. Nylon (1934)
Mistake Leading to Discovery: Workplace procrastination
Lesson Learned: When the cat’s away, the mice should play
Read the whole article at mental_floss.
(Thanks to New Scientist for the image of the Royal Mail stamp celebrating the discovery of penicillin.) --WTP
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I this morning I sat down at the computer and the Word-of-the-Day was “ontology.” Then the first blog post I came across was ”Do Analytics Need a Soul?“ by Rachel Alt-Simmons over at the sascom voices blog. So naturally I started thinking about public relations measurement and what the heck it might possibly mean for it to have a soul.
Rachel’s post includes this provocative quote:
“We need a “soul” to make analytics successful. We recognize that a culture change is needed to move decision making from an art to a science, but we need the right balance of art and science. Our business will not be run by a computer – we need people with a feel for intuitive decision making that understands the business, but we need to give them tools to better inform their decision making process. How do we evolve this decision making process?”
Which applies very nicely to public relations measurement.
I have always thought that the iterative nature of measurement (gather data, analyze, adjust your program, gather more data, analyze again, adjust again, etc.) was what brought the art, the human element, into the process. At each go around the analyze and adjust phases provide an opportunity to review and take stock. These steps are where insight and intuition can come into play.
But does that really get us any closer to the soul? In her post, Rachel chooses to approach the notion of inner spirit by emphasizing the combination of science and art. Which is certainly a step in the right direction. We can maybe go a little further with the help of Rene Descartes.
Mr. Descartes, the 17th century scientist, mathematician, and philosopher, thought that perhaps the human soul was located in the pineal gland. He had the idea that this tiny structure in the middle of our brains is “the place at which our thoughts are formed.” To him, it seems, thought and the soul were closely connected. As in his famous quote “I think, therefore I am.”
What a concept! Maybe that’s where the soul of measurement resides: thought.
We often speak of the “soulless” bureaucracies of governments or corporations. They are the result of rules applied without thought. So perhaps measurement can retain its soul by keeping human thought and reflection at its core.
Automation has got to become more and more important in measurement and decision making. But as long as there is sufficient thought involved in the design and analysis of programs, measurement will have some kind of humanity at its center. Yeah, OK, it sounds kind of trite. But if measurement does have a soul, maybe it's in the people who do it.
--Bill Paarlberg, Editor, The Measurement Standard
The Measurement Standard is a publication of KDPaine & Partners, a company that delivers custom research to measure brand image, public relationships, and engagement.